Barely a year ago, an exceptionally severe snowstorm struck southern China badly affecting transportation, communication, power supply, industry and agriculture as well as people’s life with a loss of approximately 53.8 billion RMB yuan. People are wondering whether this rare natural disaster is a result of climate change.
True, mankind along with its civilizations have achieved substantial progress over the past several hundred years since the industrial revolution but are now faced with a common challenge posed by global environment and climate change. H.E. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), once told me that 70 percent of the natural disasters in today’s world are related to climate change. As a country affected rather seriously by climate change, China, through its own experience, is fully aware of the importance and the urgency of addressing this issue and has already adopted a series of strong policies and measures for energy conservation, emission reduction and adaptation with remarkable achievements.
China has been making great efforts to both save energy and raise energy efficiency. China’s GDP of 2007 has increased 12 fold over that of 1980 while GDP energy consumption per unit (energy intensity) has decreased by 60 percent. China is working hard towards the targets set for 2010 to respectively reduce its per-unit GDP energy consumption by 20% and total discharge of major pollutants by 10 % compared to both of 2005.
In order to optimize the energy mix and mitigate greenhouse gas emission, China in 2007 shut down power plants of poor energy efficiency with a total capacity of 14380 MW, closed 2322 coal mines, and phased out 46.59 million tons of high energy consuming iron-smelting capacity, 33.47 million tons of steelmaking capacity and 52 million tons of cement production capacity respectively.
Development of renewable energy is a set policy of China. The share of renewable energy is expected to increase to 15 percent of the overall energy consumption by 2020. Between 2000 and 2008 China saw its installed capacity of wind power increasing from 340 MW to 10000 MW, ranking 5th in the world; its installed capacity of hydropower from 79350 MW to 163000 MW, ranking 1st in the world; and its installed capacity of nuclear power from 2100 MW to 8850 MW. China’s overall production of solar power products now ranks 2nd in the world. In 2007, China invested $12 billion in developing renewable energy, ranking 2nd in the world in terms of proportion to GDP. In the same year, the total amount of renewable energy consumed is equivalent to 220 million tons of standard coal, having translated into an emission reduction of 500 million tons of carbon dioxide. In addition, China has been actively developing bio fuel, for example, biogas from crop stalks or excrement of human beings and animals for lighting or cooking. Last year, in cooperation with UNEP, my embassy built a bio-center with similar features in the Huruma slum in Nairobi. China has adopted comprehensive measures in terms of pricing, taxation and financing to promote development of clean energy and research and application of energy-saving and emission-reducing technologies.
Similar to the Greenbelt Movement initiated by Dr. Wangari Maathai, China has sine 1978 been building its Green Great Wall with a target to establish, by 2050, a huge protection forest in northern China covering a total area of 4.06 million square km of 4480 km long and 560 to 1460 km wide, amounting to 42.4% of China’s entire territory. The project, which has been progressing smoothly so far, will take 73 years to complete requiring forestation of 35.08 million hectares. The year of 2005 saw China with 175 million hectares of forest including 53 million hectares of man-made forest, ranking it No. 1 in the world while the past 50 years witnessed China’s forest coverage expanding to 18.2% from 12.37% with an expected further increase to 20% by 2010, thereby greatly improving carbon sequestration capacity.
As in Kenya, China finds more and more vehicles on its roads as its people’s living standard improves with an increase of 15 million new automobiles in 2008 alone. The Chinese government has therefore adopted measures to address the issue of emission pressure from a rapidly expanding transportation industry. Automobiles in China are now required to conform to the Euro IV emission standards; relevant taxation policies are in place to discourage the use of vehicles of poor energy efficiency while providing large support and financial subsides to public transportation with a view to encouraging citizens to choose buses, subways and other means of public transportation over private vehicles. In Beijing, one finds exclusive lanes for buses. It costs merely 4 shillings to go from one stop to another by bus and 20 shillings by subway on any lines from any station to one’s destination. We are also actively developing bio fuel and electricity-powered vehicles and hybrid vehicles that were used during the Beijing Olympic Games.
In order to conserve energy the central government of China requests that all government organizations set the temperature of their air conditioners above 26 degrees centigrade in summer and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs encourages foreign envoys who pay courtesy calls to come without their ties during summer.
In order to enhance capabilities to adapt to climate change, the Chinese government has invested heavily in agriculture, irrigation, bio-diversity and other related fields with wide applications of water-saving technologies such as water harvesting, drip irrigation, spray irrigation, water-saving crop species cultivation and drought resistance cropping system. We are also putting in place large infrastructures for water conservancy and irrigation. The Chinese government attaches great importance to capacity building in disaster prevention and mitigation in an effort to minimize damages caused by natural disasters and extreme climate events. Investment in flood control and coastline management has also been on the increase.
With great efforts, China has made remarkable achievements in mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, with a population one fifth of the world’s total and at a relatively low level of economic development like many other developing countries, China, in the process of industrialization and modernization as it addresses the challenges of economic development and improvement of people’s living standard, finds its total greenhouse gas emission relatively high, although its per capita emission is less than one third of that of developed countries with an even lower per capita emission on the historical cumulative basis. Moreover, due to changes in international division of labor and relocation of the manufacturing sector, China faces mounting pressure from internationally transferred emissions. To my view, addressing the issue of emission should be handled in a comprehensive and objective manner with equal weight given to both total volume and per capita emissions as well as to both production and consumption from both present and historical perspectives.
China always maintains a positive and constructive attitude in international cooperation addressing climate change and proposes that the issue of climate change be addressed pursuant to the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities within the framework of sustainable development with technology innovation and transfer playing a basic and crucial role. China calls upon the developed countries to help the developing countries improve their adaptation capabilities and provide them with necessary funds and technologies in addressing climate change. China actively participates in international negotiations to uphold the interests of developing countries with its numerous proposals applauded by a vast majority of developing countries. China, as always, will continue to work relentlessly with the international community for harmonization between man and nature and for sustainable development of the world.
