China has started to map out a plan to attain carbon neutrality by 2060, sources close to the matter said Monday.
China has started to map out a plan to attain carbon neutrality by 2060, sources close to the matter said Monday, as the government of the world’s second-biggest economy has been trying to take the lead in the global climate debate.
The Communist Party is expected to integrate its action plan to achieve peak emissions by 2030 into a new five-year economic plan, covering 2021 to 2025, which will be discussed at its key gathering scheduled to be held from next Monday, the sources said.
China now accounts for roughly one-fourth of the world’s annual carbon emissions and if the nation were to accomplish its announced goal of carbon neutrality before 2060, it would lower global warming projections by around 0.2 C to 0.3 C, analysts say.
In his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, President Xi Jinping surprisingly pledged that China would aim to become carbon neutral by 2060.
The United States, meanwhile, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on climate change, with President Donald Trump criticizing the accord, backed by about 200 countries, as being unfair and harmful to U.S. industries.
At the U.N. General Assembly, Trump, who has been pushing ahead with his “America First” policy, defended his decision to leave the pact, lambasting China for emitting carbon dioxide at nearly double the level of the United States.
He Jiankun, a professor and climate expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing, has urged the Chinese government to significantly reduce coal use and promote the energy transition during the five years through 2025.
China should cut carbon emission per gross domestic product by around 20 percent and raise the proportion of non-fossil energy use.
But local governments in China, whose economies have been hit hard by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, have been recently eager to boost infrastructure investment that could help maintain employment and drive up tax revenue.
As coal-fired power generation is likely to increase at home, He emphasized the necessity of the Chinese central government imposing regulations on it.
Originally published at mainichi