China needs huge flows of clean technology investment to maintain hope of keeping greenhouse gas emissions below levels that could help push the planet deep into dangerous global warming, a Beijing energy think tank has said.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from fossil fuels, and the nation’s Energy Research Institute said in a new study that with enough money and the right policies, emissions could peak around 2030 to 2035 and then by 2050 fall to the same level as 2005.
Such steps would help the world to avoid greenhouse gas concentrations likely to stoke worsening droughts, floods and sea-level rises caused by these gases retaining growing levels of the heat in the atmosphere.
But the institute, which advises Chinese energy and climate change policymakers, stressed such an undertaking would come with a big bill, one that it said rich nations should help pay.
“If China is to achieve the development path described in the low-carbon scenario, the funding outlays will be massive, even if we set aside considering whether a new generation of energy technology can even be developed and applied on a wide scale,” said the report that was released yesterday in Beijing.
Spending on energy-saving technology would bring its own savings through reduced bills for consuming coal, oil, gas and other energy. But such efforts will need to be backed by sustained infrastructure investment, the report said.
A low-carbon growth path would cost about 1.7 trillion yuan (US$249 billion) extra a year by 2030 for energy-efficient industry, transport and buildings, and similar levels in 2050, a graph and data in the study indicated.
“If the government promotes fiscal policy incentives, that would also be another enormous outlay,” the report said.
China’s current growth stimulus package amounts to 4 trillion yuan, including bank loans, spent across two years.
Governments are deep into negotiations seeking to agree on a new global pact on fighting climate change by the end of this year, and China with its bulging greenhouse gas output is a key player.
The latest analysis does not amount to government policy, but coming from influential researchers advising officials, it highlights Beijing’s key concerns and policy options. The report, China’s Low Carbon Development Pathways by 2050, builds on another recent report from the institute that gave slightly different emissions estimates.
The latest one, supported by the US Energy Foundation and the WWF, explores in number-packed detail the policies, technologies and lifestyle changes needed to achieve growth with low emissions in the world’s third-biggest economy.
One of the chief authors of the new report, Hu Xiulian (胡秀蓮), said estimating costs far into the future is laden with uncertainties. But the estimates showed the immensity of the task, she said.
“An enhanced low-carbon trajectory [for China] will be totally unreachable without major international help after 2020,” she said in an interview.
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