BEIJING- China has made huge financial contributions to the global Kyoto compact to cut CO2 emissions and it is unfair to accuse it of taking advantage of the system, a senior Chinese climate change official said on Friday.
In a veiled criticism of current E.U. calls to reform the U.N.-backed carbon credit system known as the clean development mechanism, Gao Guangsheng, the director general of the climate change office at the National Development and Reform Commission, said China was not just getting a free ride.
"I don’t believe the theory that China has benefited the most from the CDM. I think the widespread development of CDM projects in China is an important aspect of China’s contribution (to the fight against climate change)," he told a conference organised by the E.U.
The CDM allows developed countries to meet their carbon reduction commitments by buying U.N.-verified carbon credits generated from clean energy projects in developing nations. Over 60 percent of the total "certified emission reductions" or CERs have originated from China.
But far from exploiting the system for financial gain, China has actually paid for the bulk of its clean energy projects itself, including those supported by the CDM, he added.
"China has paid just as much or more in terms of economic costs for the development of this kind of (CDM) project," he said.
Critics have said the system has been concentrating on "low-hanging fruit" — relatively easy and low-cost projects like the abatement of industrial gases or hydropower. They have also said China has been the major beneficiary while least developed countries have been left behind.
The E.U. said in January that "only those projects that deliver real additional reductions and go beyond low-cost options" should be given carbon credits.
"Sixty percent (of all carbon credits) are from China, but how does China develop so many? The situation is complicated but the most important factor is that China — from a government and policy standpoint — has greatly supported the CDM," Gao said.
The E.U. has proposed the system be reformed in order to channel crucial carbon abatement funds to unindustrialised countries, but Gao denied China’s large share of the current CDM market has prevented development elsewhere.
"The question is — have other countries got the same preferential policies?"
The CDM, part of the Kyoto Protocol, is set to expire in 2012 and the deadline for a replacement has been set for the end of the year, when negotiators from 200 nations gather in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Ken Wills)
HONG KONG- China will offer 600 million yuan in subsidies to promote the use of energy-saving lighting products, in a move to cut the nation’s carbon emissions.
The subsidy will result in 120 million units of energy-efficient lighting products being put into use, saving about 6.2 billion kilowatts of electricity, the government estimated in a statement.
China subsidiaries of companies including Philips Electronics NV and Panasonic Corp were among 23 companies that will participate in the program.
Beijing expects the program will help offset emissions of 6.2 millions tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and 62,000 tons of sulfur dioxide.
The threat of global warming is driving Beijing to take a series of initiatives to restrain the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by factories, power plants and vehicles.
China, the world’s third-largest economy, is the top greenhouse gas polluter, experts say, and its emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are projected to keep rising.
(Reporting by Leonora Walet and Eadie Chen; Editing by Ken Wills)
BEIJING- The U.S. climate change policy envoy, Todd Stern, is in Beijing this week to promote cooperation on a new global pact governing nations’ greenhouse gas emissions that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December.
Here are some facts about China’s climate change policies:
* China is the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas from human activity, having outstripped the United States. The U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated China emitted 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon from burning fossil fuels in 2007, compared to the United States’ 1.6 billion metric tons. (CO2 weighs about 3.67 times as much as pure carbon.) But China’s per-capita and historically accumulated emissions remain much lower than those of developed economies.
* China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.-backed treaty spelling out countries’ duties in fighting climate change up to the end of 2012. As a developing country, China is not required by the Protocol to set binding targets to control greenhouse gas emissions. But the United States and other countries have said China and other richer developing nations should accept more specific goals in the successor to Kyoto.
* China has not set specific domestic targets for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. But it has set energy efficiency goals that the government says shows its commitment to tackling CO2 emissions. A 2006-10 plan aims to reduce energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by 20 percent.
* China says global warming has been caused by the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions of wealthy economies, and they should take the lead in cutting emissions by at least 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, giving developing countries room to develop and expand emissions in coming decades.
* China also says industrialized nations should transfer much more green technology to poorer nations, and commit up to one percent of their economic worth to helping poor nations fight global warming.
* But experts and officials have said China’s demands of rich countries are bargaining postures likely to be scaled back as negotiations deepen.
* Some Chinese experts have proposed their country set carbon intensity goals to bring down the volume of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of economic worth created. But other experts say this goal would be much more technically demanding and costly to enforce than the current energy goals.
(Editing by David Fogarty)
China’s largest coal producer, the Shenhua Group, plans to invest Yuan 400 billion ($58.5 billion) in developing seven coal conversion centers in the country to produce oil products, natural gas, methanol and olefins, Chinese official news agency Xinhua reported Thursday.
The centers will be located in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and
Shanxi province in northern China, as well as Shaanxi province, Ningxia Hui
and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions in northwestern China, the report said
quoting vice president of project planning with Shenhua Coal Liquefaction
Corp. (Beijing), Zhang Diankui. He was speaking at an industry conference in
Inner Mongolia’s Hohhot city.
By 2020, the Shenhua Group plans to produce 30 million mt of oil products
and chemicals annually through conversion of more than 100 million mt of coal,
Zhang said.
Shenhua commenced operations end-2008 at its first coal-to-liquids
project in Inner Mongolia using self-developed direct coal liquefaction
technology. The 1 million mt/year (22,000 b/d) first phase of the Erdos CTL
plant in Inner Mongolia is capable of converting 3.45 mt of coal into 1.08 mt
of oil products. The plant’s output consists mostly of gasoil, and to a
smaller extent naphtha and LPG.
Being the world’s largest coal producer, China started encouraging
development of CTL projects a few years ago in a bid to reduce the country’s
reliance on petroleum imports. However, the CTL technologies release carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere and consume huge amounts of water raising
environmental concerns.
Work on most CTL projects in China was halted since September 2008 as the
central government asked local governments not to approve any new
coal-to-liquids projects, saying "coal liquefaction is a technology-, talent-
and capital-intensive project, and most domestic enterprises lack advanced
technologies, management experience and equipment."
The only exceptions then were two involving the Shenhua Group: the Erdos
facility and the 80,000 b/d Ningdong coal liquefaction project jointly planned
by the group’s subsidiary Shenhua Ningxia Coal Group and South African
oil and gas major Sasol.
–Winnie Lee, winnie_lee@platts.com
Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, said Wednesday that the country is pursuing a three-pronged approach to moving along global talks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular focus coming on bilateral agreements with China.
Speaking at the Center for American Progress in Washington, Stern said
that these agreements between the two largest GHG emitters in the world could
cover clean energy arenas such renewable energy, carbon capture and
sequestration, and electric vehicles, among other areas.
Stern’s comments come as US delegates are in Bonn, Germany through June
12 participating in UN-led climate talks that are set to conclude in December
in Copenhagen with a new treaty for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
The US never ratified Kyoto and thus, never agreed to make mandatory GHG cuts.
"Certainly no deal will be possible if we cannot find a way forward with
China," Stern said, noting that China and other developing countries cannot
cling to their old principles of not agreeing to mandatory GHG cuts since this
attitude will not prove "fundamentally sustainable" in a world where low
carbon economies will replace high carbon economies. "Those who seek to hold
back the tides will lose out in the end," he said.
"China and other developing countries do not need to take the same
actions we do but they do need to take significant national actions that they
can quantify and are ambitious enough to be consistent with science," he said.
"What China can do is not…stop growing but to grow smarter."
Following his own advice "to get this damn thing started," Stern said
that he will be leaving June 6 for a visit to China along with John Holdren,
President Barack Obama’s science advisor, and David Sandalow, assistant
secretary for policy and international affairs at the US Department of Energy.
Stern said he will also be accompanied by officials from the US Treasury
and Environmental Protection Agency although he did not name them
specifically. The Department of State would not provide any more details about
Stern’s trip.
Stern said he does not expect to have a "big deliverable" from the trip,
but it would be "one piece of an extended set of interactions."
Besides bilateral agreements with China and the Kyoto talks, Stern said
that talks within the Major Economies Forum context are also important. The 17
major economies participating in the forum are: Australia, Brazil, Canada,
China, the EU, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico,
Russia, South Africa, the UK, and the US.
The next meeting will be in July in La Maddalena, Italy where the US will
engage again with China as well as other developing countries with high
emissions such as India, he said. "These meetings can’t pull a rabbit out of a
hat but they allow for candid dialog," he said.
China’s economy is going greener as the world’s third-largest economy makes resolute efforts to save energy and reduce pollution.
The Chinese government has ordered to eliminate out-dated production facilities and set stricter rules on new project approvals in a bid to meet its energy saving and emission cut target.
Last year, China blocked 156 energy-guzzling and high-polluting projects involving 473.7 billion yuan ($69.3 billion) of investment, Zhang Lijun, vice environment minister, told a forum in the northern port city of Tianjin this week.
It also has allocated 210 billion yuan out of the 4-trillion yuan economic stimulus package for energy conservation, emission reduction, and environmental protection, Zhang said.
China aimed to cut energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent and cut emissions of major pollutants by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010.
The energy consumption per unit of GDP dropped 10.1 percent from 2006 to 2008, official data showed.
Subinay Nandy, Country Director of UNDP in China, said at the forum that China is balancing economic growth and environmental protection as it has realized the economy should not grow at the cost of environment.
China’s economy has experienced dramatic growth over the past three decades, but this miracle came with degrading rivers, lakes and air quality.
But the government has shifted its policy for sustainable growth and the ruling Communist Party of China even made "an energy-saving, environmentally-friendly society" a mandate in its charter.
As governments around the world focus on green growth, some experts even called it as an on-going Green Revolution, following major industrial revolutions of the mankind.
The green business is expanding rapidly in China. It is home to one-fourth of the world’s Clean Development Mechanism projects and the world’s biggest exporter of solar batteries. It is also the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines and expected to have the largest wind power generation capacity.
China has also become the world’s second-biggest market for wastewater treatment. It invested more than 200 billion yuan in around 1, 550 sewage treatment factories by 2008, which handle 86 million tons of wastewater per day, Zhang said.
The daily wastewater treatment capacity would increase by 10 million tons this year, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Wu Changhua, director of Greater China of the Climate Group, said China’s green revolution is not only giving emergence to highly promising industries amid the current global economic downturn, but also helping to protect the environment.
China has planned to increase investment on clean energy in the coming years. In 2007 alone, it invested about $12 billion in such energy as wind and solar.
Zhang added that China’s total investment in desulfurization of coal-fired power plants had reached 100 billion yuan by the end of 2008.
Shanghai-China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) announced on June 11 that it has suspended construction approval of two hydropower projects on the middle reaches of the Jinsha River, forcing China Huaneng Group and China Huadian Corp. to temporarily halt work on their projects in the area.
Recently, Danish LM Glasfiber, the world’s largest wind turbine supplier, launched its production base in Qinhuangdao, a port city in north China. It will become China’s largest production base for wind turbine blades.
LM Glasfiber holds one-third of the world market for wind turbine blades. At present, the company has set up factories in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, and Tianjin.
The program in Qinhuangdao will be completed in three phases, with a total investment of more than 300 million yuan.
When the whole project is put into production in 2010，its output is expected to reach more than 700 pieces, which will exceed the total output of the two plants in Urumqi and Tianjin.
As an important renewable and inexhaustible energy, wind power is conducive to sustainable development. China has rich wind energy resources and favorable conditions for development of wind power. After years of efforts, China gained remarkable achievements in wind power construction. In early June, Shi Lishan, deputy director of the department of new and renewable sources for the National Energy Board introduced the situation for China’s wind power characteristics and development prospects.
Total wind energy reserves of 4.3 billion kilowatts
Q: What is the current status of China’s wind energy resources?
Shi Lishan: China’s rich wind energy resource areas are mainly distributed in the “Three North” (North-east, North, and North-west) regions, the Southeast coast and nearby islands. In addition, the offshore wind energy resources are also very rich.
According to statistics from the latest national survey of wind energy resources, the total wind energy resource reserves from 10 meters above ground was 4.35 billion kilowatts, of which about 300 million kilowatts can be exploited technically. The developable capacity of 10 meters high wind energy resources equals to 21 billion tons of standard coal.
Cumulative installed capacity of wind power ranks fourth in the world
Q: In recent years, what were the characteristics of the wind power construction in China?
Shi Lishan: I think that there were three main characteristics: Firstly, the wind power construction has quickened. By the end of 2002, China’s wind power installed capacity was only 450,000 kilowatts.
With technology advancing and strong support from national industry policy, the annual average growth rate of wind power installed capacity increased more than 70%. By the end of 2008, 239 electric fields and 11,638 wind turbines have been built in 22 provinces and municipalities (not including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), elevating the total installed capacity to 12.17 million kilowatts.
At present, the US, Germany and Spain are the first three among the world’s cumulative installed capacity of wind power. China rose from the fifth in 2007 to the fourth in 2008, occupying a 10% market share.
Secondly, significant headway has been made in the manufacture of wind power equipment. Since 2003, the government has launched five wind power concession projects, combining government support and market mechanisms, which effectively promoted the development of the wind power industry. Now China has basically mastered technology for building large-scale wind turbines and has 70 machine manufacturing enterprises. At the same time, a great many domestic enterprises are undertaking the wind turbine parts and components production.
Thirdly, the environment for wind power development has been formed. In 2006, China implemented “Renewable Energy Law”, establishing the legal status, the basic system and policy framework for renewable energy development. National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Board, and the Ministry of Finance developed relevant supporting policies, forming a relatively complete supporting policy system for renewable energy development, which is the basis for the development of wind power.
In addition, large enterprises in the field of electricity, coal and petrochemicals aimed at setting up renewable energy companies to develop wind power. After years of practice, China has build up a standard system for wind power construction and management and also formed wind power construction teams with rich experience.
The construction of a number of “wind power Three Gorges"
Q: What problems should be solved in wind power development and what is the plan for future development?
Shi Lishan: Wind power development achievements are significant, but still face some problems as follows. Firstly, wind power has random and intermittent nature; China’s wind power development and construction are relatively concentrated. The installed capacity of single wind farm was very large, and most of which was at the end of the grid or weak area.
The construction of large-scale wind power will have a great influence on the safe operation of the regional power grid, power supply configuration and power delivery. Therefore, it is necessary to step up the research of large-scale wind power grid technology.
Secondly, China’s wind turbine manufacturing is normally of small scale and foreign technology-based, efforts should be made to improve the research and development capabilities of equipment manufacture.
Thirdly, wind power industry still needs national support and encouragement policy in terms of investment, taxation, technology and research. Policy environment for wind power development is waiting to be further improved.
According to China’s “long-term renewable energy development planning” and the current status of wind power development, China wind power will see big development. It is estimated that by 2010, the cumulative wind power installed capacity of the country will reach 30 million kilowatts. At the same time, the initial establishment of a more comprehensive system of wind power industry will be realized.
By 2020, the scale of wind power construction is expected to exceed more than 100 million kilowatts, with a focus based on the wind resource-rich “three north” and Jiangsu coastal areas.
The preliminary plan is to build more than 10 wind power bases of million kilowatts level and 7 wind power bases of ten million kilowatts level in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Jiangsu provinces in order to form a number of “wind power Three Gorges.”
Nippon Steel Corp. led Japanese industry in calling on Prime Minister Taro Aso to urge China and India to share the cost of fighting climate change after he pledged to cut emissions and the economy shrank at a record pace.
Aso’s promise of a 15 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels is “extremely tough to achieve,” and puts Japan’s exporters on an unequal footing with rivals in developing countries, Nippon Steel President Shoji Muneoka said in a statement released in Tokyo.
Neither China nor India signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and both nations have said industrialized countries must set ambitious targets for cutting emissions before they will set their own goals. Japan, the world’s second- largest steelmaker and fourth-biggest polluter, saw its economy shrink by a record 14.2 percent annual pace in the first quarter as exports plunged by 26 percent, the Cabinet Office said today.
“A tougher target is clearly a burden for steelmakers and pulp producers,” Futoshi Usui, a Tokyo-based analyst at Credit Suisse said. “But a post-Kyoto accord will lead to business opportunities in the long run for manufacturers producing clean- technologies and products installed with energy-saving tools.”
Fujio Mitarai, the head of Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, said the government must ensure that industry doesn’t bear the full brunt of Japan’s commitment to fight climate change.
“It’s vital that the government act to expand the use of new energy-conservation products in households and the transport sectors,” said Mitarai, who is also chairman of Canon Inc.
‘Rational Goal’
Keidanren last month suggested Japan target a 4 percent increase in emissions from 1990 levels, calling it the “most rational goal.”
Aso’s target is equivalent to an 8 percent cut from 1990 levels, short of the 20 percent planned by the European Union but in line with the 14 percent to 17 percent cut from 2005 being negotiated in the U.S.
The goal was slammed by environmentalists attending U.N. sponsored climate talks in Bonn yesterday, who said Japan should set an example to other rich countries by promising deeper cuts.
Aso defended his target, claiming that Japan’s goal is more ambitious than either the E.U. or the U.S. because its economy is already more energy efficient than other developed countries, he told the Financial Times newspaper. He also argued that Japan, unlike the E.U., will meet its target by introducing more clean technology rather than buying carbon credits to offset pollution.
Japan emits less carbon dioxide than the U.S., China and Russia.
To contact the reporters on this story: Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net.