China's Climate Change Policies

Wang Weiguang, Guoguang Zheng, Jiahua Pan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415520850
• eBook ISBN: 9781136345159
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Politics & International Relations

China is becoming a rising star in global economical and political affairs. Both internationally and within China itself, people have great expectations of its future role. This book aims to clarify many aspects of China's key position in the climate change situation and policy debates. However, limited by its development stage, natural resource endowment, and other unbalanced developing issues, China is still a developing country. This book shows the reader the real China, which can provide more comprehensive solutions for future global climate regimes.

This book includes research into China's twelfth Five-Year-Plan; low-carbon city pilot schemes; policies and pathways for China's nationally appropriate mitigation actions; China's forestry management; China's NGOs and climate change; the low-carbon 2010 Expo in Shanghai; carbon budget proposals; China's green economy and green jobs; China's reaction to carbon tariffs; China's actions in approaching adaptation; China's cumulative carbon emissions, and more. China's Climate Change Policies brings together experienced experts with in-depth understanding of the scientific assessment of climate change and relevant social and economic policies, and senior experts who have participated directly in international climate negotiations. This will help the reader to better understand the 2011 Durban climate change conference, as well as China's long-term strategy in response to climate change.

PART I

Chinese response to climate change and policy actions

1

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION TARGETS IN THE ELEVENTH FIVE-YEAR PLAN

Ying Chen

Introduction

At the start of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan on national social and economic development in 2005, binding and quantified targets for energy conservation and emissions reduction were proposed for the first time. That is, compared with the base year of 2005, energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) and emissions major pollutants (sulfur dioxide, SO₂ and chemical oxygen demand, COD) would be reduced by 20 percent and 10 percent respectively by 2010. Energy conservation and emissions reduction is both a solemn commitment to Chinese society and a focus of the international community; it is also an inevitable choice for adjusting the economic structure, converting the national growth mode, and constructing a resource-saving and environment-friendly society. In this chapter, the achievement and approaches of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan are assessed.

Energy conservation, emissions reduction goals, and other major policy measures

According to section 1, chapter 22 of Building a Resource-Saving and Environment-Friendly Society, the Sixth Part of the Eleventh Five-Year plan, the overall objective for energy conservation was to consolidate the policy for energy conservation and efficient resource utilization, and to devote greater efforts to energy conservation. As for specific quantitative indicators, the plan put forward for the first time a binding target: a 20 percent drop in energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2010, in comparison with 2005. The plan stressed that energy conservation should be pushed ahead by means of structural adjustment, technological progress, and strengthening management, focusing on high energy-consuming industries such as steel, non-ferrous metals, coal, electricity, chemicals, and building materials. The whole society would be mobilized, including governments, enterprises, and the public, and concerted efforts would be made to build a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan raised energy conservation to an unprecedentedly high position. This was in part due to growing international pressures for emissions reductions, but it was also conducive to protecting China’s energy security, and to reducing the mounting pressures from rapid economic growth on resources and environment. Energy conservation is in line with the present needs and long-term interests of China’s sustainable development, which is of great strategic significance. In recent years, aiming to achieve energy conservation targets in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government has revised and promulgated various laws and regulations, mapped out a number of long-and mid-term energy plans, and introduced a series of relevant policy measures.

Strengthen energy legislation and long-and mid-term energy planning

The Renewable Energy Law was adopted on February 28, 2005, and on October 28, 2007, the State Council adopted the revised Energy Conservation Law, which has provided a legal basis for realizing energy conservation.

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Energy Development was promulgated in April 2007, reaffirming the target of 20 percent reduction in energy intensity per unit of GDP in the overall Eleventh Five-Year Plan. It also set targets for energy efficiency improvement for major products of key energy-consuming industries, major energy-consuming equipment, automobiles, and household appliances. For example, by 2010, the standard coal consumption for thermal power supply was to be 355 g per kW h, down by 15 g; the rate of power consumption by plants was to be 4.5 percent, down by 1.4 percentage points; and the electric transmission loss rate was to be 7 percent, down by 0.18 percentage points. After achieving these objectives, the emissions during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period would be reduced by 360 million tons of carbon equivalent. The Long-Term Plan for Renewable Energy launched on September 4, 2007, proposed that by 2010 renewable energy should account for 10 percent of all energy consumption, and that the amount of renewable energy consumption in China should reach 300 million tons of coal equivalent, nearly double the amount in comparison with 2005.

Develop a comprehensive planning for energy conservation and emissions reduction as well as for responding to climate change

Given the grim situation that China failed to achieve emissions reduction targets in the first year of the Plan, the State Council issued a Comprehensive Work Program for Energy Reduction¹ in June 2007, and urged all localities and departments to pay close attention to fulfilling responsibilities and law enforcement with regard to energy conservation. It also stated that governments should play a leading role in establishing a coordination mechanism, reinforce the responsibility of enterprises, and promote full participation by all of society. The program included 40 policy measures and specific requirements in 10 aspects, with an all-inclusive plan for strengthening energy conservation. Almost at the same time, the Chinese government promulgated China’s National Climate Change Program, which integrated mitigating climate change with the energy-saving goals of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, as these two goals would support each other. The National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee adopted the Resolution to Proactively Tackle Climate Change in August 2009, which stressed that the development of a green economy and low-carbon economy should be based on national conditions, and that active responses to climate change should be included in a country’s long-term sustainable development strategy, as well as in national economic and social development planning.

Targeting the extremely severe situation of energy conservation and emissions reduction in 2010, the State Council held a national teleconference on May 5, and issued The Circular of the State Council on Further Intensifying Efforts to Ensure the Realization of Energy Conservation and Emissions Reduction Targets during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.² The notice stressed that, no matter what difficulty we confront, our commitment cannot be changed, our determination cannot be shaken, and our work ethic cannot slacken. Finally, it also put forward 14 priorities for furthering these goals. In order to intensify efforts on assessment and accountability, in the third quarter, departments in charge would organize a pre-assessment on the completion of emissions reduction targets in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. Precautions would be taken in a timely manner for the areas where targets would be hard to fulfill. For instance, there would be a list of enterprises and products that exceeded limits of energy consumption (power consumption); punitive electricity prices would be implemented; and price markup standards for out-of-date production would apply to those that more than doubled the limits.

Encourage the development of the circular economy

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued a document (Environment and Resource Development of NDRC [2010] No. 1158) on May 28, 2010, which stated that state pilot units of circular economy ought to set an example, in order to contribute to the realization of emissions reduction targets in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.³ This notice stressed that the development of the circular economy was an important step in promoting energy conservation, which can reduce intensity of resource and energy consumption from a specific source, and have a noticeable effect on waste recycling and energy conservation. For instance, production of renewable copper by using copper scraps can save 80–85 percent of primary copper from copper ore. The document also required state pilot units of circular economy to effectively follow the principle of “giving priority to reduction” put forward in the Circular Economy Promotion Law, and to achieve “dematerialization” in the process of production. Those pilot institutions must also adhere to the principle of “reuse and recycling,” abide by the requirements of the material flow cycle, and construct an industrial chain for the recycling of resources.

Gear up to eliminate outdated production capacity

Speeding up the elimination of outdated production capacity is one of the crucial measures to complete emissions reduction tasks in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The Comprehensive Working Program for Energy Conservation and Emissions Reduction has developed goals and specific measures for eliminating outdated production capacity for such industries as electricity, iron, steel, electrolytic aluminum, ferroalloy, television, coke, cement, glass, and paper. For example, through a program of “installing the large and shutting down the small” projects, the power industry was planning to shut down 50 GW of small coal-fired thermal power units. The steel industry was planning to close down blast furnaces of less than 300 m³ with 100 million tons of capacity, small converters and electrical furnaces, annual production less than 200,000 tons, with 55 million tons; and the cement industry was planning to replace 250 million tons of cement clinker with the same amount of vertical kilns.

The policy was quite efficient, so the State Council of China added a further set of targets in the last year of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, for example, to shut down 10 GW of small thermal power capacity and to eliminate outdated production capacity with 25 million tons of iron, 600 million tons of steel, 50 million tons of cement, 330,000 tons of electrolytic aluminum, 6 million loaded cases of plate glass, and 530,000 tons of paper. In August 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a list of 2,087 obsolete and outdated companies in 18 industries.⁴ Those that had a large number of obsolete enterprises included 762 companies in the cement industry, 279 in the paper industry, 201 in the printing industry, 192 in the coke industry, 175 in the iron industry, 143 in the alloy industry, and 84 in the leather industry. According to the distribution of implementation in different provinces, those provinces that had heavier tasks and more obsolete companies included Henan with 230 enterprises, Shanxi with 226, Zhejiang with 180, Hebei with 165, Yunnan with 165, and Guizhou with 128. In line with the notice, listed enterprises in various regions were required to shut down as of the end of September 2010. As for those enterprises that failed to eliminate backward production capacity before the deadline, some punitive measures were to be taken. For instance, their sewage permit might be revoked, and their credit support from national banks and financial institutions would be halted; their new investment projects would not be approved by the investment management departments and no new land would be approved by resource management departments; relevant administrative departments would not issue permits for their production, and, even when necessary, electricity supply companies might be requested to stop their services.

Control the excessive growth of pollution-and energy-intensive industries and those with excess supply

Aside from eliminating the outdated production capacity of energy-intensive industries and high-emissions industries, the government has also strictly curbed the excessive growth of the pollution-and energy-intensive industries and industries that have excess supply, through a variety of policy instruments. For example, the government strengthened management of project reviews; strictly implemented environmental impact assessments, energy conservation reviews, and land pre-reviews; prohibited financial institutions from issuing loans to illegal projects; and limited the exports of pollution-and energy-intensive industries as part of the national foreign trade policy. For example, seven ministries and commissions including the NDRC, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the Circular on Supporting Measures to Curb Exports of High Energy Consumption, High Pollution and Resource Industries on July 28, 2005. Further, on July 1, the ministries removed export tax rebates on 553 items from the pollution-and energy-intensive and resource industries, and lowered export tax rebate rates on 2,268 items likely to trigger trade frictions, covering 37 percent of export products. These policies have played a positive role in promoting energy conservation and emissions reduction in China. However, since the second half of 2008, the global financial crisis has exerted particularly adverse impacts on energy-intensive industries. In order to boost economic growth in exports, China had to weaken the policies above. In order to reduce dependence of economic growth on exports, the government has intensified policy efforts to stimulate domestic demand and industrial restructuring.

Investment in key energy conservation and emissions reduction projects

In addition to policy guidance, the central government earmarked budgets for investment into 10 key projects: transformation of inefficient coal-fired industrial boilers (kilns), regional co-production of thermal and power industries, utilization of waste heat and pressure, conservation and replacement of oil, energy conservation of motor systems, optimization of energy systems, conservation of construction, green lighting, energy conservation among government agencies, and the establishment of systems for energy conservation monitoring and technical assistance. These are all major energy conservation techniques in different government departments and regions. Eight ministries and commissions, including the NDRC, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Finance, jointly prepared and issued...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• General report: the future of the international climate regime from China’s perspective
• Jiahua Pan
• Part I Chinese response to climate change and policy actions
• Part II Thematic studies
• Appendix
• Index