Guiding Global Climate Governance and Domestic Response …
703
period, we formulated a binding indicator for reducing energy intensity per unit of
GDP; during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we added the carbon dioxide intensity
reduction indicator for GDP; during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, we further incorporated the total energy consumption control target. We broke down the indicators
and distributed them to provinces and cities to strengthen the target accountability
system of governments at all levels. While establishing and improving a series of
fiscal, taxation and financial policy systems, we were building our national carbon
market to combine government regulatory measures and market means as a strategy
for response to climate change.
Currently, China adheres to the new development concept. While economic development is shifting from high-speed to high-quality growth, we should focus on
changing the development mode, optimizing the economic structure, transforming
the growth momentum, deepening supply-side reforms, and increasing productivity,
all of which will help turn the extensive growth mode, driven by increased inputs
of production factors at the expense of resources and the environment, into a green
and low-carbon development path driven by innovation. By strengthening energy
conservation, improving energy and output efficiency, developing new and renewable
energy sources, and accelerating the low-carbon energy structure, we have effectively
curbed rapid growth in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, reduced
the energy intensity per unit of GDP and sped up the downward trend of carbon
dioxide intensity. From 2005 to 2018, China’s intensity of carbon dioxide per unit
of GDP dropped by about 48%, achieving ahead of schedule the voluntary emission
reduction target of 40–45% that it promised at the Copenhagen Climate Conference
in 2009, while laying the foundation for realizing the voluntary emission reduction
target that it committed itself in the Paris Agreement. With its aggressive emission
reduction targets and effective actions and practices, advanced low-carbon energy
technology innovation and industrialization development, and the construction of
high-efficiency energy and low-carbon infrastructure in the green Belt and Road
Initiative, China has been, and will be, taking the lead as a catalyst for advancing
global energy source reform and low-carbon economic transformation.
3 Establishing and Implementing a Mediumand Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy
that Is Consistent with the Goals and Strategies
of Socialist Modernization in a New Era, and Is
Compatible with the Global Deep Decarbonization Goal
and Emission Reduction Approach
The 19th National Congress put forward the goal and basic strategy of building
China into a modern socialist country by 2050. It also listed climate change as an
unconventional threat to national security, promoting the reform and construction
of the global environmental governance system to contribute to global ecological
703
period, we formulated a binding indicator for reducing energy intensity per unit of
GDP; during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we added the carbon dioxide intensity
reduction indicator for GDP; during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, we further incorporated the total energy consumption control target. We broke down the indicators
and distributed them to provinces and cities to strengthen the target accountability
system of governments at all levels. While establishing and improving a series of
fiscal, taxation and financial policy systems, we were building our national carbon
market to combine government regulatory measures and market means as a strategy
for response to climate change.
Currently, China adheres to the new development concept. While economic development is shifting from high-speed to high-quality growth, we should focus on
changing the development mode, optimizing the economic structure, transforming
the growth momentum, deepening supply-side reforms, and increasing productivity,
all of which will help turn the extensive growth mode, driven by increased inputs
of production factors at the expense of resources and the environment, into a green
and low-carbon development path driven by innovation. By strengthening energy
conservation, improving energy and output efficiency, developing new and renewable
energy sources, and accelerating the low-carbon energy structure, we have effectively
curbed rapid growth in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, reduced
the energy intensity per unit of GDP and sped up the downward trend of carbon
dioxide intensity. From 2005 to 2018, China’s intensity of carbon dioxide per unit
of GDP dropped by about 48%, achieving ahead of schedule the voluntary emission
reduction target of 40–45% that it promised at the Copenhagen Climate Conference
in 2009, while laying the foundation for realizing the voluntary emission reduction
target that it committed itself in the Paris Agreement. With its aggressive emission
reduction targets and effective actions and practices, advanced low-carbon energy
technology innovation and industrialization development, and the construction of
high-efficiency energy and low-carbon infrastructure in the green Belt and Road
Initiative, China has been, and will be, taking the lead as a catalyst for advancing
global energy source reform and low-carbon economic transformation.
3 Establishing and Implementing a Mediumand Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy
that Is Consistent with the Goals and Strategies
of Socialist Modernization in a New Era, and Is
Compatible with the Global Deep Decarbonization Goal
and Emission Reduction Approach
The 19th National Congress put forward the goal and basic strategy of building
China into a modern socialist country by 2050. It also listed climate change as an
unconventional threat to national security, promoting the reform and construction
of the global environmental governance system to contribute to global ecological