Clean energy in China is a rapidly growing industry. China’s 12th five year plan contains China’s most ambitious energy-saving, water-conserving, and emissions-reducing targets to date. This fascinating article describes how China is investing heavily in clean energy technology and how it is heading towards being the clean and green leader of the world
It appears that China has recognized the unsustainable nature of its development model to date and is taking measures to address this. The rise of China significantly increased the rate of global resource depletion and pollution production. China is the world’s largest consumer of coal (burning more than United States, India and Russia combined), steel, meat and grain and the second largest consumer of oil. China’s Vice Minister for Environmental Protection, Mr Zhang Lijun admitted in public in March 2011 that China was still producing more “traditional pollutants” than it could bear.
The United Nations’ Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre ranks China first as the world’s largest CO2 producing nation. If China’s current energy mix remains unchanged, its greenhouse gas emissions will reach 17 billion tons/year by 2050 or 60% of global emissions, three times China’s current emissions. This would be catastrophic for the global environment.
China Clean Energy Efforts
In its latest Five-Year-Plan (FYP), China committed to its most ambitious measures to date to improve environmental performance. These sit alongside China’s pledges made at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit (CCCS).
| China’s 12th FYP & CCCS commitments
China’s 12th FYP contains China’s most ambitious energy-saving, water-conserving, and emissions-reducing targets to date. It is also the first FYP to mention climate change. Targets set under the 12th FYP are critical steps toward implementing China’s 40% to 45% carbon intensity reduction target announced at CCCS. 12th FYP Environmental Commitments
Note: The above are primarily mitigation targets. The 12th FYP essentially does not address climate adaptation. CCCS Commitments
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Major factors driving the China Clean Energy shift towards growing the economy with the environment in mind are:
China Is Investing Heavily in Clean Energy
To realize its 12th FYP and CCCS environmental commitments, China is investing heavily in its clean technology sector. In 2010, China became the world’s largest investor in clean technology by a long shot, winning it title as the best country for clean technology investment by Ernst & Young. Mr Shi Dinguan, senior adviser with China’s State Council, publicly announced that by 2020, the Chinese government will have invested RMB300 trillion (approximately US$45 trillion) in clean technology.
Working with the World on China Clean Energy Projects
In addition to investing in clean technology, China also wishes to work closely with the international community on technology transfer. In Premier Wen Jiabao’s March 2011 Work Report, the Premier expressed the need for Chinese companies to intensify overseas mergers and acquisitions to acquire technology. Technology transfer is essential for China to meet its 12th FYP targets. China lacks 43 or 70% of the 62 core technologies a United Nations Development Program study demonstrated are needed to achieve a low carbon future.
During the 11th FYP period, China demonstrated the determination and ability to introduce large-scale, sector wide changes to ensure that the 11th FYP targets were achieved. From 2006 to 2010, China reorganized its energy industry by closing down 70GW of inefficient power plants (equivalent to closing all power plants in UK). China also linked local government promotions, salaries and the award of honorary titles to local government’s ability to achieve the energy intensity targets allotted to their respective regions. In many cases, local governments resorted to the disruptive method of randomly closing highly polluting, unsafe or energy inefficient power plants that supplied electricity to households, businesses and hospitals to achieve their targets. The Central Government publicly criticized these extreme measures and urged local governments to not repeat them. During the 12th FYP period, the same determination to achieve the 12th FYP goals without such extreme measures could be expected.
China Clean Energy transformation is the driving force behind China’s strong desire to become the world’s clean and green leader; A situation that could generate environmental benefits for us all. Achieving this goal is contingent on many factors – ensuring local governments implement suitable projects in the right way, establishing robust monitoring, reporting and enforcement mechanisms (China’s current environmental measurement and verification methods are mostly unavailable for public scrutiny), carrying out appropriate community engagement and education programs, fostering domestic innovation (will China’s top-down directed approach to innovation work? Innovation comes from the bottom up in most other regions around the world), acquiring sufficient foreign technologies (why would foreign organizations transfer their technologies to a country with loose IPR protection?), etc. These make predicting the extent to which China will achieve its goal difficult. However, achieving solid outcomes could gain China the kudos it seeks to legitimize its position as the second (of at least one of the) most powerful nation(s) on the world stage.
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Sjuen Yin is a lawyer, a policy analyst, events management specialist and a China consultant. She grew up in Australia and arrived in China three and a half years ago to rediscover her roots and to explore the implications of China's transition. She resides in Shanghai and is launching into China's entrepreneurial scene 
I can not emphasize enough how important and informative this article is. I love Laowaiblog, because it provides great opinion about China on many topics. The China clean energy topic should get more attention – it is articles like this one that really make people more knowledgeable and aware of what is going on in the world!
Thanks Bei Yin!!!
Teddy
Dear Bei,
Your article has left me in awe and has taught me greatly about the China clean energy sector. I assumed, wrongly, that China was not making sufficient efforts to deal with its energy problems. It is obvious to all today that China is headed to be the number one polluter of the world and that the magnitude of the problems that China must deal with as a result of its careless exploitation of the environment might be too severe to solve – you have briefly mentioned some of them, but to me the most serious one is the drought in north of China. China is trying to cope with this problem by building a canal all the way from South Asia to Beijing.
What is this project going to do to the environment of the region? How are my (and your) children expected to live in a heating world?
I don’t have the answers, but I hope that China will catch itself before it is too late for us all.
Keep up the great work.
Hi Bei,
Very strong words here. Although I 100% agree with you that China is pushing its clean energy sector forward, I think there is a very long distance between China’s plans and reality. I live in Beijing, and as you probably know, blue sky is a rarity. I am not just talking about air quality but also about water quality and just the environment in general.
The main problem is that China is so big, and it is growing so fast that it is almost impossible to fulfill all of China’s energy needs ANYWAY, not to mention using clean energy sources. As long as it is economically viable for China to continue to pollute, meaning that it is more “worth it” for China to pollute, it will do so. Until then, we all need to hope for a better “green” future
I would presume that with all this planning we would have already seen some execution? I don’t see any progress in Clean Energy in China despite everything being written here..
What a great article!! I enjoyed it very much keep em comin
Just saw a really interesting perspective about the clean energy china issue:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1768764/infographic-how-china-is-soaring-past-the-us-clean-tech-industry
Thanks! this is good stuff
Clearly Bei understands this issue very deeply. Great job and looking to read more from this blogger
Bei understands the market perfectly. I do think that despite this huge investment that China has put on clean energy there is still a long long way to go for China to actually be considered clean. the pollution in major cities is simply unbearable. Rivers are polluted all across China and much of the nature has been destroyed and might not be able to be restored. The price China pays for economic growth might not be worth it in the long run as it spends more money for cleaning its own mess than profiting from its economic growth. Clean Energy in China, for now, is no more than a slogan
Hold on there Bei. This is a great analysis, but it focuses on the future of China and not about what is happening right now. We have to mention how far away China is from reaching these goals. Yes china knows how to set and achieve goals due to its ruling system which is not exactly democratic (to put it lightly) but still, I am doubtful that it will reach them, and even if it does it might be too late for the heating spinning globe we all live on. so Yes, Clean Energy in China is necessary but time is of the essence here…
China has emphasized this issue of energy and environment in the 11th FYP already as well, yet little has been done because of China’s growing energy needs. I’m not saying that China will not be able to achieve the goals it sets for itself, I am saying that these goals must coincide with fulfilling Chinas energy needs. Clean energy in China is clearly a necessity, yet China understands that without supplying all of its energy needs the future of the party’s ruling is gloomy. Maintaining this balance is the key issue
Look at the other post on this blog about pollution: http://laowaiblog.com/pollution-in-china/
Do you really think that China is taking steps in the right way?? Clean Energy in China is still a long way to go..
Yes, but it is still doing much more than any other country in that respect. We must remember that China is coming from a different place – it has been suppressed and closed for many years, and when it recently decided to open up to the world, many hope that it will be just as progressed as other nations are. Yet we must hope and wish that China grows in a different way from Europe or the U.S otherwise it will destroy our planet. That is why the China clean energy sector is so vitally important
hi Zhu, there still is a long way to go. but the fact that China puts clean energy at the front of the investment chart shows a great deal about its intentions in the near future. This is very important for Chinese citizens and for the world
Investing in clean energy in China doesn’t mean that China is going green
No, but it means it acts to change its ways. What other country on this earth does that? in 20 years, everyone will look east to China clean energy sector to learn how it’s done
Clean energy in China is better than in the U.S. what a poor shaped country we have here
Kathrine, I understand what you mean. but you have to remember that the fact that China can make decisions fast is because of its mechanism and ruling style. I want to believe that even though we don’t have clean energy just yet, when we actually come to our senses and start to really invest in clean energy it will be better, safer and more ecological than the China clean energy efforts
This is a fascinating article. Hands off to the writer for conducting a thorough research about a topic we solely hear in the news.
China clean energy efforts are viable, strong and to the point. It has planned and has begun executing a very detailed plan on how to switch and use cleaner energy sources. I applaud China for understanding the scale and magnitude of the problem and for trying its best to fight it. better late than never…
China’s reforestation effort is also commendable but never made headline news.
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0313-forests.html