U.N. report urges low-carbon China shift

World Bank says East Asia could stabilise emissions by 2025
Beijing (AFP) April 19, 2010 - East Asia could stabilise its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 while maintaining economic growth by investing heavily in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies, the World Bank said Monday. Achieving this would require the region's energy guzzlers to invest an extra 80 billion dollars a year to make power, industry and transport sectors more efficient and develop renewable energy, the World Bank said. Success also depends on the region finding the political will for big changes as well as transfers of financing and technologies from developed countries, the Washington-based lender said in a regional energy report. "Major investments in energy efficiency and a concerted switch to renewable sources of power... could simultaneously stabilise greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy security while improving local environments," the report said.

But the World Bank warned time was running out and urged policymakers in energy-hungry China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to act quickly. "While many East Asian countries are taking steps in these directions, accelerating the speed and scaling up the efforts are needed to get on to a sustainable energy path," it said. "The window of opportunity is closing fast, because delaying action would lock the region into a long-lasting high-carbon infrastructure." If countries act, regional carbon emissions could stabilise by 2025 and begin to decline, said the bank, which provides financial and technical aid to developing nations.

It said carbon emissions could be limited to 9.2 gigatonnes a year by 2030 -- 37 percent lower than the World Bank's estimated level if governments stick to their current climate change policies. Achieving the target depends largely on China, which accounts for 80 percent of energy consumption and 85 percent of regional carbon emissions, it said. The world's third-largest economy will need to reduce its carbon emissions as a percentage of economic growth by an even greater margin than currently planned, the bank said. It called that a "daunting goal," given that China is still a developing country relying on energy-intensive, heavy-polluting industries.

It also noted that major policy and institutional reforms as well as big lifestyle changes would be needed throughout the region to achieve the goal. "Developing countries will need to avoid the carbon-intensive path and wasteful lifestyles followed by industrial countries in the past," the bank said. On the upside, the shift to clean energy offered developing countries the chance to "leap-frog to the next generation of new technologies, create local manufacturing industries to drive down costs and become global technology leaders."

by Staff Writers
Beijing (UPI) Apr 15, 2010
China has no other choice but to shift to a low-carbon pathway, says a U.N. report.

If China fails to adequately address the negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, it could face the reversal of 30 years of social and economic achievements, states the report, "China and a Sustainable Future, Towards a Low Carbon Economy and Society" released Thursday.

Commissioned by the U.N. Development Program, the report comes ahead of April 18-19 climate talks in Washington.

"The shift to a low-carbon development pathway is imperative as China balances further economic development with environmental sustainability and the need to respond to the threat of climate change," said Khalid Malik, U.N. resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in China in a statement.

With the expected migration of nearly 350 million rural Chinese into urban areas over the next 20 years.

China will need to introduce and enforce strict standards of energy efficiency for building and electronic appliances, says the report.

"Most of the energy-consuming assets needed between now and 2020 have yet to be built," the report states. "China's success in moving toward low-carbon development will be shaped by the types of investments, choices of technologies and organizational decisions that are made in the near future."

The report calls for an increase in low-carbon energy sources such as wind, biomass and solar energy, while phasing out obsolete carbon-intensive production techniques.

It also suggests a domestic carbon tax and setting up a nationwide cap-and-trade plan in which companies could trade carbon quotas.

China, the world's largest emitter of carbon, will also need to reduce carbon emissions from the residential sector and vigorously develop public mass transportation to prevent a massive increase in carbon emissions from the transport sector, it says.

Pointing out that, prior to U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen last December, China had pledged to lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, the authors said China has "no other choice" but to shift to a low-carbon pathway when defining future social and economic development agendas.

According to government statistics released April 8 to Xinhua, China's state-owned news agency, low-carbon energy sources will account for more than 25 percent of the country's electricity supply by the end of 2010.

And a study released by the Pew Charitable Trusts last month shows that China in 2009 for the first time led the world in clean energy investments, spending $34.6 billion, nearly double that of the United States.

While the U.N. report authors note that adopting a low-carbon model may result in short-term job losses, higher prices and revenue shortfalls for China, the long-term payoffs for the country include more sustained green job growth, an improved standing in the world, technological innovation, lower risks to health as well as protection of vital ecosystems.

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