Interview with Li Gang: Under the background of carbon neutrality, what is the solution to the carbon emission rights allocation plan

Carbon dioxide emissions are an important factor in global climate change. Controlling the temperature rise in the 21st century within 2 °C has become a consensus of many countries around the world, and many countries and regions have also committed to independent emission reduction targets. China clearly proposed at the United Nations General Assembly last year that carbon dioxide emissions should strive to peak by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

The first boao forum for asia global economic development and security forum, with the theme of "economic security and sustainable development under the great change", will be held in Changsha, Hunan Province, from October 18 to 20, to explore the response to global economic risks and structural issues, and will discuss and discuss carbon peaking, carbon neutrality and other issues.

In response to issues such as the allocation plan of carbon emission rights, the reporter of Beijing Business Daily recently interviewed Li Gang, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and deputy editor-in-chief of China Economist.

Beijing Business Daily: What is the allocation of carbon emissions?

Li Gang: There is a total amount of global carbon dioxide emissions. If it is under the requirement of "controlling the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius", the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions represented by these 2 degrees can be calculated. With the conservation of aggregates, how can these carbon emissions be distributed equitably among countries? This requires carbon emission allocation schemes.

Beijing Business Daily: What do you think is the most suitable carbon emission allocation plan at present?

Li Gang: There are currently two different types of carbon reduction schemes for the allocation of carbon emission rights. One category is mainly supported by developed countries: the development of emission reduction plans or the allocation of emission rights based on the current greenhouse gas emissions of countries, such as a reduction in carbon emissions. The main problem with the programme is the lack of consideration for countries' historical emission responsibilities. Carbon emissions are related to current consumption, and are also related to the construction of some infrastructure, such as building highways and ports, which can be used after construction. Therefore, the programme is more in the interest of developed countries.

Another type of programme considers that countries' historical cumulative emissions should be fully taken into account when allocating their current and future emission space. Such programmes appear to be in the interest of developing countries, but there are also some problems.

One problem is that the current generation of people bear the responsibility for carbon emissions of the previous generations, and the legal theory of "father's debt repayment" is insufficient; in addition, national borders and population nationality are constantly changing, and a country's historical emissions are difficult to calculate; the current level of industrial technology and the level of industrialization in developed countries have also made great progress, and it is not fair to simply use historical carbon emissions.

So I think what we have to consider is the historical emissions that still have an impact on living now, which is simply the infrastructure part, because these may account for 80% or 90% of carbon emissions. So how do you make an estimate? My proposal is to first estimate the social stock of steel, cement, aluminum and copper by directly citing or indirectly from relevant sources to represent the stock of physical capital; second, to collect the carbon emission coefficients of countries in the production and smelting process. I think this final solution is more reasonable.

Beijing Business Daily: China has put forward the "30, 60" double carbon target, what kind of transformation do you think china's economic development concept and model need to be carried out to achieve this goal?

Li Gang: I think in terms of carbon reduction, China has experienced a process from passive to active. The proposal of the "30, 60" double carbon target shows that China is now very proactive in seizing the opportunity of carbon emission reduction.

In fact, at present, like wind power generation and solar power generation, China's technological frontier is not lower than that of foreign countries, but why is the carbon emissions and energy intensity still relatively high? In fact, there are some objective reasons.

From the perspective of steel, the energy intensity under the top domestic technology is not much different from that of the world, but one of the reasons for the high overall steel carbon emissions is that foreign countries mainly use recycled steel for production, which is equivalent to greatly shortening the process. And China's steel stock is limited, which also causes our recycled steel, recycled aluminum development is limited; like cement, papermaking, chemical industry, etc. are also industries with relatively large energy consumption, and the reason why China's energy consumption intensity is higher than that of foreign countries is also that our basic energy is still dominated by coal, and foreign natural gas storage is relatively rich, resulting in relatively low energy consumption.

With the gradual improvement of China's technology in the application of clean energy, and aware of the importance of energy conservation and emission reduction, we now really hope to promote global carbon emission reduction and green development, and hope to continuously promote sustainable economic development through global carbon emission reduction.

Beijing Business Daily: What do you think is the most pressing issue that needs to be solved to achieve carbon neutrality?

Li Gang: I think it is necessary to formulate a price mechanism as soon as possible and give more play to the role of the market economy.

We must oppose not only one step in place, but also oppose not thinking of making progress, and we must take small steps and go fast. For example, sometimes there is overcapacity, which is actually the norm of the market economy, and we still have to change our thinking as soon as possible.

The most important thing in the market economy is the price mechanism, which needs to clarify the price of resource use, the value of resources or the whole life cycle price of resources. For example, the main reason why coal power generation is still mainstream is that coal is cheap, if the price rises, then enterprises will naturally engage in clean energy, build energy storage power stations, etc., and energy consumption will also decline.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Tao Feng and Wang Chenting