Lin Boqiang: To achieve carbon neutrality, China's energy structure needs to continue to adjust and balance

Intern reporter 丨 Xu Ruiyao

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference was recently held in Glasgow, England, the first climate conference since the Paris Agreement entered the implementation phase. On the eve of the conference, China made a commitment to the goal of its independent contribution. At the same time, the two most important policy documents in China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality "1+N" policy system, which have attracted much attention, were released within a week.

On October 24, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued the Opinions on The Complete, Accurate and Comprehensive Implementation of the New Development Concept to Do a Good Job in Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which systematically planned the major work of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality; on October 26, the Carbon Peak Action Plan before 2030 was officially released. Even the "China's Policies and Actions to Address Climate Change" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") released by the State Council's new office on October 27 emphasizes that "China's carbon dioxide emissions strive to peak by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060".

In this regard, Lin Boqiang, currently the dean of the China Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University, was interviewed by Interface News. He said that the carbon peak in 2030 is achievable, and the peak itself is not a very hard indicator, and carbon neutrality in 2060 is a hard indicator. As far as the current international community is concerned, some public opinion believes that this process is relatively slow, but compared with the Biden administration's statement in April this year that "by 2030, the United States will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% compared with 2005 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050", China as a developing country will achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.

He said that in terms of implementation, there are still difficulties in achieving carbon neutrality, the most difficult thing is that China is a developing country, the economy will continue to develop, this process still needs energy and electricity support, which is difficult to balance with the adjustment of energy structure. This requires constant dynamic adjustment of the country, the energy structure, industrial structure and consumer behavior need to be constantly adjusted and balanced in combination with economic development and climate evolution, and the only thing that can be determined is that the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 must be achieved.

At the same time, the "Opinions" also clarified the important targets of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, 2030 and 2060 time nodes, by 2025, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach about 20%; by 2030, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach about 25%, and by 2060, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach more than 80%. By the end of 2020, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption in China will only reach 15.9%.

Lin Boqiang believes that as a programmatic document, the white paper mainly summarizes the scattered policies issued by China in the past, recalls the situation of climate change, and expresses China's determination and action. The "Opinions" issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council Joint Institute on the 24th have more new information, such as mentioning that "by 2060, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach more than 80%", which means that the energy structure is facing overall changes. Now, the state has put the development of wind power photovoltaics, compression of coal power, control of energy consumption, encourage the transformation of the circular economy and other aspects of the policy on the table, the most critical is how to effectively implement the problem in reality.

He said that in terms of the energy market, the future is to develop in the direction of marketization, which is to pay for environmental costs, mainly carbon reduction costs. Now the development of clean energy, the government-led, the capital market has assumed the responsibility, the people mainly through the purchase of products to bear indirectly; but in the future, the cost of carbon reduction to the direction of direct commitment is an inevitable trend, mainly through the increase in electricity prices, energy prices, but when, in what way, how much impact these need to be further considered.

At the same time, Lin Boqiang believes that at present, the state will not collect carbon emission taxes, mainly to develop clean energy as the primary way, and it is not as urgent as the imposition of carbon emission taxes. Of course, this possibility is not ruled out in the future, but the carbon tax has a great impact on the economy and needs a long period of research.

For the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, Lin Boqiang said that the focus of this conference will continue to be on the divergence of responsibilities between developed and developing countries and whether the commitment to independent contributions can be recognized. However, at present, the development stage of various countries is different, the demands are not the same, and the problem of responsibility distribution between developed and developing countries is difficult to completely solve, and even India directly refused to commit to carbon neutrality before the meeting. But the aim of the meeting was not to eliminate differences altogether, but to make concessions and build on the existing basis of the Paris Agreement. Otherwise, including the Paris Agreement, it would be useless.

"This conference will definitely have an impact on China's energy policy, and the policies that can have an impact are on the table, but the commitments that China has made will not change," he said. ”