Country has uphill battle on climate

Progress noted, but 'strenuous effort' is needed to move agenda forward

Despite the progress China has made in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the country still faces great challenges in meeting its climate change targets, a senior official said.

Xie Zhenhua, China's special representative on climate change, made the comment at a forum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Sunday during the annual general meeting of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.

In 2018, China's carbon intensity was more than 48 percent below that of 2005, meeting its goal to cut carbon emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2020. The ratio of energy from nonfossil fuel in the national primary energy structure increased to 14.3 percent, Xie said.

The country plans to further bring down the intensity metric by 60 to 65 percent and increase the ratio of nonfossil fuel to 20 percent by 2030.

Xie said China still needs to improve systems and establish supportive policies. "It needs strenuous effort," he said.

As the largest developing country in the world, China has always listed sustainable development as a national strategy and has been proactively tackling climate change, Xie said.

"President Xi Jinping has emphasized on various occasions that China is tackling climate change willingly and not because others demand it. Coping with it is an inherent requirement in the country's sustainable development, and also part of China's duty as a responsible major power," he said.

Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said 2019 is a year that represents both opportunity and urgency to act.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a special report in October 2018 on the impact of global warming of 1.5 C above preindustrial levels, highlighting a number of effects that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5 C.

Limiting warming to 1.5 C, instead of 2 C for example, could result in 420 million fewer people being exposed to severe heat waves, the report said.

"While our window of opportunity is closing fast, it is still open. And we have an opportunity. China has shown that we can defend the blue skies that we take for granted with a combination of political will, strong public participation and better enforcement of environmental laws," Msuya said.

"Last year, UN Environment released a report outlining 25 simple and cost-effective policy measures that can help people in the Asia-Pacific region to reduce air pollution. The switch to electric mobility, of which China is the undisputed world leader, is one of them," Msuya said.

Zou Ji, president of Energy Foundation China and a special adviser to the council, said China has the potential to help other developing countries reduce their carbon dioxide emissions via the Belt and Road Initiative and South-South cooperation.

"The experiences and technologies China has accumulated over decades of development can be valuable for other developing countries to explore the green and low-carbon development paths suitable to them," he said.

Established in 1992, the council is a high-level international advisory body comprising officials and experts from both China and overseas who provide policy advice to the Chinese government. The general meeting will last from Sunday to Wednesday.