Country's emissions goal lauded by experts

Arduous task

Speaking of China's actions to fulfill its international responsibilities for climate change, Liu Youbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said on Friday that China has attained its 2020 climate action targets ahead of schedule.

As of the end of last year, China had managed to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 48.1 percent from 2005 levels, and the share of nonfossil fuels in the country's primary energy consumption had increased to 15.3 percent, he said.

He also said China has topped the world regarding the number of patents, investment, installed capacity and power generation in the renewable energy sector for several years. Over $100 billion has been invested annually in the sector for five consecutive years.

Experts said it's an arduous task for the country to realize the new target.

Zou Ji, president of Energy Foundation China, said the new vision put forward by President Xi shows that China's goals on tackling climate change and promoting modernization are highly embedded in each other.

As China forges ahead in its modernization progress, it's a necessity for the country to increase investment in climate safety and resort to low-carbon transformation to create new impetus for economic development, he noted.

He said, to honor the updated commitment, China needs to include more ambitious climate targets in its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and accelerate the transformation of its energy consumption structure.

The country should also formulate action plans at both regional and national levels as soon as possible while coming up with medium－and long-term decarbonization road maps that are economically and technically viable, he added.

He Jiankun, deputy director of the National Committee of Experts on Climate Change, said: "Research shows that China faces more challenges in its development transformation."

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 requires a huge transformation in all aspects of the social, economic, energy and technological systems. "The country needs to make arduous efforts," he said.