China issues plan to promote green consumption

BEIJING - Chinese authorities on Friday unveiled a master plan on boosting green transformation of consumption in key areas, the latest move for the country to achieve its carbon peak and neutrality goals.

The plan, jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and six other government organs, said that green consumption modes will prevail by 2025, calling for efforts to arouse people's awareness of green consumption, curb extravagance and waste, and enhance the market share of green and low-carbon products.

It detailed measures in various major fields, ranging from food, clothing, housing to transport, tourism and electricity.

To encourage green housing, the plan urged efforts to incorporate measures of energy saving and environmental protection while renovating old urban residential communities and rural houses.

On green transport, efforts will be made to vigorously promote the use of new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as gradually lifting the NEV purchasing restrictions, enhancing supporting facilities like battery charging and swapping stations, and increasing the application of NEV in public service vehicles.

As for shifting to green electricity consumption, the plan underlined that newly-added renewable energy and energy used as raw materials would be excluded from the cap on total energy consumption. The proportion of green electricity in residential power consumption will be raised.