Hydrogen potential huge, climate envoy tells Beijing summit

China is forging ahead with plans to tap hydrogen's potential to ensure national energy security and reduce carbon emissions, according to special climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua.

"Global climate change is no longer a future challenge, but a current, actual and urgent threat," he said, addressing a summit on hydrogen use hosted by the All-China Environment Federation in Beijing on World Earth Day on Friday.

The energy sector is key to tackling climate change. As an important secondary energy source, hydrogen has far-reaching significance in ensuring energy security and in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, he noted.

Major developed economies have all devised policies and measures to encourage the development of a hydrogen economy, he said. China has also committed itself as it seeks to turn its ambitious climate targets — peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060 — into reality.

Xie said that the policy system being created to achieve these targets includes a plan to promote the coordinated development of a hydrogen industrial chain, from production, storage and transportation to application, particularly in the industrial, transportation and construction sectors.

"Actually, we have good demonstration projects in all these sectors," Xie said.

In March, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, unveiled plans for the development of hydrogen during the 2021-2035 period, citing it as a key element in the country's future energy system, he continued.

Under the plan, China aims to have a fleet of 50,000 hydrogen-fueled vehicles and to produce 100,000 to 200,000 metric tons of renewable energy-based green hydrogen per year by 2025.

Xie said that the plan demonstrates the huge potential for the use of hydrogen in the energy, transportation and industrial sectors.