Revolutionary energy transition needed

With the world's largest population and the second-largest, and still-growing economy, China's energy development roadmap is a global concern. China accounts for almost half the world's annual coal consumption, so an energy development roadmap that reduces China's coal consumption is critical to keeping the average global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius, as enshrined in the Copenhagen Accord.

Yet the conventional wisdom in China is coal is indispensable. Mainstream energy experts tend to use "rich in coal, short in oil and gas" to depict China's resource landscape and argue that China can only rely on coal for its energy.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The rich in coal, short in oil and gas narrative was developed half a century ago, when renewable energy choices were limited and fossil fuels were the primary options to support large-scale industrialization and urbanization. In addition, it was never expected back then that China's total energy consumption would soar so fast, and that it would suffer so much as a result of burning fossil fuels.

If we included in China's energy landscape the fact that China has extensively abundant resources of clean renewable energy, would coal still be regarded as indispensable?

The WWF's recent report "China's Future Generation" shows that by adopting enhanced nationwide energy saving and efficiency measures, and demonstrating the political courage to stop building new coal-fired power plants from 2020 and then to ban coal power from 2040, current proven technologies of renewable energy could support more than 80 percent of China's growing power demand towards 2050, while reducing emissions from the power sector by 90 percent. This could be achieved with even greater economic efficiency and without increasing fossil fuel imports and compromising energy security.

Coal supporters and their vested interests will be opposed to this, and they will seek to block the renewable energy road with climate change skepticism. But China's mainstream coal narrative is wrong, considering that China already leads the world in the manufacture of renewable energy solutions, wind and solar in particular. And this manufacturing advantage will be increasingly enhanced with growing technological know-how and expertise. China is already home to the most installed renewable electricity generation capacity in the world. For four years running, China has invested more in renewable energy than any other country. For example, China has constantly increased its solar photovoltaic installation since the start of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2010-15), and it is on course for seven times more than its original goal of 5GW by 2015.

The central government is playing a crucial role in directing China's energy roadmap toward a renewable energy revolution. China's Renewable Energy Law and its supporting regulatory measures, including concession bidding, feed-in tariffs, the mandatory purchase of renewable power, among other things, have effectively leveraged key stakeholders for the country's ambition to achieve a renewable energy transition.