Beijing, May 5 (ZXS) -- Du Xiangwan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, former vice president and adviser to the National Climate Change Expert Committee, said on May 30 that China's economic and social transformation is "the most arduous."
At the 2023 Forest and Grass Carbon Sequestration Innovation International Forum held on the same day, Du Xiangwan shared his views on how China can achieve the "dual carbon" goal.
He said that actively addressing climate change has become a global consensus and is profoundly affecting global value bodies. Driving China's technological innovation and development transformation with the goal of "dual carbon" is an inherent requirement for China's high-quality economic and social development, an inevitable requirement for high-level protection of the ecological environment, and a historical opportunity to narrow the gap with the development level of major developed countries. "Tackling climate change is our own doing, not what others want us to do. China should maintain strategic determination to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. ”
Du Xiangwan said that China's realization of the "dual carbon" goal faces many difficulties and challenges, such as large emission reductions, heavy transformation tasks, and tight time windows. In 2020, the average greenhouse gas emissions of Chinese will be about 10 tons, which is about 1.5 times the global per capita level, which has exceeded the per capita emissions of the European Union, and the average carbon dioxide emissions of Chinese exceed 7 tons, which is about 1.7 times the global per capita level, and has exceeded developed countries such as the United Kingdom and France. "China has entered the ranks of high-emitting countries, and sustainable economic and social development in the future will drive the continuous growth of energy consumption, and the pressure on greenhouse gas increments remains huge."
Du Xiangwan said that China's low-carbon transformation problems are prominent, first, the industrial structure is heavy, the secondary industry contributes about 40% to GDP (gross domestic product), energy consumption accounts for about 68%, second, the energy structure is biased towards coal, coal consumption accounted for 2021% of total energy consumption in 56, third, the comprehensive efficiency is low, and the energy intensity is about 1.5 times the global average.
He pointed out that China's economic and social development and energy system urgently need a comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation. China plans to achieve carbon peak to carbon neutrality in about 30 years, which is significantly shorter than the 50~70 years of developed countries. ”
Despite the daunting challenges, Du said that by taking the initiative and accelerating technological progress and development transformation, China can still achieve high-quality carbon peaking and carbon neutrality on schedule.
He suggested that to achieve the "dual carbon" goal, complex system engineering calls for in-depth management and scientific and technological innovation, the construction of a new power system with a gradually increasing proportion of new energy, and calls for financial support and enterprise participation. At the same time, it is necessary to grasp the rhythm, be proactive and steady, and prevent "one-size-fits-all" simplification, as well as poor transformation, which leads to backward and ineffective investment. (End)