Report: China's Energy Transformation Requires Low-Carbon, Resilient, and Inclusive Development
Source：21世纪经济网
Sep 27, 2022
Report: China's Energy Transformation Requires Low-carbon, Resilient, and Inclusive Development
Source: 21st Century Business Herald, September 27, 2022
Energy transformation is an important measure to mitigate climate change.
"The carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption are the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, developing and establishing a clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy system has become an important strategy for promoting global sustainable development and is also the current trend," said He Jiankun, Director of the National Expert Committee on Climate Change and Chair of the China Energy Modeling Forum (CEMF) Academic Committee, at a recent Zero Carbon Think Tank forum.
At the same time, the CEMF also released an in-depth report titled "Low-carbon, Resilient, and Inclusive Development of Energy Transformation" (referred to as the "Report").
Energy industry transformation is crucial.
During the press conference, Wu Mouyuan, Deputy Director of the Economic and Technological Research Institute of China National Petroleum Corporation and a strategic research expert, summarized China's path to low-carbon energy transformation with the four words: "carbon reduction, carbon utilization, carbon substitution, and carbon sequestration." He stated that there are many choices for traditional energy companies to participate in the entire energy transformation process.
According to the report released this time, under the "dual carbon" goal, China's low-carbon energy transformation must form a clean, low-carbon, safe, and sustainable energy system with new energy as the main component. In this regard, various departments need to focus mainly on increasing the proportion of non-fossil energy demand, the share of non-fossil energy generation, significant improvement in electrification levels in terminal sectors, enhancing energy efficiency in industrial and transportation sectors, and other aspects.
he report points out that achieving the "dual carbon" goal is time-critical and challenging, with energy industry transformation being the key to achieving low-carbon development in China. The changing international geopolitical and energy supply-demand patterns, as well as the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, bring many new challenges to energy transformation. There are complex interrelationships between the energy system and the economic, social, and environmental systems. Therefore, energy transformation is not only a transformation of the energy system but also a systemic transformation of the economy and society.
The research results of the CEMF team on the path to achieving carbon neutrality indicate that driving energy's low-carbon transformation through a combination of policies such as high-intensity electricity substitution, renewable energy development, and energy efficiency improvement can help China achieve its macroeconomic development goals. Overall, achieving carbon neutrality shows a trend of small fluctuations in the early stages and larger fluctuations in the later stages. Therefore, achieving peak emissions efficiently, rapidly, and with high quality and achieving early and deep emissions reductions will reduce the cost and difficulty of achieving long-term carbon neutrality goals.
Energy's low-carbon transformation is a long-term process.
He Jiankun pointed out that there are still some technical issues to be resolved regarding ensuring the safe supply and operation of the energy system. For example, we need powerful energy storage methods and need to balance energy and power at different times of the day or seasonally.
Li Junfeng, a partner at Sequoia Capital China and Executive Director of the China Energy Research Society, stated that the low-carbon goals of the energy transition are established, and their secure resilience is also established. The issues that occurred in Sichuan this year were not related to energy transition but rather the vulnerabilities of the energy system itself. This summer, the tight supply of hydropower in Sichuan has sounded an alarm for energy transition, highlighting the need to consider various aspects and dimensions of resilience in energy transition, including changes in nature, changes in the economy, and various situational changes.
A resilient energy system should have the ability to anticipate and respond to risks, quickly and flexibly adapt to disturbances, and recover rapidly and adapt to future risk patterns after disturbances. Achieving resilient development in energy transition requires the systematic construction of a resilient development framework, providing vital support for enhancing the energy system's resilience in the processes of preparation, perception, response, recovery, and adaptation when facing risks.
The report suggests that diversifying the power supply structure, including traditional thermal power generation, renewable energy, and other sources, as well as applying centralized, distributed, and mobile power supply modes and energy storage technologies, can enhance the power system's resilience. Prior to the large-scale application of energy storage technologies, the role of thermal power as a backup guarantee is indispensable. Furthermore, strengthening the power system's resilience requires constructing large-scale transmission systems to support interregional power transmission.
It is worth noting that energy transition is a matter of the national economy and people's livelihoods, involving complex stakeholders, including governments at different levels and regions, all enterprises and practitioners in the energy industry chain, and the general population dependent on the energy industry for the production and daily life. These stakeholders may have different demands for economic benefits, social development, and ecological environment protection. Therefore, they may make different choices based on their interests, impacts, and positions during the energy transition process, thereby influencing the progress and outcomes of the energy transition.
Only through inclusive development can energy transition achieve a balance of interests among different stakeholders, eliminate potential adverse effects caused by unequal distribution, and reduce resistance to the energy transition. Li Junfeng emphasized the importance of inclusiveness, stating that cooperation and inclusiveness are key to the successful global energy transition and the successful energy transition in China.
The report suggests that promoting inclusive development in energy transition requires the construction of regional diversified energy transition plans based on a people-centered approach. It is necessary to plan for the orderly phasing out of fossil energy, implement arrangements for related industries' transformation and upgrading, anticipate the potential impacts on different groups, provide more policy and financial support to vulnerable groups, establish mechanisms for coordinating interests to ensure the fair distribution of transformation costs and benefits, establish transparent and inclusive decision-making and implementation mechanisms involving broader participation from governments, enterprises, research institutions, and the public in the formulation and implementation of plans, and establish long-term mechanisms for tracking the development of people, society, and regions, ensuring the recording and preservation of information and data to support scientific decision-making.
Many local governments have already recognized the importance of resilience and inclusiveness in energy transition and are actively promoting related work. In November 2021, Beijing issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Resilient Cities." In recent years, Shanxi Province has also begun to practice the concept of inclusive development in addressing the reemployment of laid-off workers in the coal and steel industries. Data shows that in 2016, the coal and steel capacity reduction in Shanxi Province involved 25 coal mines and 1 steel enterprise, requiring the resettlement of 31,662 workers. By December 31, 2016, 31,586 people had been properly resettled, with a resettlement rate of 99.76%. Resilience and inclusive development have begun to take shape
To accelerate the coordinated development of low-carbon, resilient, and inclusive energy transition, the report recommends that relevant decision-making departments and supporting institutions carry out related work as soon as possible. This includes establishing a detailed roadmap for the coordinated development of these three aspects, fully exploring and leveraging synergies, systematically constructing a framework for energy transition development, strengthening research on energy risk patterns, establishing an assessment indicator system for inclusive development in energy transition and incorporating it into assessment criteria, formulating differentiated energy transition strategies for different regions, improving social protection mechanisms, and promoting the participation of various stakeholders.
Ensuring resilience and inclusive development is of great significance to the energy transition. According to He Jiankun, strengthening technological innovation to promote energy transition is the only way to achieve coordinated and sustainable development of the economy, society, energy, and environment and to promote the construction of a global ecological civilization.
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