iCET News Express
The “iCET News Express” section provides updates on the progress of some of our exciting programs. We hope you enjoy these updates in addition to the regular news briefing we offer.
iCET presents at The International Forum on China Auto Industry Development 2011/ iCET出席2011中国汽车产业发展国际论坛
September 2nd – 4th, Tianjin – The International Forum on China Auto Industry Development, 2011 was held in Tianjin, China to discuss the annual theme of “Auto Society and Industry Future”. iCET President, Dr. Feng An attended the brainstorming discussion entitled “The harmonious development of vehicles, resources and environment”. He pointed out that China did not pay sufficient attention to energy efficiency in conventional automobiles, and that fuel consumption limits standards should be enforced strictly during the period of the 12th Five Year Plan. He also stressed that the development of new energy vehicles will require a very long process and that being hasty would damage the development of the industry.
During the conference, Dr. An accepted interviews from major media outlets including Sina, 163.com, Hexun and others. Relevant media reports are listed below:
Sina: “China Falling Behind on Conventional Vehicle Fuel Economy and Emissions Reduction’.Click to read the full story
163.com: “Electric Vehicles Require Government Support: No Profits for 5-10 Years”.Click to read the full story
Ifeng.com: “Optimal Allocation of Road Resources will Help Solve Road Congestion”.Click to read the full story
2011年9月2日—4日，2011中国汽车产业发展（泰达）国际论坛在天津召开。本次论坛的年度主题为“汽车社会与产业未来”，共同探索汽车产业与社会和谐发展之路。能源与交通创新中心总裁安锋博士参加了“汽车与资源和环境的协调发展”头脑风暴主题讨论，指出中国对传统汽车的节能减排关注力度仍不够，“十二五”期间需加大汽车燃料消耗限值标准实施力度，同时强调新能源汽车需要一个长期的发展过程，不应操之过急，短期急于求成将会对新能源汽车产业的发展造成巨大伤害。
会议期间，安锋博士还接受了新浪、网易、凤凰、和讯等多家媒体的专访，相关报道主题及链接如下：
新浪：中国对传统车节能减排关注力不够强。点击阅读
网易：电动车须靠政府扶持，5-10年不会盈利。点击阅读
凤凰：道路资源优化分配有利于解决拥堵。点击阅读
iCET President, Dr. Feng An attended the brainstorming discussion at the forum.
2011年9月3日，安锋博士参加“头脑风暴”主题讨论.
iCET’s gives speech at the 7th International Forum on Energy Saving and New Energy Innovation and Development. / iCET参加第七届国际节能与新能源汽车创新发展论坛并发表主题演讲
September 7th 2011, Beijing – The 7th “International Forum on Energy Efficiency and New Energy Vehicles Innovation and Development” was held at the National Conference Center in Beijing. The theme of the conference was “Intelligent Transportation Systems and New Energy Vehicles – Low Carbon Transportation”.
iCET’s transportation team participated in this forum. President Dr. Feng An was invited to make a speech entitled “Inspiration for new energy automotive development in California”, where he introduced California’s experiences on developing new energy vehicles, and raised ten suggestions for Chinese industry. He pointed out that Chinese automakers should carefully consider the technology gap between China and California, improve innovation and core competencies, and improve product quality. Governments need to establish a mature technology and market road map, improve fiscal policies, and guide the long-term development of the industry. It is also necessary for governments to coordinate with relevant departments and enterprises to create a win-win situation, increase the smart grid and electricity charge infrastructures, strengthen the public awareness education, and reinforce the enterprise autonomy.
Additionally, iCET invited Mr. Dave Rolf, Executive Director of the Hawaiian Automotive Dealer’s Association, to represent the Mayor of Honolulu to discuss the actions Honolulu is taking to promote electric vehicles and renewable energy for electric vehicles in Hawaii.
2011年9月7日，第七届“国际节能与新能源汽车创新发展论坛暨展览会”在北京国家会议中心召开，活动主题为“智能交通 新能源汽车——低碳绿色出行”。 能源与交通创新中心总裁安锋博士受邀在“节能与新能源汽车创新发展论坛”上发表了主题为《美国加州新能源汽车发展及对中国的启示》的演讲，重点介绍了美国加州在发展新能源汽车方面的经验，同时对中国发展新能源汽车提出了十点建议。安锋博士指出，中国汽车企业要正确判断技术差距，大力提高自主创新及核心竞争力，提高产品质量；政府要建立深思熟虑的技术及市场路线图，改进补贴政策，正确引导产业健康、稳定发展；协调相关部门、企业间利益，创造互利共赢的局面；加大智能电网及充换电基础设施建设，加强对公众的宣传教育；加强企业自主性，最终由市场（而非政府）选择优胜。
此外，iCET邀请了来自美国夏威夷州机动车协会的主席Dave Rolf 先生出席此次论坛. Rolf先生代表檀香山市市长介绍了夏威夷在促进电动车和电动汽车更新能源方面所作的举措。
September 7th, 2011, Dr. Feng An made a speech at the “International Forum on Energy Efficiency and New Energy Vehicles Innovation and Development”.
2011年9月7日，安锋博士在“节能与新能源汽车创新发展论坛”上发表演讲
General Energy Issues
China’s Renewable power consumption goal by '15
August 30 (China Daily): China's commercialized renewable energy consumption will provide for more than 9.5 percent of the total consumption during the period of 12th Five-year Plan (2010-15) period, China Securities News reported Tuesday citing authorities.
Hydropower
The country will accelerate the construction of eight ten-megawatts-level hydropower stations in the western area. The conventional utilizing scale should reach 260 megawatts by the end of 2015. The electricity generated will reach 910 terawatt-hours each year, and the pumped storage utilization should reach 30 gigawatts.
Wind power
By the end of 2015, the grid-connected installed capacity will reach 100 gigawatts, the annual electricity generated will run at 190 terawatts-hours, and the installed distributed wind power capacity should reach 25 gigawatts.
Solar power
The installed photovoltaic power capacity should reach 9 gigawatts, the installed solar thermal power capacity will reach 1 gigawatts, and the solar water heaters should be expanded to 400 million square meters.
Biomass power
The installed biomass power capacity should reach 13 gigawatts.
The policy will include objectives for geothermal, tidal energy, and ocean energy for the first time. Subsidies mechanism will be improved, and the direct transactions between power companies and end users will be encouraged. The policy will finalize the renewable energy generation quota for each administrative region at province, city, and district levels.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-08/30/content_13220506.htm
Nation a 'world leader' in energy saving
September 9 (China Daily): BEIJING - China has become a world leader in saving energy and reducing emissions, Sha Zukang, undersecretary-general of the United Nations, said after the opening ceremony of the High-Level Symposium on the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Beijing on Thursday.
"China is the world's top country in terms of the policy and measures implemented in the fields of energy conservation and emissions reduction," said Sha.
However, it is inevitable that China's total emissions will continue to increase because of its development stage, according to Sha.
"The government, therefore, will need to cautiously balance economic growth and emission reductions."
China announced energy-conservation and emissions-reduction targets for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period on Wednesday.
Under the plan, energy use for each 10,000 yuan ($1,538) of GDP, or energy intensity, will drop to 0.869 tons of coal equivalent by 2015, compared with 1.034 tons in 2010, the government said in a statement on its website.
The target represents a 32 percent decline from the 1.276 tons of coal equivalent in Chinese energy consumption in 2005.
By 2015, energy intensity will be reduced by 16 percent and carbon intensity by 17 percent from 2010 levels, according to Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
China aims to save 607 million tons of coal equivalent by 2015.
The plan also said the government will further reform resource taxation. Taxes on oil, natural gas and coal are to be based on price rather than volume and tax rates will rise.
Between 2000 and 2010, China's energy intensity fell 44 percent. GDP expanded 9.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2011, but the growth rate is forecast to slide below 9 percent next year for the first time since 2001.
Sha hoped a renewed sense of political commitment would be the outcome of next year's UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
He also stressed the importance of financial ministers' participation in formulating policies for sustainable development.
"Only by attracting more ministers of finance and foreign affairs to join in and run the council can we achieve the ideal goal of boosting energy conservation and sustainable development by economic cooperation," Sha said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2011-09/09/content_13657403.htm
China to develop energy-saving buildings
August 26 (Xinhua): BEIJING - A legislative report says China will speed up building renovations to make more structures energy-efficient.
The report on the implementation of the Energy Conservation Law was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, during its bi-monthly session that lasted from Wednesday to Friday.
The report proposes several measures to accelerate the development of energy-efficient buildings, including one measure that aims to have people pay for heating costs on a metered basis.
This would come as a radical change in China as people have only had to to pay for heating since 2004, and most heating charges in China are based on floor space, not energy consumption. Prior to 2004, the government totally subsidized heating costs and, in northern China, the government provides the heating supply to households during the winter.
The report also states that buildings with a total floor space of 400 million square meters or more should complete renovations of their heating facilities by 2015.
Furthermore, the effort to boost the number of energy-efficient buildings will also target government buildings and large public facilities, according to the report.
In rural areas, the focus is on updating stoves to ones that are wood- or coal-saving.
Also according to the report, several other measures have been proposed to conserve energy, including capping total energy consumption, upgrading technological components, and giving a boost to the service and other clean industries.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-08/26/content_13200982.htm
China Uses Feed-In Tariff to Build Domestic Solar Market
September 14 (The New York Times): SHANGHAI -- After years of simply taking advantage of overseas demand, China has taken a critical step to form its own solar market.
Since last month, project developers here can sell electricity generated from the sun to utilities at a price of about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour, a result of China's first nationwide feed-in tariff scheme for solar energy. And in some cases, depending on the timing and location of solar projects, the price is slightly higher.
Analysts attribute the birth of this long-awaited scheme to two urgent needs: keeping the nation's promise to use non-fossil fuels amid nuclear development setbacks, and feeding its hungry solar manufacturers for whom overseas markets are no longer sufficient.
Up to now, China lacked efficient financial incentives to nurture its solar energy use. In many cases, analysts say, project developers here could barely break even, let alone get a decent investment return.
However, with the newly issued feed-in tariff that guarantees a payback time in a matter of seven years and cash yields for nearly another two decades, developers in China are having a greater desire to harness the sun.
Already, in western China's Qinghai province, for instance, the local labor pool was dried up by solar project developers shortly after the issuing of the feed-in tariff. Among the developers who are scrambling for ways to get more workers, China Power Investment Corp. reportedly asked help from the military and contracted for 2,000 soldiers to install solar panels.
Using solar to fill a nuclear power gap
Before this surge, solar energy laid on the bottom of China's list of domestic clean energy plans. While the nation manufactured 10 gigawatts of solar panels in 2010 alone, less than 1 gigawatt was installed here in total. Instead, cost-competitive nuclear power took the lead in the Chinese clean energy strategy, until a turning point appeared early this year.
As neighboring Japan was hit by a nuclear disaster caused by earthquakes and a tsunami wave, the world's largest nuclear power plant constructor China has halted its approval for new projects due to safety concerns. Meanwhile, four nuclear power plants, which were approved just days before the Japanese disaster, were ordered to freeze their construction efforts.
But what didn't get frozen is China's promise of using more green power. As 15 percent of the country's power supply will come from non-fossil fuels by 2020, the slowdown in nuclear power development has to be compensated by using other emissions-free power sources like solar energy for instance.
On top of that, Chinese policymakers are being pressured by solar manufacturers to create more demand. Since Italy and other European countries -- which absorb more than 80 percent of Chinese solar panels -- recently slashed subsidies for solar energy, China, which is known as "World's Solar Factory" for its manufacturing scale, has seen its production outstrip the demand.
Already, second-tier Chinese solar manufacturers are being hit and will start going out of business, said Charles Yonts, who heads sustainable research at CLSA, an Asia-focused investment group in Hong Kong. Statistics show that some of the larger manufacturers are also seeing a free-fall in their profit margins.
China's solar industry gets 'cheered up'
That is the case of LDK Solar, a Chinese solar manufacturer listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company's gross profit margin dropped to 2.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 18 percent the period a year ago, according to its statement. And, to ensure its future growth, the company executive stated, it will seek opportunities created by the feed-in tariff at home in China.
LDK Solar isn't alone. Yingli Green Energy, another Chinese solar giant, aims to sell one fifth of its products here this year, up from fewer than 10 percent in 2010. And while another company, Suntech Power, holds cautious tone on future sales to China, the Chinese solar industry leader did admit that there is a positive impact from the feed-in tariff.
"This cheered up the Chinese solar industry," said Lei Ting, vice president at Suntech Power. "The uncertainty of purchasing prices made investors hesitant to develop solar projects in China. But now, with the feed-in tariff, developers will be more active in the Chinese market."
His words proved to be true in the Gobi desert city of Golmud. Over the past years, only 40 megawatts of solar panels were installed on this sun-rich land. But driven by the feed-in tariff, its installed solar panels capacity is expected to hit at least 300 megawatts within less than six months.
A similar increase is also being seen in Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and other parts of China, pushing this year's estimated solar panel installation to reach 2,000 megawatts, twice the country's total installed capacity so far.
Despite such a rapid growth, however, the feed-in tariff may not propel China to become the world's top solar energy market as was the case of wind power.
Wu Dacheng, vice chairman at Photovoltaic Committee of Chinese Renewable Energy Society, an influential organization in Beijing, said that China is more likely to set up a ceiling for its solar energy growth due to cost concerns as well as avoiding a mistake made in its wind power sector.
The industry may be ready, but the grid isn't
Since China issued a similar feed-in tariff scheme for wind projects in 2009, it overtook the United States to become the world's number one wind power market. But the nation's grid infrastructure failed to cope with such a big jump.
Not all newly installed wind turbines in China found electric lines around to get hooked to. And for connected wind turbines, they were often forced to be shut down during peak winds, as the existing power grid is too weak to handle the unpredictable off-and-on nature of wind power surges.
Thus, in the first half of 2010 alone, wind-generated electricity that could have been used by about 10 million Chinese for a whole year ended up with being abandoned, according to the latest government figures.
To avoid the same waste happening to solar projects, experts predicted that its growth will be closely watched and controlled by Chinese officials. Yet even with that, some claim, the challenge still persists.
"Although the feed-in tariff is given nationwide, it is only profitable in western China which is rich in sunlight resources," said Lin Boqiang, an energy expert at Xiamen University. "Most of China's future solar projects will be built there as a result, but that region lacks industries and population big enough to consume power that those projects generate. And so, much of the electricity has to be sent thousands of miles away to the power-hungry eastern China."
State Grid, China's largest electricity transmission company, is now expanding, upgrading and smartening its grids to respond. But there are no details on the costs of building up such grid and who will pay for it, Lin said.
"Thanks to the feed-in tariff, China's solar market may grow very quickly in the next two or three years," Lin said. "But then it will probably get stuck with grid connection just like the case of wind power."
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/09/14/14climatewire-china-uses-feed-in-tariff-to-build-domestic-25559.html?pagewanted=2
China plays hardball with Russia on energy deals
September 14 (JapanTimes): SINGAPORE — China's President Hu Jintao has a reserved demeanor. So it is hard to imagine him as a poker player. But in energy politics with neighboring Russia, he certainly is.
On a visit in midyear to the world's biggest natural gas exporter and one of the top oil suppliers, Hu made it plain that his energy-hungry nation had a voracious appetite for Russian resources to fuel its economy.
He talked about Sino-Russian trade growing from $55 billion in 2010 to$100 billion by 2015, and $200 billion by 2020. Much of this would be Russian energy exports to China, including oil, gas, hydro-electricity and coal.
Indeed, a long-term framework for a strategic partnership is already in place between Russia and China, to be built largely on energy cooperation. The first bilateral accords on joint projects in the energy sector were signed in 2006, to be implemented over the next 15 years.
One became fully operational in January, with Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft pumping oil to China through a new pipeline. But a second, involving construction of two separate gas pipelines from Russia to China, has been delayed by a protracted disagreement overpricing.
Meanwhile, both sides have argued over the amount China should be paying for the pipeline oil. The third project, a joint venture to build an oil refinery and retail fuel station network in China, is also mired in dispute.
For the oil pipeline, China loaned $25 billion to Rosneft and the Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft, in exchange for oil imports from Russia for 20 years. From January, the volume was to be 300,000 barrels per day.
Although these energy deals seemed to be complementary, finding a mutually acceptable balance of advantage has so far proven difficult for Moscow and Beijing. China claims it is being overcharged by Russia for the pipeline oil and has demanded that the pricing formula be revised downward. It has reportedly withheld $85 million in payments to the Russian companies. They insist that China is underpaying and is in breach of contract.
China appears to be playing hardball, signaling to Russia that unless acceptable pricing arrangements for both pipeline oil and gas are agreed, the promised energy cooperation will not go ahead as planned.
Some Chinese analysts had predicted that with the oil pipeline in place, Russia would become one of the top three oil suppliers to China, easing its dependence on imports from the volatile Middle East and Africa by sea through the Malacca and Singapore straits. China imports over 55 percent of its oil, of which over 80 percent is from the Middle East and Africa.
Pipeline gas from Russia was seen as strategically vital for China too. The two proposed gas pipelines were to carry as much at least 68 billion cubic meters (BCM) per year of Russian gas to China, about two-thirds of total Chinese gas consumption in 2010.
To reduce its heavy reliance on polluting coal, China plans to raise cleaner burning gas consumption in its energy mix to 10 percent by 2020,from around 4 percent today. The first pipeline from Russia was supposed to start delivering gas to China this year. But despite extensive negotiations,the two sides have been unable to reach a pricing agreement.
Meanwhile, China has developed another overland gas pipeline route from Turkmenistan in Central Asia. According to a recent assessment by British oil advisory firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates, Turmenistan has the world's second largest gas reserves after Russia.
Since it opened in late 2009, the 7,000-km pipeline from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to China has proven to be a reliable supply source. Last month, China and Turkmenistan agreed to double the pipeline's annual capacity to 60 BCM per year by 2015, not far short of the amount the two Russian gas pipelines to China were intended to carry.
In addition, Beijing signed an accord with Kazakhstan this month to more than double the volume of pipeline gas exports to China to 25 BCM by December 2015. Beijing reached an agreement with Uzbekistan in June 2010 to deliver 10 billion BCM of pipeline gas to China and this amount may also rise.
Beijing is trying to drive a hard bargain with Moscow on gas prices now that it has contracted to import large quantities of liquefied natural gas from Australia and the Middle East, and pipeline supplies from Burma as well as Central Asia. The trans-Burma pipeline is under construction and is designed to deliver 14 BCM of Burmese gas to China from 2013.
Russia calculates that world gas demand will rise as governments seek to cut coal use and re-evaluate their commitment to nuclear power after the disaster with several reactors in Japan earlier this year. Gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels.
However, in its game of energy poker and pipeline politics with Russia,Beijing is evidently gambling that a decline in oil and gas prices as global economic growth slows will force Moscow to drop its prices to secure long-term energy deals with China. There is currently a global gas glut that is largely the result of a boom in shale gas output in the U.S.
At present, most of Russia's export gas and much of its oil goes to Europe. But the Russian economy is dangerously dependent on oil and gas sales. They account for as much as half of Russia's gross domestic product. Although Russia has huge exportable reserves of energy particularly in Siberia and the Arctic, it needs secure foreign sales to be able to exploit them. China is a potentially huge market — but only if the price is right.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20110914mr.html
China is Interested in Biofuels - Why Not the West?
September 12 - Biofuels remain the orphan child of western energy interests – like adopting children, everyone agrees that it’s a good idea, but not many want an alien rugrat in the house.
Now China, arguably the world’s most influential and dynamic economy, is beginning to eye renewable as a partial solution to its voracious and growing energy needs. If Beijing determines that biofuels represent the future, expect to see the current modest western investment field to change dramatically.
As yet, China’s involvement is modest. According to a PetroChina company official, the firm intends to increase its production of biofuels by 2015 to 1.1 million tons and import and additional 470,000 tons. PetroChina, a traditional hydrocarbon company, is clearly thinking outside the box to increase its alternative energy portfolio.
According to PetroChina's Petrochemical Research Institute deputy chief engineer Fu Xingguo, China is looking at generating 933,000 tons annually of fuel ethanol and 165,000 tons of biodiesel.
According to Fu, China is looking to import biofuel from countries such as Brazil, the world’s largest producer of ethanol, which will then be blended with regular hydrocarbon-derived traditional fuels and sold to southern Chinese provinces.
Looking towards the future, Fu added that some PetroChina Jet A-1 civilian aviation biofuel will be used in a test flight next month, but gave no further details, such as the feedstock used to produce the fuel.
Finally, Fu noted that China has around 1.52 million tons of fuel ethanol capacity, which mainly use grains as feedstocks.
In those accustomed to reading between the lines, Petrochemical Research Institute deputy chief engineer’s last comment is the most significant.
Grains as feedstocks.
The United States now devours approximately one-third of its corn output to produce ethanol, thanks in large part to a bloated bureaucracy and an influential farm lobby sucking down subsidies.
China has no such luxury to shift agricultural land from food production to renewables, as its arable land is needed to support the appetites of approximately 1.3 billion people.
Chinese indigenous production of domestic biofuel will accordingly remain marginal at best.
That said, should China determine that renewable biofuels are an important future component of the country’s diversified energy portfolio, the fiscal resources that it could throw at the issue would completely transform global biofuel production, particularly in the Third World.
A number of issues are blunting the introduction of increased biofuel production in developed countries.
First and foremost is that no one has yet figured out how to produce biofuel on an industrial scale that could compete with oil prices, even at $100 a barrel. Like solar and its kilowatt issues, biofuels at present remain a more expensive option.
Secondly, particularly in the United States, the biofuel market has been captured by the ethanol lobby, which provides farmers not only with subsidies, but crop insurance as well.
Last but hardly least is the fact that no single potential biofuel feedstock has emerged as a clear winner, although camelina seems to moving increasingly into first place.
That said, even in the U.S., a slow groundswell of support for renewable biofuel production is emerging, with both the Carlyle Group and Goldman Sachs selectively investing in various projects. Neither firm is overly adventurous in risk-taking, which indicates that eventually biofuels will receive the funding which it currently lacks.
Should China exercise its immense fiscal clout, particularly in the developing world where it has spent decades cultivating governments and contacts, the picture could change quickly. A major focus of Chinese investment over the past decade has been Africa, and if Beijing decides that biofuel is the way to go to diversify is energy portfolio, given the land constraints within China itself, expect to see a major drive to produce renweables on the Dark Continent.
Furthermore, expect to see China completely ignore environmentalists’ concerns about shifting land from food production to biofuel.
Amongst China’s many economic accomplishments, an overriding signal concern for human rights, either in China or in the countries it invests in, is notable by its absence.
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/China-is-Interested-in-Biofuels-Why-Not-the-West.html
China needs to act fast to develop nuclear sector -official
Aug 30 (Reuters): BEIJING - China needs to draw up new and "clear" policies if it is to avoid falling behind other countries in the development of its nuclear sector, a senior energy official said in remarks published on Tuesday.
Zhang Guobao, who stepped down as head of China's National Energy Administration in March and now serves on the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said Beijing needed to act fast as the likes of Britain, South Korea and Russia pledge to push forward with their own nuclear programmes.
"If there is not a clear development target, it will not only affect energy policy, but it will harm our country's status as a nuclear power," he said in a speech published on the website of the China Nuclear Energy Association (www.china-nea.cn).
China's bullish nuclear sector remains frustrated by a suspension imposed in the wake of a devastating tsunami that hit Japan's northeast coast and left the ageing Fukushima reactor complex on the brink of meltdown.
Earlier this year, China was expected to announce a new 2020 capacity target of more than 80 gigawatts, up from 10.9 gigawatts at the end of 2010, but the target is expected to be scaled back considerably.
A nationwide safety inspection of plants in operation as well as those under construction was finally completed earlier this month, but it remains unclear when new projects will be allowed to resume.
Zhang said the suspension of new project approvals was likely to last at least for the whole of this year, adding that China should use the inevitable slowdown in construction over the next five years to address weaknesses in the sector, including manufacturing capacity and technological innovation.
He said the government needed to set about rebuilding confidence in nuclear power, and also needed to recognise the impact of the suspension on China's nuclear firms, including equipment manufacturers now suffering a collapse in orders.
Zhang said the crisis at Fukushima could provide China with an opportunity to "reach and overtake" the rest of the world.
"After five years of rapid development, we are building core competitiveness in equipment manufacturing, project construction, fuel cycles and other areas," he said.
"If we don't continue to move forward as a result of the Fukushima nuclear accident, we will have fallen short of success," he said.
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL4E7JU0LS20110830
Automobile and Transportation
Pilot cities to test vehicle power pricing
September 6 (China Daily): BEIJING - A new electricity pricing system for electric vehicles is likely to be established in pilot cities to boost China's fledging new-energy vehicle industry, experts said.
New-energy vehicles will become big electricity consumers and provide a potential market for power companies' future operations, Li Ying, chief economist of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, told China Daily.
China's power system charges different rates for residential, agricultural and industrial users.
"A new category for electricity use might be developed for new-energy vehicles," Li said, adding that the issue is under study but there is no timetable for such rates.
Designing the pricing system would be complicated, given the different voltage levels and load rates used by charging stations, as well as the costs of battery charging or swapping infrastructure, he said.
However, he said, charging costs would be kept below those for petroleum products to maintain the competitiveness of electric vehicles, and an interactive mechanism between oil and electricity prices should be established to better respond to market fluctuations, he said.
State Grid Corp of China is the country's largest power grid operator. The company has said that it will build 1,700 charging stations and 3 million charging poles by the end of 2015.
Liu Yongdong, deputy director of the electric power standardization center under the China Electricity Council, said the top priority is to unify the standards for charging infrastructure.
"It's too early to set a national pricing system due to the small number of electric vehicles on the road, but pioneering cities doing well in promoting new-energy vehicles could go ahead in coming out with a new pricing system," he said.
Work has already started in Shenzhen, the hometown of BYD Co Ltd, a city trying hard to shift to new-energy vehicles.
Cao Hongbin, vice-president of Potevio Co Ltd, told China Daily that the company is working with the authorities in Shenzhen to gather data to support the design of a pricing system.
Potevio, a State-owned telecommunication equipment maker, entered the new-energy vehicle industry three years ago in a move to diversify.
Potevio has built 57 power charging-switching stations in Shenzhen, with 850 charging positions. It operates the stations and supervises new-energy vehicles on the road through an intelligent management network designed by the company, which can monitor battery safety and usage.
"A new pricing system is important for the commercial-scale application of electric vehicles, but there is scant data support for setting prices," Cao said.
New-energy vehicles are one of the seven strategic emerging industries designated by the government, although support policies are still awaiting approval.
The trend is for China to gradually move away from oil and use more clean energy, said experts.
An Feng, president of the Beijing-based Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a nonprofit organization, said drivers in the United States can easily charge their cars overnight in the garage, but most Chinese drivers living in apartments will have to go to charging stations.
"A hurdle is that it would be very challenging to unify the charging infrastructure and batteries from different automakers," he said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-09/06/content_13627307.htm
Cabinet revs up plans to boost new-energy vehicle purchases
September 5 (China Daily): BEIJING - China's State Council, or cabinet, is considering a development plan for new-energy vehicles, according to Su Bo, vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
"All relevant government agencies involved in drafting the plan had a high level of agreement on the plan," Su said at an auto industry conference in Tianjin on Saturday. He didn't give details on when the plan will be approved or the measures proposed.
The industry and finance ministries, together with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the nation's top economic policymaking agency, are also working to continue a subsidy program for energy-saving vehicles and will increase the qualifying threshold, Su said.
China is encouraging the development of alternative-energy automobiles to reduce emissions and fuel imports. The government aims to have 1 million electric-powered vehicles running on roads by 2015, according to the Ministry of Science.
The finance ministry may lower taxes on new-energy vehicles and key components as part of efforts to develop the industry, Wang Wei, director of the ministry's tariff department, said at the same forum on Saturday.
"There is no doubt that developing electric vehicles is the common goal for automakers and the government has been encouraging automakers to do so," said Zhang Xin, an auto analyst with Guotai Junan Securities Co in Beijing. "Consumers will make the ultimate call as to whether electric vehicles can beat traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles and hybrids."
China's auto sales growth will slow to about 3 percent to 5 percent this year after government incentives that boosted deliveries in 2010 were removed, according to State Information Center Research Director Xu Changming.
Deliveries will likely be about 19 million units this year, according to Xu, whose center is a unit of the NDRC.
"The third quarter may be better than the second as September and October are traditionally hot seasons for auto sales, but I don't expect a big improvement," Xu said in an interview at the forum. "I don't expect any more stimulus policies from the government in the near future."
China's auto sales have slowed this year after surging 32 percent in 2010 to a record, as the government phased out sales-tax breaks and rebates for rural purchases. Total vehicle deliveries expanded 3.2 percent in the first seven months, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Xu's forecast is in line with the auto association, which lowered its previous estimated 10 percent to 15 percent growth this year to about 5 percent in July.
The State Information Center is conducting research on consumer acceptance of electric vehicles to see whether and under what circumstances buyers will opt for the alternative-energy cars, he said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-09/05/content_13616515.htm
China Aims to Rein In Car Sales
September 5 (The New York Times):TIANJIN — After a decade of nurturing China’s auto industry to become the largest in the world, this country’s leaders are having second thoughts.
A succession of government officials at a weekend conference called for China’s automakers to shift their focus from making ever more cars and toward producing more fuel-efficient and more advanced models, including gasoline-electric hybrids and all-electric cars.
“The government must take the leading role in controlling unrealistic growth” of the auto industry, Jiang Kejun, the influential director of the Energy Research Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning agency, said Sunday during a speech at the conference.
Lu Shize, director of air pollution control at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, echoed Mr. Jiang, saying that “for the auto industry to develop, we should not try to sell more, but to improve the units sold.”
The government officials did not say how they would restrict growth. But growth has already slowed partly because of limits on the number of new cars that can be registered each month in Beijing, and mostly because government incentives expired at the start of this year. Those incentives were subsidies for rural buyers and a two-year reduction in the sales tax on new family vehicles.
The officials’ remarks strongly suggested that the Chinese auto industry’s lobbying for the reinstatement of the incentives would fail and that restrictions on registering new cars would be extended to more cities.
Any slowdown in growth is likely to shock the world’s automakers. Practically every American, European, Japanese and South Korean automaker is expanding in China, including General Motors, Ford Motor, Nissan Motor and PSA Peugeot Citroën. Chinese automakers are building assembly plants even faster.
Years of double-digit expansion have increased Chinese auto production to almost 17 million cars, minivans, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles last year, from fewer than two million in 2000, making it almost twice the size of the United States or Japanese industries and far larger than any European country’s auto manufacturing sector.
Growth in China culminated in a burst of sales in 2009 and 2010 as the government cut taxes on car sales to stimulate the economy during the global economic downturn.
J.D. Power & Associates, the global consults, estimated last month that China would have a manufacturing capacity of 31 million vehicles by 2013. Yet the domestic market has decelerated sharply this year, with sales of family vehicles up just 5 percent in the first seven months, compared with the period a year earlier. By contrast, sales had soared 33 percent in 2010, compared with 2009.
Much slower sales growth this year has prompted strong lobbying by the auto industry for a renewal of government incentives. But if anything, policy makers seem to be leaning toward more limits to address China’s steeply rising dependence on imported oil and its traffic jams, air pollution and shortages of land in many areas for more road construction.
Officials in Beijing have urged the auto industry to improve technology for years. But they clearly shifted their tone at the conference this weekend in calling for curbs on the industry’s overall growth in sales and production.
Many Chinese automakers are partly or entirely owned by municipal or provincial governments, however, and these lower tiers of government have pushed their manufacturers to expand as fast as possible to maximize jobs and economic output.
But limits on car sales in big cities may pressure Chinese automakers to slow down. The municipal government of Beijing, China’s largest single market with 4 percent of sales last year, stunned the industry last December by imposing stringent limits on the number of new-car registrations each month, effectively imposing a decline in sales of close to 70 percent.
Industry executives argued that this was purely a response to severe traffic jams in Beijing and lobbied for the central government not to let other cities take the same course.
Shanghai is unusual in having limited car registrations since 1994 because its historic city center has many narrow old streets. But with the exception this summer of Guiyang in southern China, most Chinese cities have been awaiting signals from Beijing on whether to follow suit.
Mr. Jiang said during a brief interview Sunday on the sidelines of the conference in Tianjin that he expected other cities to do so. “Beijing is a very typical city from which other cities may learn,” he said.
Zhao Hang, the president of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, a government-affiliated complex of laboratories based here that organized the conference and that collaborates closely with automakers, expressed misgivings about further limits on car registrations. He said that the limits could discourage the replacement of older cars.
China has moved rapidly to adopt Western standards for automotive pollution control, gas mileage and safety. So cars just a few years old may pollute more, burn more gasoline and fare extremely badly in crashes.
Limits on car registrations have also meant that those who do win the right in lotteries to buy a car may be more likely to buy a large car than a small, more fuel-efficient model.
Mr. Zhao acknowledged that rapid growth in vehicle ownership had created problems.
Traffic accidents are the single biggest reason people in the Beijing area go to physical rehabilitation centers, he said.
Xiang Dihai, the director of economic construction at the Finance Ministry, said that the government would soon issue new subsidies for the auto industry, but that they would be aimed at high technology vehicles with very low fuel consumption. China already has national and local subsidies of 123,000 renminbi, or $19,300, for each all-electric car, but virtually none are sold.
Mr. Xiang said that China would proceed with plans to impose stricter fuel-economy standards by 2015, following recent moves by the United States, Japan and the European Union to require better gas mileage.
Auto executives from domestic and foreign automakers alike said in speeches at the conference and during interviews that they would do more to adopt advanced technologies, although domestic Chinese automakers tend to have modest research budgets and rely on multinational partners for their vehicle designs.
Largely unaddressed at the conference was what would happen to the industry’s emerging overcapacity.
The government has prohibited Chinese automakers from making big jumps into the American market and severely restricted their entry into the European market. They have also demanded that automakers increase vehicle quality considerably, and have suggested that high-volume exports may not be allowed to start until 2015 or so.
The goal has been to make sure that when large-scale exports begin, Chinese cars do not initially acquire the same reputation for shoddy quality that bedeviled the South Korean industry when it entered the American market and that took many years and offers of long, costly warranties to overcome.
Wu Song, the deputy general manager of the Guangzhou Automobile Group, which has alliances with a several Japanese automakers, said that President Hu Jintao of China had visited the company on Aug. 14 and told executives to improve technology.
The company plans to do that and start selling cars under its own brands, Mr. Wu said, adding, “We must own our own brands to compete in the international market.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/business/global/china-changes-direction-on-car-sales.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
Nissan gets OK to sell electric car Leaf in China
August 22 (Xinhua):CHANGCHUN-- Major Chinese automaker First Automobile Works (FAW) on Monday launched the first batch of its independently-developed new energy vehicles.
The first 20 new-energy vehicles include the company's Besturn plug-in hybrids (PHEV) and pure electric vehicles (EV).
Xu Jianyi, FAW chairman, said FAW will stick to the strategy of developing both hybrid and electric-fueled vehicles in the future.
"The company will invest 9.8 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in the next five years to develop and build eight new-energy vehicle production platforms," Xu said, adding that FAW has planned to develop 13 new-energy passenger car models and three commercial vehicle models during the period.
The company's production line will be soon able to realize a yearly production capacity of 10,000 units of new energy vehicles this year, he said.
The Besturn PHEV model, which has obtained patents in both China and America, can consume 60 percent less petro than a traditional car. It can drive 70 km on a single charge using only the electric motor, said FAW engineer Li Jun.
The Besturn EV model can run 170 km on a single charge, he said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-08/22/content_13165934.htm
China's FAW rolls out first batch of new energy vehicles
September 13 (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co has received approval from China to sell its electric vehicle Leaf there, and is prepared to export the model from Japan, Kimiyasu Nakamura, president of Nissan's China joint venture, told reporters on Tuesday.
"The Leaf does not hit the Chinese market's sweet spot now, in terms of price, but that will change as unit sales grow," Nakamura said, adding that a long-term goal would be manufacturing the Leaf in China. No sales date has been set.
Nissan, which also plans to launch a lower-priced electric vehicle designed for the Chinese market, is targeting annual sales in China of 2.3 million units in 2015, up from 1.3 million last year.
China is Nissan's largest market, where it has a 6.2 percent share, more than domestic rival Toyota Motor.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-nissan-idUSTRE78C0UW20110913
Lu Dadao: China Is Flying Blind on Transportation
September 14 (The Wall Street Journal): Lu Dadao has long warned about the risks of highway, railway and airport overbuilding in China. Now people are listening.
The 71-year-old Mr. Lu, president of Geographical Society of China, is China's leading economic geographer and a member of the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences. He headed a team of government researchers that last year issued a report criticizing the nation's vast transportation-building program for excessive investment.
He says he "faced great pressure" from officials unhappy with the report. But attitudes toward the infrastructure boom have shifted somewhat since the July 23 collision of two high-speed trains near Wenzhou that killed 40 people.
Mr. Lu spoke with Yue Zhen, a reporter for Caixin Media, a business and financial media group in China. Excerpts:
Caixin: What's the status of China's transportation initiative?
Lu Dadao: It's mainly about excessively big, redundant construction and unfair competition, as well as a lack of coordination between different modes of transport.
First, look at expressway construction. In 2008, the nationwide total mileage plan was adjusted up to 100,000 kilometers. That year alone we built 6,433 kilometers and invested a total of 600 billion yuan ($93.79 billion). Nationwide expressway mileage is expected to grow to a staggering 180,000 kilometers, if we add provincial and national building plans.
Personal vehicle traffic levels are too low on some expressways built over the past five years. Considerable stretches of expressway completed in central and western regions are usually empty, simply basking in the sun. Thus, expressway construction has suffered from excessive expansion. It's gotten out of control.
Second, overexpansion of coastal-port development and construction has clearly led to excessive competition between ports. China's port throughput capacity reached four billion tons in 2008, yet coastal communities continue to compete in the race to build large-scale berth and shipping-container ports. Every port authority makes lofty claims about becoming a coastal or international hub for commercial shipping.
Additionally, many regional airports are being built blindly, with huge investments but no feasibility studies. This has led to major losses. In 2008, national subsidies to small and medium-size airports reached 9.3 billion yuan ($1.45 billion). But by 2020, we'll have added another 100 or so airports, mainly regional airports. Every year recently, construction has begun on about 20 regional airports, and more are waiting to be approved.
Moreover, there's been a surging wave of railway-construction projects, including intercity rail linking big cities, suburbs and small cities in some provinces, regions and municipalities. Our research group found there will not be enough traffic to support the big, city-centered railway transportation systems after they are completed.
Caixin: But supply sometimes still can't meet demand. For example, during the Chinese New Year, railway tickets are extremely hard to get.
Lu: This relates to the problem of current demand versus long-term demand. Over the past few years, some medium- and long-term plans drafted by national and regional authorities have touched on the long term. But in terms of implementation in recent years, many projects have been running far in advance of demand.
In fact, most of our medium- and long-term plans are very backward because they do not take into account the regional particularities of passenger-traffic concentration. In provinces that are exporting manpower, transportation planning and construction can't keep up.
The future national framework transportation plan should be built on analyzing and forecasting traffic volume and direction. Too many highways have complicated socioeconomic systems in regions along their paths, fragmented the land and even destroyed socioeconomic ties. In a sense, expressways benefit the rich. There is no country like ours that builds expressways between every county, that violates the development pace of transportation systems and that skips stages of societal development.
Currently, China's expressway network accounts for 1.62% of total road network mileage, which is higher than in either Europe or America. In eastern regions, the expressway ratio is as high as 2.4%, and in the west it has reached 1.16%. This sort of road network clearly reflects one fact: Expressways, which play a backbone transportation role, are mismatched against other kinds of roads. The total expressway length is too great. A reasonable expressway mileage ratio is around 1.2%.
Caixin: Profit-driven but unrealistic "leapfrog" development has been widely mentioned in official documents. Is the pursuit of GDP growth and performance stars for government officials driving the transportation campaign?
Lu: Of course. Some local leaders think a big highway investment will play a large role in boosting the local economy. The search for profit and returns on short-term investment is prominent. Wild enthusiasm among local governments for transportation development often forces central government plans to be adapted to local plans. Plans for some local government transportation networks may be redone after new leaders are appointed.
In addition, the limitations of current management authority have led to fragmentation among various modes of transport, which relevant government departments have a hard time coordinating.
Caixin: How should we prepare for the next stage of transport-infrastructure construction?
Lu: There should be three areas of focus. First, optimize the transportation composition by rationally planning the density and composition of transportation networks in different regions, based on differences in population and economic density.
Second, enhance the efficiency of the overall transportation system and promote integrated transport development. The basic concept should be that highways are for short-distance transport and railways for long-distance, while aviation is for long-range and ultra-long-range transport. At the same time, this effort should be consistent with passenger- and cargo-flow direction and growth forecasts.
Third, accelerate construction of the primary road network in rural and farm areas. Particular attention should be paid to adjusting the scale of transportation-construction investment. With regard to the scale in recent years and problems with excessive expansion in recent years, we recommend holding transportation investment at 3% to 4% of GDP after the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-16).
Caixin: After the Wenzhou train crash, everyone has been concerned about the next step for high-speed rail. What kind of plan should high-speed rail construction follow?
Lu: Our view is that high-speed-railway development in China has only begun. We still lack practical experience in safety and economic efficiency, as well as coordination with civil aviation and expressways, and we need to consolidate existing domestic and international experience.
Internationally, the rational operating range for a high-speed railway is considered to be between 180 and 800 kilometers. On either end of this range are the operating ranges of expressways and aviation, respectively.
Caixin: There is a lot of talk about reforming various government departments. How do you see relations between transport authorities and other institutions?
Lu: Transport-related departments are currently too strong. Each has its own strong planning and design institutions. But authorities in charge of comprehensive coordination are too weak and cannot negate the plans of functioning departments, such as the transportation ministry.
There is no overall coordination for transportation construction, and department goals are neither unified nor coordinated. In this atmosphere, enthusiasm is stoked inside various departments, and the result is that each department launches individual, large-scale projects that greatly increase the overall scale and contribute to imbalance in the transport structure.
Thus, in the next phase of transportation planning, the National Development and Reform Commission, as a comprehensive coordination department, must bravely say "yes" or "no," and speak honestly, particularly when saying "no."
In addition, the government should, through public hearings and other methods, continue listening to people's views when planning projects. There must be a mechanism that gradually establishes a platform for people to participate and speak their minds.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576570084262352852.html
Climate Change
Emerging powers call for extending climate deal
August 27 (AFP): INHOTIM, Brazil — Brazil, South Africa, India and China said Saturday that November's UN climate talks should aim to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the only binding global deal to cut greenhouse gases.
The four key emerging powers -- seen as critical to the success of any future effort to combat climate change -- said keeping Kyoto alive should be the "central priority" at the key UN summit in South Africa.
The bloc released the statement after two days of talks in southeast Brazil to prepare for the next UN climate conference scheduled to take place in Durban from November 28 to December 9.
The ministers "reaffirmed that the Kyoto Protocol is a cornerstone of the climate change regime," it said.
Xie Zhenhua, a top Chinese climate change official, said he hoped the statement would "send a sign to the international community that we are pursuing efforts to make the Durban conference a success."
The four countries also said they hoped ministers gathered in Durban would work to get the Green Climate Fund -- which aims to channel billions of dollars in aid to poor countries exposed to climate change -- off the ground.
The Durban meeting is seen as the last chance to renew the Kyoto Protocol, whose initial five-year commitment period, covering 37 industrialized countries, expires at the end of 2012.
Its future is uncertain because China and the United States, the world's top two polluters, are not subject to its constraints.
Japan, Canada and Russia have all rejected a new round of carbon-cutting commitments, and the United States and the European Union have already said there is zero chance of reaching a binding emissions deal in Durban.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said Friday that the four emerging market countries have "done a lot to combat climate change and presented ambitious objectives."
"We demand that industrialized countries set more meaningful objectives toward CO2 reductions than what they have presented up to now," he said.
South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and India's deputy environment minister J.M. Mauskar also participated in the meeting at Inhotim.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkvGDI81YbOu5J5xtuaoplEuPyPg?docId=CNG.c306213b0b7f448df74278a7dc63e50d.cd1
UN climate boss says Durban talks can deliver
August 31 (Reuters): LONDON - A record rise in global greenhouse emissions and ever tighter economic constraints make it crucial for United Nations climate talks in South Africa in November to overcome years of deadlock and deliver a solution, the U.N.'s climate chief told Reuters.
Nearly two decades of U.N. climate change negotiations have so far failed to find a new binding approach to curbing the release of climate-warming gases.
The world's biggest emitters, the United States and China, have never formally signed up to mandatory emissions caps and the previous head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stepped down after 2009 talks collapsed.
"It is self-evident that (climate change) is a complex challenge but it is to governments' credit that they are not shying away from (it)," Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC executive secretary, said in an interview.
"If climate change were a simple problem, we would have solved it in 1992."
Hopes faded for a new global climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012, after U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders could not agree in Copenhagen in 2009 on a new deal for limiting global warming.
Leaders of 193 countries are set to meet for the next annual U.N. climate summit in November in Durban, where talks could stall again if rich and poor nations renew squabbling over how to share out emissions cuts and whether to extend the existing protocol.
Talks could also be over-shadowed by data showing that the world's carbon dioxide emissions hit their highest level ever in 2010, driven mainly by booming coal-reliant emerging economies like China.
At the same time, the threat of another global economic slowdown has tightened governments' purse-strings and diverted public attention.
Figueres said the difficulties could be a positive spur.
"Governments have a huge opportunity here to address some of that economic recovery while addressing climate change. It is win-win," she said.
"What is very clear is that we need a dramatic shift in our economic structure and that needs to happen at the earliest possible point, because the more we continue along the current path the more we get into technology lock-in."
"ON TRACK"
Figueres said governments were very much "on track" to deliver on the main commitments agreed at a Mexico summit last year, related to finance, technology and adaptation measures.
At the 2010 talks in Cancun, governments agreed to set up a Green Climate Fund to manage $100 billion a year by 2020 in aid to the poor nations most at risk of climate change.
Asked whether the U.N. would succeed in securing the full $100 billion -- which already fell far short of the hopes of developing nations -- Figueres said it would "definitely not be easy" but it could be achieved.
Durban should decide on financing for the short term, medium term covering 2013-2020, and then the longer term, she said.
While governments have struggled for a breakthrough, Figueres said a "visionary and enlightened" part of the private sector had already made strides towards a low-carbon economy and the whole world could follow that example.
"It is the responsibility of every single actor and human being. Everyone needs to accept their responsibility -- the private sector, civil society, NGOs, national governments and individuals -- and to contribute to the solution," she said.
As well as tackling the financing challenge, Durban will also focus on what will follow the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.
China and some developing nations want to extend the protocol into a second commitment period, while Japan, Russia and Canada are opposed. European Union states have been trying to find a middle road.
"An important group of countries has opened up a conversation about if the EU engages in a type of second commitment period, what would that be like?" Figueres said.
"I would say governments are in a creative phase and will explore what would be a middle ground which has to be acceptable to all countries."
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE77U0FL20110831?sp=true
Ban Ki-moon : I am Very Much Impressed with China's Efforts on Climate Change.
September 9 (Xinhua): United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, told Xinhua Friday that he was very much impressed with China's effort on tackling climate change, and welcomed China taking a leadership role in fighting the global challenge.
Ban, who had attended the Pacific Island Forum in New Zealand, and is now visiting Canberra of Australia, said there are needs for world leaders to address global challenges including climate change, pandemics, water scarcity, energy shortages and food crisis.
He emphasized that climate change is one of the greatest threats to the security, well-being and livelihoods of the peoples of the Pacific-Asia region.
In Australia, Coalition opposing the government's proposed carbon tax believes there is no point to taking action, saying that the world's largest carbon emitters are not working to tackle the issue. However, this seems not very much the case, as Ban said China has been doing a very impressive job on fighting against climate change.
"I clearly commented highly the Chinese government initiative to increase energy efficiency by 45 percent, and I was very much impressed by such very dynamic initiative with their increasing energy efficiency," Ban told Xinhua reporter in Canberra on Friday morning.
"With the rapid progressing economy solution development, it is important that China takes leadership role in this campaign against climate change."
China had pledged to reduce its carbon pollution by up to 45 percent in the next decade, and is increasing its lead over the U. S. in clean energy investment. Ban referred to his speech in Sydney University on Thursday's night, saying that China's move could encourage a breakthrough in global negotiations.
"These actions are vital on their own, but they can also inspire progress in the global negotiations, creating a virtuous cycle," he said.
Meanwhile, Ban was also critical of climate skeptics, insisting that the science of global warming is clear and a failure to act would see increasing numbers of people affected by rising sea levels and extreme weather events.
"Very clearly that something is happening much more faster than you may think. A group of at least 2,000 distinguishing scientists from inter-government panel for climate change said their conclusion is very clear that climate change is happening."
Ban will leave Australia later on Friday, ending his one week visit in Asia Pacific region.
http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/09/09/2021s657529.htm
Climate change concern tumbles in US and China
August 30 (Guardian): A new survey shows 69% of global citizens are concerned about global warming, but opinion is sliding worryingly in the biggest polluting nations
If, like me, you think urgent global action is needed to avert the worst impacts of global warming, then you will also agree that global opinion is crucial: political will is created directly out of public pressure.
So a new global survey suggests the glass is two-thirds full. Sixty nine percent of citizens in 51 nations around the world are concerned about climate change, and that two-to-one majority is essentially unchanged over the last four years. But there's less cheer in the details of the survey, conducted by Nielsen and available here (first link, free registration required).
The global climate negotiations, still the only real game in town, are dominated by the US and China. The Nielsen survey finds that less than half of Americans (48%) are concerned about global warming, compared to 51% in 2009 and 62% in 2007. With 14 point fall in 4 years, one can see why Republican climate sceptics feel comfortable rejecting the idea that every nation on earth (including their own) has accepted: that human activities are causing climate change and that the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions is pressing.
More surprisingly perhaps, opinion in China is also on the slide. Concern fell from 77% in 2009 to 64% in 2011, putting it back nearer to 2007's figure of 60%.
The Guardian's Asia environment correspondent, Jonathan Watts, tells me from Beijing that public awareness of environmental issues was rising until 2009, albeit from a very low base. "Local issues such as pollution were foremost, but in 2008 and 2009 climate change rose up the political and media agenda ahead of the Copenhagen summit" attended by 120 world leaders, he says. But it has since slipped and Watts says Chinese journalists are finding it harder to interest their editors in the climate change issue.
But turning to two other big beasts at the climate talks, the opposite trend is seen. In India, concern about global warming is at 86%, up from 80% in 2007, and concern in Europe has risen from 58% to 68% since 2009.
The most concerned region of the world is Latin America (90%), followed by the combined Middle East-Africa region used by Nielsen, where concern has gone up 11% to 80% in two years. I think the Latin American case is instructive.
"Latin America has experienced a number of distressing and impactful environmental events over the last several years, and the region's consumers are increasingly attributing these events to broad climate change," says Arturo García, president at Nielsen Latin America. "People are expressing clear concern about unusual weather patterns including increased rainfall, hurricanes, and floods in some parts of Latin America, and severe droughts in others."
Where extreme weather has the worst impacts, concern is rising, it seems, which is hardly surprising. Take a look at the full list of countries in the graph above. At the highly concerned end are Thailand, Mexico and Indonesia, all places with relatively limited capacity to cope with climate change and in regions expected to be hard hit. You should note that this survey was conducted online and only included countries with at least 60% internet access, ruling out all of the poorest and hardest hit nations, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa.
At the opposite end, the least concerned, we have wealthy Norway, Australia and the UK, all places that are not yet really feeling the bite of climate change and anxious that their rich lifestyles might be affected by climate action.
The economic recession has already harmed western wealth and the spectre that haunts the green movement has returned, that green policies are luxuries only affordable in good times. The UK Treasury certainly clings to this view, despite the intolerable pressure humanity is now putting on the planet's finite resources and the opportunity green growth presents.
Maxwell Boykoff, senior visiting research associate from Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute says of the survey: "Focus on immediate worries such as job security, local school quality, crime and economic well-being have all diminished media attention for climate stories in the past two years. In the face of other pressing concerns, a public 'caring capacity' for climate change has been tested. Without continued attention paid to global warming/climate change in the media, such concerns may have faded from the collective public conscience."
Of the 20% of global citizens unconcerned about global warming, about half think there are "more urgent and serious matters in the world today". Of the same 20%, two-fifths think humans aren't causing climate change at all. The good news there is that climate scepticism remains a fringe view, at less than 10% of global citizens.
The bad news is that in many of the nations with the biggest carbon footprints - US, UK and Australia (per capita) and China (total emissions) - plenty of people seem to think that climate change is a problem that can dealt with another day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/aug/30/climate-change-opinion-skeptic
Global climate: China eyes Australian ETS model
September 12 (The Conversation):As the Gillard government prepares to introduce its carbon price legislation to parliament, senior environment policy advisers from big emitters China and India have said they are watching closely Australia’s climate policy debate.
China remains the world’s biggest polluter, emitting more CO2 than the US and Canada put together.
However, China argues that its per capita emissions are well below that of Australia and the US and that it has a right to lift millions of Chinese out of poverty through economic development.
Despite the huge emissions that come with China’s rapid economic growth, Beijing says it is working hard to promote renewable energy use.
The country’s latest Five-Year Plan features targets to cut energy intensity (energy consumed per unit of GDP) by 16% and carbon intensity (carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP) by 17% by the end of 2015. That is less than the 20% target that featured in the previous Five Year Plan, which led to local officials imposing power cuts to meet their goals.
In this edited Q+A, IPCC lead author Dr Jiang Kejun, head of energy and environmental policy analysis at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission (China’s macroeconomic planning agency), explains how China views the global climate debate and outlines some of his country’s emissions reduction policies.
Dr Kejun visited Australia as a guest of the Australian government’s Climate Commission and spoke at a forum at Sydney Town Hall on Monday.
At today’s forum we saw a few interruptions by climate skeptics, including one who had to be removed by security. Is climate change skepticism growing in China?
I was surprised to see this. In China we don’t have too many. Of course, we observe some people are arguing that climate change is not true but they are not researchers.
Climate change is very complex. But the (IPCC’s) fundamental conclusion is that climate change is happening and CO2 emissions can increase the future risk of climate change and so far the most of climate change is driven by human actions.
I think most people in China believe that.
(Regarding climate skepticism) it’s quite interesting to observe what is happening in Australia and the United States. Maybe here people are more well educated so they can argue a lot.
In China, many people believe what scientists say.
Why, if China is so serious about reducing it’s climate change impact, are emissions growing at 10%?
Because of the population. Most of the farmers in the rural population, which accounts for 57%, cannot take a shower once a month. They cannot afford it. If you go to a rural area, please look at what their life is like.
So the fundamental homework for the Chinese government is still to make people richer, to let them have, not necessarily as good a life as you see here or in the United States with a big house, but provide for their fundamental living needs and space.
With such a huge population and living standards still low, we can see emissions still need to keep going. But we try to find solutions. If more of the energy can come from renewables, then maybe emissions can be reduced.
We are looking at other countries. Europe did a good job on renewable energy and China is looking at their experiences but even Europe cannot get more than 20-25% of energy from renewable energy, because of technical difficulties.
Provincial governments in China are given environmental targets but they also have GDP targets. Which one is more important?
They are still putting GDP first. This is the trouble. Even the central government realises this is a serious problem. That’s the reason we have taken it down to 17% (from 20% in the previous Five Year Plan).
The energy intensity target is energy use divided by GDP. So if they have a higher GDP, they have higher energy use so they still should be able to reach their target.
The government is serious about the environmental targets. They must reach these targets. Every year a group is sent to each province to check and give a score for each governor. This makes the governor very nervous and is a very serious thing in China. If an official wants to be promoted, they have to do a good job on their targets.
You have said you are watching closely what Australia is doing. What aspects of our climate policy do you think could work in China?
China wants to do emissions trading but so far we don’t know which emissions trading scheme we should do.
That’s the reason why we are setting up six pilots trading schemes in provinces: Guangdong, Shanghai, Hebei, Chongqing, Beijing, Tianjin. So I think this will affect more than 250 million people.
We look at what’s happening in Europe, what happened in the US and what happened in Australia. And also Japan has proposed to do some emission trading. So we look at everything together to see what’s good and bad and then we will have a review to see what China can do.
Maybe by 2013 we will start the pilot and by 2015 we can do a nationwide scheme. It depends on the pilot.
We are waiting to see what happens in Australia. So far it’s better Annex 1 countries (developed countries) take action first, to find a solution and that’s then a solution not only for Annex 1 countries but for everybody.
China can also support those solutions and work together.
China has committed to cutting carbon intensity by 40-45% on 2005 levels by 2020. Do you foresee those targets changing?
I think we will hold onto that target.
How would a double dip recession in the US and economic problems in the EU affect China’s environmental targets or green technology industry?
If the EU and the US had some trouble with their economy, this will reduce the imports from China.
So I think it’s a good time for China to really restructure our economy. Personally, I think it’s a good opportunity for China to think about what is the new economic development pattern. We cannot really rely on manufacturing a lot of steel, cement. This is not the long term way for China’s economy.
Let’s think about the new patterns and think of something for the future.
http://theconversation.edu.au/global-climate-china-eyes-australian-ets-model-3328
China to increase forest coverage
September 7 (China Daily): BEIJING - President Hu Jintao on Tuesday laid out plans that would see China increase its forest coverage by nearly 10 percent over the next decade.
"China is ready to make new contributions to green and sustainable growth," Hu said at the first APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Forestry, held on Tuesday in Beijing.
The country currently has 196 million hectares of forest coverage, with 62 million hectares of that man-made -the most man-made forest in the world.
A large-scale survey in 2005 found that the country had 175 million hectares of forests, and by 2020 that will have increased by 40 million hectares, Hu said.
"The continuously increasing forest coverage in the Asia-Pacific area has become an important force in reversing the decline of world forest resources," Hu said. "The Asia-Pacific region possesses the most abundant and unique forest ecosystem in the world."
The Asia-Pacific region has more than half of the world's total forest area and plays an important role in global forestry and economic development.
Hu proposed improving forestry development and cooperation through investment and scientific innovation, enhancing the protection of biodiversity, increasing carbon absorption by forests and reducing green trade barriers.
Tom Rosser, assistant deputy minister of the Canadian Forest Service, said that Canada is "strongly optimistic about the future" of the forestry sector in the APEC region, and will promote the development of forestry by placing an increased emphasis on science, innovation and partnership.
Graeme Meehan, deputy head of the Australian mission, said Australia recognizes that APEC can "play a significant role in global efforts to promote trade in legal forest products, sustainable forest management practices and forest rehabilitation".
The first APEC Forestry Ministerial Meeting runs from Tuesday to Thursday, and includes representatives from the 21 members of APEC and other international organizations.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-09/07/content_13639754.htm
Low Carbon Development
Benefits of carbon control policy
September 2 (China Daily): China is not among the countries with carbon reduction obligations under the United Nations Framework Commission on Climate Change. However, major world powers have been pressuring China to participate more actively in controlling carbon emissions.
Recognizing this issue, the Chinese government has announced that it would reduce the carbon intensity of GDP by 40-45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 levels. If China's GDP growth on average is 8 percent a year, it will be 3.2 times the level of 2005 in 2020. And even if China achieves its carbon reduction target, its emissions will be 75-90 percent higher in 2020 compared to 2005 levels.
These figures highlight the fact that the target of carbon intensity reduction is only the first step toward the goal of stabilizing and eventually reducing emissions.
If China wishes to reduce emissions at a faster rate, it would have to consider other policy options. For example, under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, large emitters are required to have emission allowances to cover their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Most enterprises are given an initial allocation of such allowances, but may need to purchase more to cover their emissions when output increases with time. The idea of this "cap-and-trade" scheme is to provide a price incentive to reduce CO2 emissions. Policy proposals such as the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the United States House of Representatives also incorporate "cap and trade".
Another approach would include the introduction of a carbon tax, whereby fossil fuels would be subject to a tax in proportion to their carbon content. Australia has announced a plan to introduce a carbon tax next year. A strong effort to reduce carbon emissions through a carbon tax or a "cap-and-trade" scheme will thus have wide ranging ramifications, since fossil fuel use is related, directly or indirectly, to almost every economic activity.
What are the costs and benefits to China of controlling CO2 emissions? The key is to recognize that burning fossil fuels not only release CO2, but also soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants. These pollutants damage human health and the environment. Soot, sulfates and nitrates contribute to the fine particulate matter that goes deep into our lungs and leads to premature mortality, as well as chronic bronchitis and other respiratory ailments.
The aim of a Harvard University-Tsinghua University study is to account for the costs and benefits of carbon control as comprehensively as possible. This means taking into account how reducing fossil fuel use improves public health in addition to reducing CO2 emissions. To do so, environmental engineers and atmospheric scientists have estimated how reductions in the use of coal, oil and gas would reduce the emissions of soot, sulfur dioxide and other chemical particles into the atmosphere. This would improve air quality all across China.
To compare the economic costs with the health benefits more easily, we converted the reduction in premature mortality and hospital admissions into a monetary value. Economists do this by considering the valuations for risk reductions. What would people be willing to pay, say, for reducing the risk of death from an industrial accident? This is obviously a difficult and uncertain exercise, but studies in China put such a "value of statistical life" at between 0.2 and 1.4 million yuan.
As an illustrative exercise we considered a modest carbon tax of 100 yuan per ton of carbon (or about 27 yuan or $4.3 per ton of carbon dioxide). We projected how this would have changed the growth of the economy over the 2006-10 period, that is, how it would compare to a situation without such a tax but with the current policies and trends in place. The reductions in emissions of CO2 and other pollutants as a result of the carbon tax are thus in addition to the reductions under current policies.
On the cost side we find a small reduction in GDP, as little as 0.1 percent, when enterprises react to the more expensive energy by switching to low carbon inputs. We estimate that coal use would fall by 15 percent and overall energy use by 11 percent, leading to a 12 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. The improvement in air quality because of the parallel reductions in particulate matter and other pollutants would reduce premature mortality by 19,000 lives a year.
The less precisely estimated chronic mortality effect would be a much larger 100,000 lives a year. We also estimated a substantial reduction in hospital admissions for respiratory problems. Valuing these health effects conservatively would put them at 56 billion yuan, or about 0.2 percent of GDP. The carbon tax is thus an effective multi-pollutant control strategy.
In sum, the vast majority of man-made greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere came from the developed countries, so the rich countries should make the biggest efforts to reduce emissions.
But there are good reasons for China to adopt carbon control policies. The direct contribution to reducing the risks of climate change will benefit every country in the world, but the parallel reduction in conventional pollutants like sulfur dioxide and particulate matter would substantially benefit human health and eco-systems within China. The benefits to human health alone would greatly outweigh the modest loss in China's GDP.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011summerdavos/2011-09/02/content_13648432.htm
China needs absolute CO2 cap, says State Council
September 1 (China Daily): BEIJING - China needs to set absolute restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions if it is to fulfil its aim to set up a carbon market over the next five years, a cabinet office think tank said in a paper published on Thursday.
"It is only under an absolute emissions cap that carbon emission permits will become a scarce resource and possess the qualities of a commodity," the State Council's Development and Research Centre said in a paper in Qiushi, or Seeking Truth, the Communist Party of China Central Committee's flagship magazine.
Beijing has pledged to reduce 2005 levels of carbon intensity -- the amount of CO2 produced per unit of GDP growth -- by 40-45 percent by 2020, but that is unlikely to be enough to kickstart a market, the researchers said.
"China's carbon emission intensity target is a relative amount and it must be converted to an absolute amount," they said.
They said that absolute caps could be calculated on the basis of existing intensity targets, and allocated to provinces and enterprises.
In recent months, government officials have said that China is drawing up plans to impose carbon emission caps in a number of pilot provinces and sectors.
An absolute energy consumption cap of 4.1 billion tonnes is expected to be included in a new "low-carbon five-year plan" when it is published later this year.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/01/content_13596218.htm
Chinese Premier vows further carbon cut
September 4 (Xinhua): BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to cut carbon emission and transform the mode of economic development when visiting senior scientists on Sunday morning.
Wen also said China should play a more active role in international climate change consultations and research, while visiting 95-year-old meteorologist Ye Duzheng.
Ye, a top national science and technology award winner, is the creator of the Tibetan Plateau meteorology.
Wen also visited 91-year-old materials scientist Shi Changxu, and 86-year-old neurosurgical expert Wang Zhongcheng
Shi Changxu, also a top national science and technology award winner, is known for his research on superalloy.
Wen recognized Shi's suggestion of listing aircraft engine in China's top scientific and technological research programs.
"You not only care about the development of materials science, but also raised many suggestions on the country's scientific and technological development," Wen told Shi.
Wang Zhongcheng, who is a top national science and technology award winner and also honorary president of Beijing Tiantan Hospital, stressed professional ethics of doctors, saying that doctors must serve patients whole-heatedly, during his talk with Wen.
Wang also suggested that China should train more neurological surgeons.
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/04/content_13620851.htm
Carbon trading for aviation struggles to take off
September 12 (Business Green)- The inclusion of aviation in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is under increasing pressure from North American, Russian, and Chinese lobby groups, airlines, and governments. Launched in response to the anticipated additional costs to airlines, the extent and level of these challenges is considerable. The US airlines estimate an additional cost burden on industry of $1bn by 2020, while Emirates estimates between $500m to $1bn by 2020.
The Chinese Airline Association, China Air Transport Association (CATA) and Air Transport Association of America are all asking for the withdrawal or suspension of the deadline for inclusion of aviation in the region at the start of next year. Chai Haibo, vice president of CATA, has called the plan "unreasonable and illegal", arguing that increased air fares may dampen European growth, deter Chinese tourists from visiting the region, and could lead to retaliatory border taxes.
The US airlines – Continental and American Airlines – are enacting more direct measures by filing a civil law suit, with the assistance of the National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), against the European Commission (EC), arguing that inclusion violates international aviation agreements.
In parallel to civil actions brought against the EC, the US Congress is also attempting to pass a bill that bans American companies from complying with EU legislation, with the support of the US State Department. The US is adamant it will not be coerced into partaking in the upcoming caps on aviation emissions. US officials made their position very clear at a US-EU aviation discussion in Oslo recently: the US State Department said it had "strong concerns" about Europe's plans to include all flights in and out of the region subject to emissions trading.
The inclusion of aviation in the system is already set in law, so changes to it are unlikely. It does, however, contain a provision that countries may be exempted from the scheme if they impose "equivalent measures". So far, however, the US has not submitted any proposals for what could be considered an equivalent measure.
China is also seeking exemption from the system and has mooted a proposal of a 22 per cent reduction on baseline emissions, currently being assessed by the EU to determine its suitability as an equivalent measure. Challenges to the legislation are not only from outside the EU. The Association of European Airlines (AEA) said in a letter to the Commission on 24 May that legal challenges may result if American and Chinese airlines are exempt from the system. The AEA said the legislation should be applied to "all or none".
The AEA is right to point out that the legislation should be applied to all or none, and it is right to be concerned by the moves in the US. However, the suitability of equivalent measures and the ability of the EU to ensure compliance with the ETS under a scenario where the bill passes the US Congress both remain unknown.
The AEA also expressed concern over the additional costs for airlines, stating that roundtrip air fares within Europe may rise between €1.80-9.00 as a result of the new restrictions, while a roundtrip flight from Brussels to New York at current carbon prices of about €15 could cost an additional €12.
Carbon cap
These challenges are being mounted in spite of what we consider to be generous cost-containment features offered to the aviation industry; namely, a late base year and ample free allocations. The cap will begin at 97 per cent of 2004-2006 emissions and fall to 95 per cent of those "historical" emissions starting in 2013. Furthermore, 82 per cent of the emission allowances making up the airline industry's cap will be allocated for free; only 15 per cent will be auctioned.
The remaining three per cent will be put into a special reserve for later distribution to fast-growing airlines and new entrants to the system. The EC will decide by 30 September on the number of EUAs to be auctioned, to be distributed for free and to be allocated to the special reserve. Moreover, EUA allocations for aviation will be determined based on the efficiency of carriers in 2010, a year when fuel prices surged, Icelandic volcano ash reduced air travel, and freezing weather and labour strikes disrupted travel.
According to the EC, the inclusion of aviation into the EU ETS will reduce emissions by 183 million tonnes by 2020, a 46 per cent reduction compared with business as usual. Ensuring regulatory integrity is crucial, particularly since aviation will become the second-largest sector in the EU ETS after the power generators.
At this stage in the negotiations, it is difficult to see the outcome as having the regulatory strength hoped for. The enforcement of the legislation resides in a legal quagmire and will inevitably result in decade-long legal battles if the EC does not provide some sort of compromise for the countries currently dragging their feet.
China is likely to work with the EC and enact an equivalent measure. But the US is likely to oppose any action or under-deliver on whatever equivalent measures it promises to implement, judging by the co-ordination of attacks by government and business, and the visceral reaction of US lawmakers.
The EC appears to be handling the objections well, but as the legal challenges gather pace in the US, it remains to be seen whether the EC will have the fortitude to ensure compromises do not result in the unfair treatment of airlines in and outside the EU.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/industry-voice-blog/2107198/carbon-trading-aviation-struggles
China's buildings need to go 'green' - before it's too late
August 23 (Telegraph): Watford in the dead of winter seemed like an unlikely place for a spot of glad-handing when the man tipped to become China's next premier visited the UK earlier this year. However, Li Keqiang (pronounced "Lee Ker-chang") was in the Home Counties to pay a visit to the Building Research Establishment (BRE) – a group of architects, engineers and scientists at the cutting edge of new building techniques.
Founded in 1921, BRE started off by studying the behaviour of reinforced concrete and later came up with a British standard for bricks. Today, it experiments with how to make houses out of hemp and wool, how to insulate them properly, and how to take our old buildings and make them energy efficient.
As the man about to become second-in-command of a nation that plans to build the equivalent of a new Chicago every year until 2030, Mr Li didn't have to feign interest as he inspected a zero-carbon home, a house built from recycled steel, and a converted and modernised Victorian stable block.
In the next 20 years, China plans to urbanise as many as 300m of its rural people, driving an insatiable demand for energy and materials as almost the equivalent of America's population fires up their new fridges and air-conditioners.
Fast-forward six months and BRE was signed up by the Chinese to create a £100m, 4.8m sq ft innovation park along similar lines in Beijing, together with Vanke, China's largest property developer.
The Chinese park will hopefully take BRE's research and adapt it for the skyscrapers and climate of the Chinese market, where energy savings incorporated into today's buildings can slash billions of watts off tomorrow's (mostly coal-fired) energy-generating demands.
"Britain is arguably leading the world in is architectural design, engineering, costing and integrated expertise," said Peter Bonfield, BRE chief executive. "We hope to bring demonstrations [to China] of how this can work. I think that will lead the charge so there will be more procurement from Chinese companies and the Chinese government."
China is currently juggling drought, crippling power outages and the world's highest carbon emissions. The country's government is painfully aware that buildings account for a quarter of China's energy use and has pushed hard for developers to spend time thinking about water, energy and carbon savings.
The "green building" industry could eventually be worth 1.5 trillion yuan (£144bn) according to Qiu Baoxing, the vice minister of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development ministry.
The new five-year plan explicitly names green building as one way of meeting the binding target of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 16pc and 17pc respectively by 2015. And while there are no prescriptive measures on how builders should act, architects said the plan had provided a framework to work around.
"It represents a direction that can be translated into action here on the ground," said Mark Harrison, the Beijing urban planning director of the Epsom-based architectural design firm Atkins.
Already, Chinese buildings are being retro-fitted with better windows and heating systems, and the number of buildings certified with badges of sustainability, such as LEED and BREEAM, are rising rapidly.
The first LEED certification was awarded in China in 2005. By 2009 more than 100 projects had applied for some kind of green rating. Now that number is approaching 400, which largely consists of government buildings, museums and high-end hotels.
But considering there are 21bn square feet of new buildings going up every year, equivalent to 150,000 eight-storey buildings, there is a long way to go.
One major challenge is China's huge range of climates, which make it difficult to roll out a national standard building regulation.
Another is the focus among developers on quick profits over long-term sustainability.
"Most architects don't know how to calculate energy use, they just build buildings like boxes," said Zhu Yingxin, vice-dean of Tsinghua University's Department of Building Science. "We can use computer simulations to calculate energy beforehand, but it's time-consuming work and many developers only want to pay for what they can see."
"There's a lot of opportunity for dilution and reinterpretation between the top level and what happens locally," said Chris Twinn, Shanghai director of sustainability at the London-based design and engineering consultation Arup. "There's a certain desire on the part of developers to give a good [green] impression when they're trying to seek land use changes, but in reality they may not be taking it all the way through."
Developers still commonly believe sustainable construction means simply tacking on green components, which alone can cost 10pc to 40pc more than traditional building materials.
But when integrated intelligently from the start, utilities savings quickly cancel out the extra costs. Total upfront costs sometimes even dip below the price of traditional buildings.
China's first LEED-certified green building in Beijing uses 74pc less energy and 64pc less water than average office buildings in the neighbourhood. And, most importantly, its upfront building costs were also 5pc lower.
"There are a lot of trade-offs involved," said Barbara Finamore, China programme director for the Natural Resources Defence Council. "You pay more for the windows, for example, and your insulation is better. Therefore you don't need to spend as much on the heating and ventilation system."
Alan Kell, managing director of the UK-China Eco-cities & Green Building Group, which promotes building cooperation between the two countries, said this is where UK companies are well-positioned to help China.
"It's not easy to deliver green anywhere in the world," he said. "But in China because of the limitations on skills, products and standard practice, the whole integration of systems into buildings is still an area with a lot to be done where British engineering and design is very much leading the way."
Mr Kell's group has partnered with UK Trade & Investment and the Chinese government to bring in more than 140 British investors, law firms and construction companies to initiate pilot eco-cities across China.
The plan is to gradually incorporate sustainable habits in cities of 500,000 to 1m people through green building projects combined with clean transportation and energy production.
It's one of the first stages in a larger goal the Chinese government has to build 300 eco-cities across China over the next 25 years - an undertaking China has invited the UK to be a strategic partner in.
Project organisers estimate, based on UN Environmental Council reports, that if the full 300 city scale is reached, it would save 600m to 2.4bn tonnes of carbon emissions – 1.8pc to 7.2pc of the world's 2010 total.
Steve O'Leary, director of infrastructure and low carbon at UK Trade & Investment, said sustainable buildings' prospects are promising for foreign enterprises.
"The city expansion, the rate of movement from the rural to the urban economy is gigantic; the number of developments is gigantic," he said. "Nobody has the market sewn up. In the domestic market, Vanke turns out ludicrous numbers of houses and it has only 4pc of the market."
The London-based architectural firm Benoy entered the Chinese market in 2001 and derives more than 40pc of its global revenue there.
Stricter regulations on residential real estate investment stemming from fears of a housing bubble have led many investors to the commercial and mixed-use facilities Benoy specialises in.
Trevor Vivian, a director at Benoy, said that in spite of a lot of lip service to sustainable building over the years, increased awareness and commitments are starting to take hold among developers, government officials and even tenants. "They understand it more," he said. They know what it's going to cost and what the advantages are."
This understanding, he said, is a matter of survival. "Let's face it, in sustainability terms, unless we can help China change direction the whole planet is screwed."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8718145/Chinas-buildings-need-to-go-green-before-its-too-late.html
Beijing praises emissions plan
September 7 (SMH) - AUSTRALIA'S proposed emissions trading scheme has won praise from Beijing, where it will be the model for one of six Chinese pilot schemes to be introduced in 2013.
Jiang Kejun, head of the Chinese government's energy and environmental policy agency, said pilot carbon trading schemes currently being researched would trial different designs based on schemes from Australia, Europe and California.
''So far we don't have a good idea what kind of model for emissions trading to implement in China, so they will take the six provinces and try different ways,'' he told The Age in Melbourne yesterday.
''Some say what is happening in Australia is even better [scheme design] than in Europe, so in that sense Australia is leading.''
Dr Jiang spoke yesterday at a Victoria University climate change conference, having been brought to Australia by the government's Climate Commission as the first of six international guests to report on steps overseas to reduce emissions. His visit came as miner Rio Tinto intensified its opposition to Australia's carbon pricing scheme, urging Prime Minister Julia Gillard to start again on carbon policy.
Rio Tinto's Australian general manager David Peever said the government had not adapted to international changes since the failed Copenhagen climate talks of 2009, saying ''There must be, and is, a better way for Australia to make its contribution.''
The government will introduce legislation on Tuesday for a fixed carbon tax to start next year, evolving into an emissions trading scheme in 2015.
Dr Jiang - from the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute and a lead author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - gave evidence that China's emissions were increasing at an extraordinary rate, and that Beijing's five-year economic plan included a framework aimed at slowing and eventually halting the growth. China's emissions have nearly tripled since 2000 as the developing country experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth. Some estimates suggest China may emit up to 30-40 per cent more carbon dioxide than the US, the world's second largest emitter.
In response it was piloting emissions trading schemes in six provinces and cities. Each area would test a different design, varying in the size of the emissions limit imposed on business and the way in which emissions levels were monitored and verified. Dr Jiang said it was unlikely China would move from pilot programs to a full national trading scheme by 2015 as some analysts had speculated. He said China's emissions level could peak by 2025 - earlier than government modelling suggestions that it would continue to rise until 2030.
The five-year plan released this year includes a commitment to limit national energy consumption by 2015, and targets to cut national energy intensity and carbon intensity.
Other targets include 11.4 per cent of energy coming from non-fossil fuel sources and increasing forest area by 12.5 million hectares. A carbon tax is being considered.
The wind energy industry was projected to top 150 gigawatts capacity by 2020, up from earlier projections of 30 gigawatts. But China also continues to build dozens of coal plants a year, partly because it is replacing small, inefficient plants. Dr Jiang said the combination of an energy consumption cap and a renewable energy target added up to ''almost a carbon dioxide cap''.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/beijing-praises-emissions-plan-20110907-1jxql.htm
How to spot a fake eco-city
August 25 (China Dialogue) - A low-carbon craze is sweeping through China, but some say it’s just a mirage. Urban-planning expert Li Xun tells Zhang Yue and Xu Nan why only a fraction of eco-projects live up to the name.
“When it comes to designing low-carbon and ecological cities we might think we’re on the road to heaven, but actually we’re going the opposite direction.”
Almost a third of China’s 600 cities now have targets to become low-carbon hubs or eco-cities. That might sound like a good thing, but the dynamics behind these labels are complex. Li Xun, secretary of the Chinese Society for Urban Studies and vice-director of the Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design, estimates that only one fifth of these projects actually match low-carbon or ecological ideals. In conversation with website ifeng.com, he also argues that the managers of these schemes must take two important factors into account: suitability for local conditions and the “whole lifespan” of projects.
ifeng.com: “Low-carbon city” and “eco-city” have become buzzwords in China’s urban planning and construction circles, while manufacturers are producing products with “low-carbon” labels. It seems we’ve been swept up by a low-carbon fever. Many western nations have already attempted to build low-carbon cities, with mixed results: will we see the same problems when that model is applied in China?
Li Xun: The term “low-carbon” covers several concepts. One is the use of absolute values to measure whether something is high or low carbon. Unlike with the term ”ecological”, where we talk about circular development, the degree to which you are low carbon can be measured in per capita emissions – in one year, how much carbon does one person create?
For example, Shanghai citizens emit an average of 10 tonnes of carbon each per year, higher than Beijing’s eight tonnes. The main reason for Beijing’s high emissions is the number of cars on the road: Beijing people love cars. In Shanghai, the issue is concentration of industry.
What’s high carbon, what’s low carbon? For cities, we can use a relative measure: in the process of growth – of creating one dollar or one yuan of wealth – how much carbon is emitted? This is carbon intensity of the economy and it can be used as a measure. Or the low-carbon concept could be seen as a process. For example, if Beijing’s per capita emissions fall from eight tonnes to six tonnes, or to the world average of four tonnes, we would say that process is a low-carbon process.
Describing cities as low-carbon, ecological, green – for me, the first thing is biodiversity: the people in the city, the things, the animals, all co-exist. Second is the circular economy. In the industrial revolution, development was linear, meaning that resources turned into rubbish. In circular development, everything can be restored to its original state, and waste made valuable again.
To date, there’s no city in the world that can genuinely call itself an ecological city – they’re just moving in that direction. Malmo in Sweden, Freiburg in Germany, they’ve done more than most in pursuit of that target.
IF: Of China’s 600 cities almost 200 have low-carbon city or eco-city targets, with some already building actual projects or even proposing standardised systems. From what you’ve seen, are these projects actually low-carbon?
LX: I don’t want to say how many are “fake”, but I can say that about one fifth are being carried out in accordance with actual low-carbon and ecological principles. Overall, cities contribute 75% of total greenhouse-gas emissions.
IF: What’s the root cause of all the fake low-carbon projects?
LX: I think people aren’t clear what the label means. Academics aren’t clear, the people aren’t clear. Everyone just has a fuzzy idea.
IF: So how do you think all these confused ideas of low-carbon will evolve in the future?
LX: Are we turning our backs on low-carbon and ecological ideals, all the while believing we are moving towards them? Are they fake low-carbon schemes? Or are there even cases that are actively anti-low carbon, anti-eco? Well, yes, there are.
IF: Do you have any actual examples?
LX: At the Shanghai World Expo last year, they had an underground refuse collection system, actually under the Expo park. The Tianjin eco-city also has one, as has Caofeidian eco-city. Beijing’s CBD and the CBD east expansion will follow suit.
But to analyse its effectiveness, you need to measure how much material was required to build it, what it cost, how much carbon was emitted to produce the material, how much carbon is emitted in order to power the system, and add it all up. Then compare it with normal collection by refuse trucks – have emissions actually decreased or not?
IF: Was the Expo itself a fake low-carbon project then?
LX: I’m not saying that the Expo shouldn’t have used the refuse system, just that if it’s going to be used everywhere, then we need to work out if it’s high-carbon or low-carbon. It needs to be measured. I think it will only be meaningful if it’s used in densely populated areas, where the demand for environmental quality is highest, like at the Expo or in Beijing’s CBD.
It’s the same principle as when we compare air and train travel. Which has higher emissions? Generally people think air travel does, and that train travel is low-carbon. But others have worked out that, per kilometre travelled, planes aren’t necessarily higher carbon. This rests on the concept of “whole lifecycle” – where you include the travel, the depots, the tracks, the land used, from route design to construction. And planes actually use very little material.
So when it comes to designing low-carbon and ecological cities, we might think we’re on the road to heaven, but actually we’re going the opposite direction. I’d like to propose two principles. First, suitability for local conditions: that is, in urban planning, local circumstances need to be considered when deciding what is low-carbon or ecological.
Take green buildings as an example. In the north of China, green buildings mean insulation. Winter is freezing, so energy-saving is mostly achieved by insulating structures. But the south is different. In the south, one of the things green buildings need to provide is natural ventilation. So you can’t do what you’d do in the north and have windows that don’t open. The north needs to retain warmth, the south needs ventilation. In the south, you also need shade.
The second principle is to calculate emissions over the whole lifespan of a project. You can’t just say something is low-carbon – start with the equipment and materials: where did they come from? And then move all the way through the process to what happens to the materials when they are discarded. Use that whole lifespan to work out if something is high-carbon or low-carbon.
IF: What changes do we need to fulfil our low-carbon aims?
LX: We can’t pursue luxury lifestyles anymore – we need to be more moderate. If you just think about the individual, then the whole system, the whole planet, will collapse. China can’t live the way the Americans do. We’ve had that dream for decades, but it’s time to wake up.
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4488
|
