Off the wire
• Swiss businesses benefiting from free trade pact with China: authority  • Urgent: China to raise share of non-fossil fuels to around 20 pct  • Urgent: China to cut carbon emissions by 60-65 pct from 2005 level  • Urgent: China eyes carbon emissions to peak at around 2030  • China's forex reserves continue to drop in Q1  • China completes land reclamation on some Nansha islands  • Zambia's widening budget deficit will be too costly to finance: Fitch  • France's public debt rises to 97.5 pct of GDP in Q1  • County Party chiefs: key to China's governance and reform  • Chad arrests local Boko Haram leader in N'Djamena  
You are here: 　 Home

China on bold move to build low-carbon energy system

Xinhua, June 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

China is making concrete efforts to battle climate change by building a low-carbon energy system, according to the country's national pledge plan submitted to the United Nations on Tuesday.

China planned to increase its installed capacity of wind power and solar power to 200 gigawatts (GW) and around 100 GW by 2020, respectively, according to the plan titled "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC)".

By 2014, China's installed capacity of grid-connected wind power reached 95.81 GW, 90 times of that for 2005, while installed solar power capacity was 28.05 GW, 400 times of that for 2005.

The country pledged to increase the use of natural gas, which is expected to make up more than 10 percent of its primary energy consumption by 2020, and lower coal consumption by improving efficiency of newly-built coal-fired power plants, according to the plan.

China has been aggressively investing in low-carbon energy development as the world's largest greenhouse emitter tried to switch its power grid to cleaner energy sources.8 As a result, installation of new hydropower, wind and solar electricity generation capacity boomed, though coal remained China's main power source.

Coal consumption accounts for about 66 percent of China's primary energy consumption, 35 percentage points higher than the world average.

China vowed to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030, according to the plan. The ratio was 11.2 percent in 2014.

To help cut carbon emissions, the country will further increase financial support and expand a carbon emission trading system nationwide from a pilot scheme that ran in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Endi