Interview: China to spend 6.7 trillion USD on low-carbon industries by 2030

China's total investment in low-carbon industries is estimated to top 41 trillion Chinese yuan (about 6.72 trillion U.S. dollars) by 2030, China's special representative on climate change affairs told Xinhua on Tuesday.

Xie Zhenhua revealed this during the two-day China-U.S. Climate Leaders Summit that ends on Wednesday.

Officials from China and the United States -- the world's top two sources of greenhouse gas -- are expected to discuss strategies for and practices in fighting climate change in both countries.

Multiple Chinese and U.S. cities signed the Climate Leaders Declaration and nine other working agreements, such as the California-China Urban Climate Collaborative (CCUCC) and the Memorandum of Understanding between the cities of Shenzhen and Los Angeles.

Under the deals, about 10 cities and provinces in China promise to reach their peak level of greenhouse gas emissions earlier than 2030 with Beijing and Guangzhou agreeing to reach their greenhouse emissions targets by 2020, or 10 years earlier than the national schedule.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama issued China-U.S. Joint Announcement on Climate Change last November, said Xie.

"In that announcement, the goals we specified will be materialized through local governments' actions and enterprises' actions, therefore today we are holding this summit to provide an opportunity for local leaders to exchange their experience and learn from each other," Xie said.

He noted that this summit shows both China and the United States are taking concrete actions to implement the joint announcement before Xi visits the United States later this month.

The summit also shows China, the world's biggest developing country, and the United States, the world's biggest developed country, can cooperate with each other in concrete actions to address climate change and achieve win-win results to be better prepared for the Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) scheduled to take place by the end of this year, he said.

"China aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 60 percent to 65 percent from the 2005 level by 2030, its non-fossil energy will account for 20 percent of its primary energy consumption, and China will increase another 4.5 billion cubic meters of forest stock," Xie said.

China's whole carbon emissions will peak by around 2030, and "it shows China's utmost efforts in tackling the climate change challenge," Xie said.

"For China, we are suffering a lot from climate change," he said, adding that climate change caused more than 2,000 casualties and cost over 200 billion yuan (31.4 billion dollars) in each of the past 10 years.

"We don't take climate change as a burden; instead we take it as a good opportunity for us to transform our growth pattern, and an opportunity for economic restructuring, industrial restructuring and restructuring of our energy mix," Xie said at a press conference after the opening ceremony.

"There is a very good momentum to push forward green and low carbon development in China," he told Xinhua, adding that China's new energy industry employs around 39 million people, and the number will top 69 million in 2030.

As the first platform for mayors and governors of both countries, as well as entrepreneurs to exchange their practices and ideas on climate change, Xie hopes the summit will help promote low-carbon and green development in both countries.

"We have agreed that Beijing will host the second summit next year and we believe that this cooperation will get even better in the future," he said. Endi