SCIO briefing on China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change (2016)

Reuters:

A few questions from Reuters. My first question is would we be able to find out more about the progress that has been made towards China' s national carbon trading scheme that's supposed to come into being next year? Secondly, are there any updated figures on China's total greenhouse gas emissions? We know that some analysts have said your estimates are out of date. And finally, China's coal consumption may have peaked early. We're wondering has this put pressure on China to raise its ambition to cut its coal use? Thank you.

Xie Zhenhua:

You raised three questions altogether, and all of the three are quite to the point. President Xi announced at the UN meeting that China would launch a national carbon trading market in 2017 and all the preparation is well under way. We have already had carbon trading pilots in seven provinces or cities, and the work has been smooth. We have institutions and local legislatures that have identified and allocated carbon quotas and established a system of accounting, report and inspection. We have also established trading rules, improved the supervision system and capacity building, and brought into being a thorough, unique, local carbon emission trading market that operates smoothly.

We have done the following work regarding the carbon market so far. First, we have formulated a plan to identify and allocate the total carbon trading quotas. Second, we issued the "Notice on Preparing to Launch the National Carbon Emission Trading Market," and carried out accounting, reporting and inspection of historical carbon emission data in more than 7,000 enterprises that have serious carbon emission issues. Third, we accelerated the related lawmaking work. We have drafted the "Regulations on the Management of Carbon Emissions Trading," which has been submitted to the State Council for legislation. We also drafted the "Methods for the Management on the Reporting of Carbon Emission in Enterprises" and the "Methods for the Management of Carbon Emissions Trading," which have laid down a solid legal foundation. Fourth, capacity building has been strengthened. We enhanced the training for people involved in the carbon trading market, established a platform to enable consultations about emission-related reporting and inspection, as well as set up a reporting system of greenhouse gas emissions data. It takes time for the launch and full operation of China's nationwide carbon market, but once it's built, it will be the world's largest carbon emissions trading market.

Regarding the emissions data. Developed countries often cast doubts on China's official data, including carbon emission data, and this is exactly where the capacity gap lies between developed countries and developing countries. During the climate change negotiations, we talked about having more transparency in various countries, which is directly linked to their capacity of addressing climate change - to build a system of auditing, monitoring and verification that showcases the gap between developed countries and developing countries. This system has been built in developed countries as they are highly industrialized. But when I visit many developing countries where the basic needs of life haven't been met, there is no possibility of setting up that system. Thus we made it clear in the Paris Agreement that more flexibility should be given to developing countries in this regard. We need to offer financial, technological and capacity support to them, and then address the transparency issues. China is also in the developing phase; we are making every effort to improve the auditing, monitoring and verification systems. China has been working on energy conservation and emission reduction for a number of years, thus the system is gradually improving. I believe the data we report is accurate based on our capabilities currently, but it falls short of meeting international standards. We are improving in this regard. There will be a facilitative dialogue in 2018, and global stock-taking will begin in 2023 - all this requires accurate data.

Regarding the peak of coal consumption. I recently attended a conference of the China National Expert Committee on Climate Change. Both China and other countries are watching whether the country's carbon dioxide and coal consumption have reached respective peaks. Coal consumption is indeed decreasing currently, but more time is needed to tell whether it has reached a peak as China's economic growth is uncertain. We have made achievements in controlling total energy consumption and reducing coal consumption. Last year, global carbon dioxide emissions did not increase, which has been credited to China by some countries, as the country witnessed a slow growth of carbon dioxide emissions combined with highly reduced coal consumption. These are all pure facts. Thank you.