Initial Workshop on China’s “Ecological Civilisation”

China’s announcement in 2020 to peak its CO2 emissions before 2030 and become carbon neutral before 2060 was a surprise for the global community.

In order to better understand what is driving China’s quest for climate neutrality and to discuss how the goals can be can be achieved, FES Shanghai is partnering with Chinese, German and European experts from science, administration, politics and climate policy. Through interviews and workshops, the aim is to produce a discussion paper which answers these questions.

The kick-off workshop discussed the driving forces behind China’s ambitious climate targets and which parts of the economy are responsible for the bulk of China’s CO2 emissions.

The discussion showed that long-term climate risks, as well as economic and industrial restructuring, improvement of the quality of life and a reduction in energy imports are the driving forces behind the ambitious climate targets. Electricity generation, industry, buildings and transport were identified as the priority areas for emissions reductions. High-level strategies for achieving China’s climate targets were also identified.

Both incremental and radical change will be required to meet these targets. To make these changes will require a combination of institutions, markets and prices, technology and ideas. The discussion revealed that in China, for the moment institutions are more important than price signals in effecting change.

How these four different areas of markets and prices, institutions, ideas and technology can effect change will be discussed in workshop number two. In a third workshop, results will be presented and discussed.