Annual Report on Actions to Address Climate Change (2018)

This article adopts the assessment index system for low-carbon city construction, newly developed by Research Institute for Eco-civilization (formerly Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to conduct multi-dimensional assessments on cities of different sizes in China in 2016. It is shown that the majority of China’s cities have made certain achievements in low-carbon development, with the overall levels of low-carbon development of cities in East China, ecological priority cities, and cities in the Pearl River Delta being relatively high. But the internal differences among the same type of cities were very large. To solve this problem, the author proposes such recommendations as clarifying the orientation of urban development, narrowing regional gap in urban low-carbon development, optimizing the selection of indicators, expanding the scope of assessment, maximizing the synergistic effect of low-carbon development and regional development, building a new system for regional green development.

The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was a landmark event of the de-globalization trend led by the United States and Britain, and was a major challenge for the global governance system. To maintain an international environment conducive to peaceful development, China needs to seek solutions to major challenges in globalization while promoting the current process of globalization. The issue of climate change is closely associated with global environment. More importantly, it is a key factor which determines de-globalization or re-globalization and also an inherent demand for China to control development risks and realize the goal of building a great socialist country. China should lead global climate governance, adhere to the principle of fairness and justice, intensively participate in and lead the construction of the global climate governance system, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation and common development among countries. Climate change can become an important field and a successful exemplification for China to intensively participate in global governance, expand our international influence and voice, and enhance our national image and soft power.

The Talanoa Dialogue on climate change included a series of activities held to enhance mutual understanding and joint actions among all Parties and non-state actors in the multilateral climate change process of the United Nations after Paris Agreement negotiations. Lasting throughout 2018, the dialogue consisted of a preparatory phase and a political phase, with a focus on the three questions: “Where are we now?”, “Where do we want to go?”, “How do we get there?”. It was an attempt of all parties to reflect on the experience and lessons learned from the negotiations after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and to discuss how to strengthen international cooperation on enhanced climate change actions and support. It is different from general negotiations and consultations in terms of form and topic scope. By leading international cooperation in tackling climate change, China has become a participant, contributor, and leader in the construction of global ecological civilization. To have a correct judgment of the follow-up to the Talanoa Dialogue and make contributions to China’s solutions to climate change, China needs concerted efforts from Chinese delegations, local enterprises, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders.

The 23rd (2017) UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) called on all parties to actively carry out climate action in the spirit of “talanoa” and asked three heuristic questions—Where are we? Where do we want to go? and How do we get there?—in order to ponder how humanity is going to face this long long-term challenge of global climate change. Various indicators and observations of the climate system have shown that the global warming trend continues in recent decades, and global climate risks are increasing, in which the climate risks faced by developing countries are significantly higher than those of developed countries. Reaching the Paris Agreement goals and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as building a clean and beautiful world are the common directions that everyone is striving for, while addressing climate change is the key to advancing toward a resilient society. For most developing countries, considering their national conditions and actual needs, adaptation is more realistic and urgent. The international community should adhere over the long term to the principle of equal emphasis on adaptation and mitigation, and assist developing countries to solve the numerous obstacles with respect to adaptation. In recent years, China has sped up construction toward an eco-civilization; it has promoted green, low-carbon, climate-adaptive, and sustainable development and has achieved a series of remarkable results in agriculture, water resource management, ecology, and disaster reduction. Under the premise of building a “community of shared future for humankind,” countries around the world should coordinate domestic development goals with global emission reduction needs, in order to make positive contributions toward the protection of the global climate and environment and the realization of a climate-resilient society.

Global climate governance is an integral part of global governance. Its most prominent feature is to make the entities and means of tackling global warming diversified. At present, NGOs have a growing presence in global climate governance. Their status in UN climate change negotiations has been increasingly rising, the issues they pay attention to have attracted more attention from the international community, and they have more choices on how to hold activities. NGOs mainly serve global climate governance in three aspects: the diverse soft power that NGOs assume when they participate in global climate governance, the multiple modes that NGOs adopt when they participate in global climate governance, and the multiple roles that NGOs play when they participate in global climate governance. The reform of the global climate governance system is now at a historical turning point. China needs to continuously sharpen its capabilities and improve strategies to lead global climate governance, and strengthen and lead the construction of NGOs.

In the context of global green and low-carbon development and energy transition, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries jointly established the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) in November 2017, calling on countries around the world to quickly phase out traditional coal-fired power generation, to proactively promote clean economic development, and to protect climate. Although at present the alliance’s influence is limited, reducing coal use and promoting the global green and low-carbon transition will be an inevitable requirement to tackle climate change in the long run. As a major coal consumer, though China can’t completely abandon the use of coal in the short term, we have made great efforts to control the total amount of coal consumption by deepening the reform of the supply-side structure and eliminating outdated overcapacity.

Strengthening South-South cooperation on climate change is crucial to promote the implementation of the Paris Agreement and global cooperation on climate change. It is also an inevitable pathway for China to maintain the unity of developing countries, to better participate in climate change negotiations, to promote green and low-carbon development, and to create favorable external conditions for our socioeconomic development. The article reviews our historical process of South-South cooperation on climate change, analyzes our comparative advantages of South-South cooperation on climate change, and clarifies existing problems and obstacles. Based on a wide range of multi-sample questionnaires and expert surveys, it evaluates the potential needs of relevant countries to deal with climate change technologies, finances, capacity building, and policies within the framework of South-South cooperation. Against the backdrop of the transition of global climate governance and within the framework of China’s diplomatic strategies, the article also anticipates the development trend of South-South cooperation, analyzes the patterns of future South-South cooperation on climate change, and designs a strategic development roadmap for phasing in measures in the medium and long term, so as to seek the driving force for global actions on climate change, to establish a new partnership for the green and low-carbon transition, and to provide countermeasure support for enhanced bilateral and multilateral dialogues, exchanges and pragmatic cooperation on climate change.

Global climate governance is a global political consensus based on scientific understanding and its practices. Since the 1970s, the issue of climate change has gradually attracted global attention. The development of relevant natural sciences, engineering technologies, and social sciences has laid a solid scientific basis for countries around the world to formulate a governance system for jointly tackling climate change. As the scientific basis for global climate governance continues to deepen and evolve, policies and measures of each country, as well as global concerted actions have continuously improved in the process of practices. Therefore, the rule-based system for global climate governance has been continuously upgraded and improved to meet scientific requirements and practical experience. Given the development of global climate change and the evolution of global political and economic landscape, the rule-based system for global climate governance was expected to continue to evolve after the conclusion of the Paris Agreement. Therefore, the international community needs to make greater efforts. Particularly, it needs to help developing countries gain adequate finances, technologies, and capabilities to adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accelerating socioeconomic development.

In 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development. These international treaties outline a grand blueprint for the future of sustainable development. Tackling climate change within the framework of sustainable development has always been an important concern for many countries around the world, especially developing countries. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement are closely related. How to promote the realization of each country’s goals in a complementary and mutually conducive manner in different fields is of vital importance to the realization of the goals. Therefore, since the conclusion of the Paris Agreement, strengthening concerted efforts to promote climate action and sustainable development has become one of the key concerns for the international community, and much progress has been made in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This article analyzes the progress of the above-mentioned two different political phases and the relationship between developing countries’ implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in terms of each field, and studies the new trends of global actions on sustainable development and the development of global climate change governance, with a view to providing recommendations for China to better coordinate actions on promoting climate action and sustainable development.

Nowadays, major cities in China generally face the increasingly severe pressures of reducing the emissions of local air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Synergistically controlling the emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases has become a major strategic choice for China to improve domestic environmental quality and cope with the pressure of reducing global carbon emissions and strengthening the construction of ecological civilization. To tackle the increasingly prominent issue of regional air and environmental pollution, the State Council issued the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan in September 2013. Subsequently, many cities formulated more detailed air pollution prevention and control plans, in which many tasks involved industrial restructuring, energy structure enhancement, and other related content. The implementation of these measures objectively has exerted significant impacts on urban energy consumption activities and corresponding carbon dioxide emissions. Based on this, this study selects the low-carbon pilot city Chongqing as a case example to evaluate the synergistic effect of air pollutant emissions reduction and greenhouse gas emissions reduction of the city. The results present that city is the entity that is most suitable to carry out synergistic control, and green and low-carbon development is conducive to the optimal allocation of urban overall resources and the minimization of social governance costs. Among air pollution prevention and control measures, structural emissions reduction measures in terms of stationary source pollution control, such as shutting down thermal power plants, closing small cement plants, and eliminating coal-fired boilers, have exerted a significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and eliminating yellow label vehicles and old cars in terms of mobile source pollution control is the most effective measure for synergistic emissions reduction. In addition, the synergistic effect of energy structure enhancement on emissions reduction is also prominent.

As the world’s largest energy consumer, China is facing severe challenges due to rapid economic development and the constraints of energy and environment. As China has made energy conservation and emissions reduction a basic national policy, energy efficiency has been greatly improved in the past few years and has made great contributions to tackling global climate change. The report Energy Efficiency 2017 released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that energy efficiency couldn’t be more critical than ever for achieving the policies and goals such as energy security, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. It has been universally accepted that energy efficiency is the first energy (“Energy Efficiency 2017,” International Energy Agency (IEA), OECD/IEA, 2016.). Bolstered by national policies and market demand, China’s energy conservation service industry has been growing rapidly and has ranked first in the world. In the next 30 years, taking energy efficiency as China’s first energy is crucial for achieving the sustainable development of China and the Chinese dream of having an agreeable living environment by improving the environment, tackling climate change, and promoting economic prosperity (Yong Zhang, “Energy Conservation Contributes to Energy Efficiency and Green Development,” Seeking Truths, no. 6 (2017).).

This article introduces the researches on a just transition of the workforce, the creation of decent and high-quality employment, and the progress of negotiations in the context of implementing measures associated with climate change within the framework Convention on Climate Change. In essence, the core of just transition is to solve the issue of employment. Therefore, it is necessary to first understand the impacts of climate change policies on employment. Low-carbon development refers to the development pathway towards a low-carbon economy in the process of going low-carbon, with the aim of achieving sustainable development and tackling climate change. Industrial restructuring and energy restructuring will exert impacts on the overall scale and structure of employment and also require workers to enhance their employability skills. To better promote just transition in the process of implementing climate policies, China should proactively conduct targeted researches, provide more low-carbon employment opportunities by increasing green investments, and also properly consider and arrange for the people who lose their jobs for being affected by climate policies to prevent them from being impoverished.

Based on the stable relationship between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the industries covered by the national carbon market, this article establishes a mapping of carbon prices to energy prices, and studies the effects of different carbon prices on the international competitiveness of the industries covered by the national carbon market by referring to energy prices, and offers relevant policy recommendations.

The concept of climate finance originates from the rules and mechanism innovations through which the international community aims to provide financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. As the global economic pivot shifts, and low-carbon development and climate-adaptive development become more in line with global trade, sustainable finance, and regional economic strategies, this concept has been continuously evolving and enriched. It connotes the following three aspects: 1. How global public funds support the sustainable supply of global climate public goods within the framework of international laws; 2. How financial systems (macro-financial regulations and micro-financial market) serve the Sustainable Development Goals including emissions reduction and adaptation; 3. How policy makers, financial institutions, and various economic sectors of sovereign states respond to the physical risks, and the risks of economic and technological transformation caused by climate change and extreme weather. After the assessment of the development trends and characteristics of global climate finance, this article clarifies the common problems and obstacles faced by developing countries in terms of climate finance, and proposes the recommendations for China to balance international and domestic strategic demands for climate finance and to practice the climate finance governance with Chinese characteristics in the context of the evolution of the new global economic system.

The scientific and technological progress in the world today has promoted fast socioeconomic development, improved people’s livelihood, and also resulted in global warming, and ecological and environmental deterioration. Rising snowline, retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, declining sea ice and other issues associated with cryosphere changes have been greatly concerned. The Antarctic, Arctic and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are three of the most developed areas among modern glaciers in the cryosphere and the most dramatically affected by climate change. Cryosphere observation materials and data about these areas are the scarcest. To improve the status quo, the World Meteorological Organization has initiated the Global Cryosphere Watch, established the CryoNet, provided integrated cryospheric products and services, and fostered the establishment of the Regional Climate Centers (RCCs) for the Polar Regions, with the aim of providing climate services to countries and regions that are severely affected by glacier changes and helping the people in these countries and regions enhance their capabilities to adapt to climate change

Global climate change has aggravated the frequency and intensity of extreme climate disasters such as rainstorms and floods, high temperatures and heat waves, and heavy smog, which have varying degrees of impacts on ecological, economic and social systems of cities, and hinder the normal operation of urban functions. Urban adaptation to climate change includes the compatibility and adjustment of elements within urban living, production, and ecology, as well as the mutual integration and coordinated responses between urban living, production, and ecology. Starting from the basic elements of urban society, economy, ecology, this article analyzes the urgent needs of ecological priority, green production, and smart living for adaptation to climate change, and explores the adaptation approaches and countermeasures for cities to tackle extreme weather and climates in terms of urban living, production, and ecology. It is also pointed out that establishing the intelligent city green technology system and the smart city disaster prevention and mitigation social management system to enhance cities’ capability to adapt to climate change is an effective way for cities to tackle extreme climate events in the context of climate change.