To: Minister Huang Runqiu,
Ministry of Environment and Ecology
No.12, East Chang’an Avenue, Dongcheng District,
100006 Beijing
P.R. China
advice@mee.gov.cn
Honorable Minister Huang
We are Climate Scorecard, a non-profit organization that monitors leading greenhouse gas-emitting countries’ climate policies and programs.
Based on a review of China’s policies, we believe that China has, over the past years, introduced policies and legislation that hold the potential to halt the increase of carbon emissions. At the same time, we believe that more can be done to increase your country’s climate ambition, achieve the global goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050. Therefore, we politely suggest that you consider adopting the following goals and announce these at COP28.
# 1 China Announces It Will Strengthen Its Paris Agreement Pledge: As of 2021, China had pledged to achieve absolute emissions levels of 14.0 GtCO2e
[28% above 2010] by 2030 and to- Peek carbon dioxide emissions “before 2030” (up from the previous “around 2030 and making efforts to peak earlier”) and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.
- Lower carbon intensity by “over 65%” in 2030 from the 2005 level (up from the previous “by 60–65%”).
- Increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to “around 25%” in 2030.
- Increase forest stock volume by around 6 billion cubic metres in 2030 from 2005.
- Increase the installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1,200 GW by 2030.
We suggest that you further consider expanding these targets as they are not in line with the 1.5 degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement and consequently follow through with implementing the current target on all levels, national, provincial, regional, communal or municipal.
# 2 China Announces It Will End the Production of Fossil Fuels:
While China has attempted to shift much of its coal production and use of energy generation to gas and oil, in 2022, coal made up about 55.5% of the overall energy share, followed by oil with < 18%. Gas only accounted for 8.5% of the overall energy share, preceded by renewables with an 18.3% share.
Given the latest fallback on coal as the primary energy-supporting fossil fuel due to the recent energy security crisis, this is the sector where the largest part of abatement will have to come from. Coal power plant utilization will have to be cut drastically before 2030 to even approach a 2030 carbon-peaking goal.
I hope you will incorporate these suggestions in your presentation at COP 28, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Ronald Israel
Director
Climate Scorecard