The opening ceremony for carbon trading at Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange on Tuesday Photo: CFP

China is to release a top-level design plan to reach the carbon-neutralization goal, China's special envoy for climate change affairs said on Saturday.

Xie Zhenhua, China's special envoy for climate change said at Global Asset Management Forum in Beijing that China has established a leading group and is formulating a timetable and road map for carbon peak and carbon neutralization.

China announced a clean and low-carbon energy transformation plan to honor its commitments to reach a peak in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The same process that would take the EU 60 year and the US 45 years, Xie said.

"As a developing country China needs to make arduous efforts to achieve the goal in 30 years, however, we are confident that we will fully fulfill the announced goals.".

According to Xie, the top-level design plan involves optimizing energy structure, curb coal consumption, and accelerating the proportion of renewable energy, including nuclear power hydropower, wind power, solar energy, biomass energy, marine energy and geothermal energy.

Xie added that China will also promote green and low-carbon technological innovation that can cut emissions at low cost and high levels of efficiency. This includes increased research and development focused on renewable energy, smart grid, energy storage, electric and hydrogen fueled vehicles, carbon capture technologies and resource recycling.

Xie also pointed out that to reach the goal China will establish and improve the carbon market and carbon pricing mechanism to achieve the emission reduction target of the whole society at the lowest possible cost. 

Based on trialing  a national carbon market in 2017, China launched a greenhouse gas emissions trading system on July 16. The first participants included over 2,200 power sector enterprises, with total carbon emissions of about 4 billion tons annually.

It is expected that in the future, the carbon trading market will gradually expand the coverage and enrich the trading varieties and methods.

Global Times