The 10th National Low-carbon Day is celebrated in Ji'nan, East China's Shandong Province. Photo: Shan Jie/GT

China has celebrated the 10th National Low-carbon Day on Wednesday. The country seeks to promote a societal overhaul into a green, low-carbon and sustainable production and lifestyle, and has called for the implementation of actions to achieve the country's "dual carbon" goals.

The event of the 2022 National Low-carbon Day was hosted in Ji'nan, the capital city of East China's Shandong Province on Wednesday with the theme "implementing the 'dual carbon' action and building a beautiful homeland together."

China has vowed to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, which is known as the "dual carbon" goals of China.

Xie Zhenhua, China's special envoy for climate change, said through a video clip that "although the world is currently facing a series of difficulties and challenges such as regional conflicts, economic downturns, energy and food crises, the general trend of the global green and low-carbon transformation and innovation that has been highlighted by the Paris Agreement is irreversible."

The world is ushering in an industrial and technological revolution characterized by green and low carbon, he stressed.

Xie noted that while promoting the acceleration of green and low-carbon transformation and innovation in all sectors of the economy and society, China should also learn from other countries' strengths and cooperate pragmatically to jointly promote progress in global climate action in the next critical decade. 

He also called for the public to continue contributing "Chinese wisdom and Chinese power" to the global process of confronting climate issues.

National Energy Efficiency Promotion Week has been an annual event since 1991, and the National Low-carbon Day was first observed in 2013. 

China has made great achievements in carbon reduction in the recent past.
In 2021, the national carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP dropped by 3.8 percent year-on-year, 50.3 percent lower than that in 2005. The total energy consumption of coal dropped from 72.4 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2021, according to Zhao Yingming, vice minister at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) during the Wednesday event.

Zhao introduced that China has been promoting the construction of low carbon, high adaptability pilot cities. "The ability to adapt to climate change has been continuously improved, and the low-carbon awareness of the whole society has been increasing," he noted.

The event also underlined China's contribution and responsibility to the global governance of climate issues.

The China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Action Cooperation Center was launched in late April, which is China's first multilateral cooperation platform on climate change and is co-built by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MEE and Shandong Province.

During the Wednesday event, Zhang Jianfeng, a teacher from Shandong's Liaocheng University who has been aiding Tango, elaborated on how China has been helping Pacific island countries to confront climate change.

According to Zhang, China has been cultivating and promoting agricultural products that could adapt to the weather changes in the island countries. 

China, especially Shandong, has obvious advantages in planting rice in seawater, which could solve the problem of unsustainable agricultural production due to the intrusion of seawater onto land and salinization in Pacific island countries, he said.

"In addition, we also have technology and experience in the development and utilization of clean energy, marine ranch construction, rainwater harvesting, and seawater desalination equipment, which could be provided to the Pacific island countries," he said.