Photo by Kerry Koepping 

who spent more than three years in recording 

influences of global warming on the Arctic Circle

 

 

On April 15, 2007, LI Junfeng, Director of National Center for Climate Change and International Cooperation talked about Climate Change and Energy Transformation at Peking University Public Policy Forum International.

 

Cope with climate change

LI Junfeng said, Global warming brings about a series of negative influences on the earth and our daily lives since the Industrial Revolution. Although skepticism is always there, joint action is the mainstream viewpoint on the world climate change. The world keeps on pressing ahead with the negotiation and cooperation on measures against climate change. 

 

The Paris Agreement | Builds upon the Convention and for the first time brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort. 

 

The Paris Agreement | Central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

 

LI Junfeng interpreted issues relating to Paris Agreement, he says the world’s long-term goal of controlling the global temperature rise within 1.5℃ means that the human beings must achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2050. 

In other words, the world shall replace the fossil energy with non-fossil energy or renewable energy in the middle of this century. To control the global temperature rise within 2℃, the world shall reduce the emission by 40-70% in 2050 based on the emission in 2010. Presently, research on the control of temperature rise within 1.5℃ is very limited.

 

On the premise that all countries realize their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), the world’s greenhouse emission will amount to 55 billion tons by 2030, greater than 15 billion tons that are provided according to the goal of controlling temperature rise within 2℃. Climate Conference in Paris requires that Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) shall release report in 2018 and give conclusions according to the goal of controlling temperature rise within 1.5℃.

 

Promote Development Transformation

The global development philosophy evolves with the human beings’ incremental knowledge about the ecological environment issues. Herein, the development philosophy arises from the human beings’ knowledge about the contradiction between development and environmental protection during the development course. 

 

In general, the human society undergoes the courses “No governance while giving priority to development”, “Governance comes after development” and “Give priority to both development and governance”. Presently, the human society begins to walk on the sustainable development path, and aims to achieve the green development transformation featuring growth transformation, energy transformation, and consumption transformation.

 

The world’s focus shifts from local environment to global environment, and now the climate change is the priority among priorities of the world. Due to this, green development is becoming the most important driver to the world change. As a matter of fact, green development depends on three transformations, namely, growth transformation, energy transformation, and consumption transformation. 

 

Growth transformation | Never should the development be at the cost of ecological environment, and all growths aim to improve the human life and survival & development quality, and to strike the space balance (common prosperity of the world) and time balance (Never should the development endanger the offspring’s survival and development) for the human development. 

 

Energy transformation | We need to develop the clean and low-carbon energy, build the energy system centering on non-fossil energy in the long run, and gradually get rid of the dependence on fossil energy, and eliminate the energy poverty. Three-step goal for energy transformation has been finalized: 1) before 2020, non-fossil energy will be used in meeting the increment of energy demands; 2) 2020-2050, non-fossil energy will be used in replacing fossil energy in a large scale; 3) After 2050, non-fossil energy will replace the fossil energy. 

 

Consumption transformation | We need to control unreasonable and unhealthy consumption, and advocate green life style.

 

Leaders of big powers G7 (US, China, UK, Germany, Japan, India, and Saudi Arabia) agreed on energy transformation and announced in June, 2015 that by the end of this century, renewable energy will replace the fossil energy. 

 

China is the largest energy producer and user, 30% of world Green House Gas emission comes from China. At the UN General Assembly, Chinese President XI Jinping announced in September, 2015, that China would boost the displacement of fossil energy by non-fossil energy by the end of this century. China’s Energy Development Strategy of “steady, safe, economical, and high-efficiency” now is changed into “green, low-carbon, safe, and high-efficiency”. 

 

Nowadays, leading companies and institutes are working together to address climate change. Further research into the development potential and supporting factors of low carbon technologies such as CCUS and renewable energies, are essential, both of which can help promote China’s transition to a low carbon economy.

 

LI Junfeng said, as a conclusion, the world is in an era of change. The country that takes the preemptive opportunities in the three transformations will lead the world’s development. Thus, it would be impossible for China to lead the future unless it leads in the three transformations. Those enterprises that find business opportunities in the three transformation are bound to lead the market, but those enterprises that are reluctant to seek transformation might be abandoned by the market.