A new report by a group led by former British PM Tony Blair says that China leads in the race to go green, with government supporting Chinese businesses in low carbon vehicles, energy efficiency, renewable energy and low carbon buildings.
The report, China’s Clean Revolution II (pdf), says
China is now almost certainly the largest national emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) – although its per capita emissions are still a fraction of the USA’s and EU’s, and below the global average. Less widely acknowledged is the leading role that China is already playing in producing the technologies needed to solve the climate change challenge. For example, China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of solar water heaters, accounting for 50% of the world’s total production and 65% of all installations. Mainland China supplies 30% of the world’s demand for photovoltaic (PV) sets (Greater China, including Taiwan, 40%), and it has developed the first mass-produced plug-in electric hybrid car.
The report also notes that clean energy was a major thrust of the 4 trillion yuan ($580 billion) stimulus package.
But development also poses a conundrum: just witness the explosion of cars in China. The country in January 2009 became the largest car market in the world, exceeding the US, and is on track to triple the number of cars on the roads to 150 million, producing 20% of global CO2 emissions, by 2020.
“This creates an urgent imperative to accelerate the development of EVs, fuel-cell vehicles and other forms of low carbon transport,” the report states. But if the green trends emphasized in the report play out, that type of approach may well have a chance.