China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) stated at a press release that the country has been investing over USD100bn in the renewable sector for five years in a row, as reported by Sina on December 29. From 2005 to 2019, China has reduced its carbon emissions per unit GDP by 48.1%, with non-fossil fuels contributing to around 15.3% of the country’s primary energy consumption. Meanwhile, according to MEE, the country is also actively pushing forward the establishment of a nationwide emissions trading scheme (ETS), as part of its 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP). By August 2020, the country’s carbon emission permits trading markets in seven pilot regions have covered around 3,000 key enterprises and met a total trading volume of around 406m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, with the overall trade amount hitting RMB9.28bn.

According to a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), China has been the largest investor in renewable energies in the past decade, with a gross investment of USD758bn between 2010 and the first half of 2019. In 2019, the country filed 51% of the renewable energy patents across the world, while its cumulative number currently represents over 30% of all patents filed globally. The total installed capacity of renewable energies in China stood at 790m kilowatts (kW) by the end of 2019, which constituted around one-third of the global total, with the most installed capacity worldwide for hydropower, wind power, solar photovoltaic power, as well as biomass power. Moreover, the renewable sector has provided 4.1m job opportunities for Chinese citizens in 2019 alone, accounting for 39% of all jobs created across worldwide nations in the year. Citing Global Times, China’s total investment in renewable energies is projected to accumulate to RMB55tr in 2060, with the green economy producing around RMB10.3tr in annual output by then.

As the MEE stated, the central government has included carbon emission reduction as one of its most important targets in the country’s 14th FYP, in order to fulfill its commitments to peak carbon emissions and increase the ratio of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to approximately 25% by 2030. So far, the country has released the measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) guidelines for 24 key industries, including electronics and machinery production, mining, and others, along with 13 national MRV standards to regularly track national carbon emissions. According to industry sources, China plans to debut its national carbon market for the power generation industry in 2021, and it is also currently working on establishing its fifth futures exchange in Guangzhou, which could become the country’s first exchange to allow carbon emissions trading.

Sources:

https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/relnews/cn/2020-12-29/doc-iiznezxs9592434.shtml

http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2019/9/430241.shtm

https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2020-12-11/doc-iiznezxs6323376.shtml

https://www.china5e.com/news/news-1106609-1.html

https://finance.sina.com.cn/esg/ep/2020-12-29/doc-iiznezxs9607966.shtml

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1210562.shtml

https://www.seetao.com/details/52893/zh.html

https://news.stcn.com/sd/202011/t20201122_2555340.html

https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/09/china-leads-green-jobs-in-renewable-energy-sector/