This book explores sustainable development from the perspective of resources and energy, based on China’s practical experience and cross-disciplinary research. It focuses on major challenges, key solutions and policy recommendations, and studies and explores seven important themes of resources, energy and sustainable development, including: 1) China’s low-carbon energy transition, 2) China’s urbanization and low-carbon development, 3) China’s low-carbon action in cities, 4) China’s low-carbon power transition, 5) China’s water resources management, 6) electric vehicle development and key metal resources and 7) China’s low-carbon development of the iron & steel industry. This book contributes to a more integrated understanding of many themes and their relationships in the area of resources, energy and sustainable development and guides the related policy and management.

This book explores sustainable development from the perspective of resources and energy, based on China's practical experience and cross-disciplinary research. It focuses on major challenges, key solutions and policy recommendations, and studies and explores seven important themes of resources, energy and sustainable development, including: 1) China's low-carbon energy transition, 2) China's urbanization and low-carbon development, 3) China's low-carbon action in cities, 4) China's low-carbon power transition, 5) China's water resources management, 6) electric vehicle development and key metal resources and 7) China's low-carbon development of the iron & steel industry. This book contributes to a more integrated understanding of many themes and their relationships in the area of resources, energy and sustainable development and guides the related policy and management.

This timely new book uses historical data from 1980 and alternative scenarios through 2020 to assess China's future energy requirements and the resources available to meet them. Current trends are putting China on an unsustainable and insecure energy growth path, characterized by the use of enormous quantities of "dirty" coal and an alarming oil import dependence. The authors find that what is urgently needed is a high-level commitment to an integrated, coordinated, and comprehensive policy that is set in the framework of the energy law currently being prepared.

China has ambitious goals for economic development, and mustfind ways to power the achievement of those goals that are bothenvironmentally and socially sustainable. Integration into the globaleconomy presents opportunities for technological improvement and accessto energy resources. China also has options for innovative policies andmeasures that could significantly alter the way energy is acquired andused. These opportunities andoptions, along with long-term social, demographic, and economic trends, will shape China s future energysystem, and consequently its contribution to emissions of greenhousegases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). In this study, entitled China sSustainable Energy Future: Scenarios of Energy and Carbon Emissions, theEnergy Research Institute (ERI), an independent analytic organizationunder China's Na tional Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), soughtto explore in detail how China could achieve the goals of the TenthFive-Year Plan and its longer term aims through a sustainable developmentstrategy. China's ability to forge a sustainable energy path has globalconsequences. China's annual emissions of greenhouse gases comprisenearly half of those from developing countries, and 12 percent of globalemissions. Most of China's greenhouse gas emissions are in the form ofCO2, 87 percent of which came from energy use in 2000. In that year, China's carbon emissions from energy use and cement production were 760million metric tons (Mt-C), second only to the 1,500 Mt-C emitted by theUS (CDIAC, 2003). As China's energy consumption continues to increase, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to inevitably increase into thefuture. However, the rate at which energy consumption and emissions willincrease can vary significantly depending on whether sustainabledevelopment is recognized as an important policy goal. If the ChineseGovernment chooses to adopt measures to enhance energy efficiency andimprove the overall structure of energy supply, it is possible thatfuture economic growth may be supported by a relatively lower increase inenergy consumption. Over the past 20 years, energy intensity in China hasbeen reduced partly through technological and structural changes; currentannual emissions may be as much as 600 Mt-C lower than they would havebeen without intensity improvements. China must take into account itsunique circumstances in considering how to achieve a sustainabledevelopment path. This study considers the feasibility of such anachievement, while remaining open to exploring avenues of sustainabledevelopment that may be very different from existing models. Threescenarios were prepared to assist the Chinese Government to explore theissues, options and uncertainties that it confronts in shaping asustainable development path compatible with China's uniquecircumstances. The Promoting Sustainability scenario offers a systematicand complete interpretation of the social and economic goals proposed inthe Tenth Five-Year Plan. The possibility that environmentalsustainability would receive low priority is covered in the OrdinaryEffort scenario. Aggressive pursuit of sustainable development measuresalong with rapid economic expansion is featured in the Green Growthscenario. The scenarios differ in the degree to which a common set ofenergy supply and efficiency policies are implemented. In cons ultationwith technology and policy experts domestically and abroad, ERI developedstrategic scenarios and quantified them using an energy accounting model. The scenarios consider, in unprecedented detail, changes in energy demandstructure and technology, as well as energy supply, from 1998 to 2020. The scenarios in this study are an important step in estimating realistictargets for energy efficiency and energy supply development that are inline with a sustainable development strategy. The scenarios also helpanalyze and explore ways in which China might slow growth in greenhousegas emissions. The key results have important policy implications:Depending on how demand for energy services is met, China could quadrupleits gross domestic product between 1998 and 2020 with energy use risingby 70 percent to 130 percent (Figure 1). Continual progress in improvingthe efficiency and structure of industry is crucial to maintainingeconomic growth with minimal growth in energy use. In some industries, output may grow with no rise in energy use at all. Swelling ranks ofmotor vehicles will deepen China's dependence on imported oil up to 320Mt per year by 2020 an amount that global markets can easily supply. Tomoderate growth in transportation energy use, the strong promotion ofconvenient public transport will be needed in addition to tighter fuelefficiency standards and advanced vehicles. Fuel switching, efficientappliances, better heating and cooling systems, and improved buildingenvelope technologies will be needed in the fast-growing buildingssector. By 2020, China will still b.

This book examines sustainable energy development in China, a non-liberal state, as a counterexample to conventional wisdom that effective policy outcomes are premised on the basis of decentralized governance. The use of sustainable energies as part of the solution for stabilising global warming has been promoted in industrialised countries for the past three decades. In the last ten years, China has expanded its renewable energy capacity with unprecedented speed and breadth. This phenomenon seems to contradict the principle of orthodox environmental governance, in which stakeholder participation is deemed a necessary condition for effective policy outcomes. Based upon policy documents, news report and interviews with 32 policy makers, business leaders, and NGO practitioners in selected subnational governments, this book examines the politics of sustainable energy in China. It engages debates over the relationships among democratic prioritisation, environmental protection, and economic empowerment, arguing that China’s quasi-corporatist model in the sustainable energy field challenges Western scholars’ dominant assumptions about ecopolitics.

China’s modernization is viewed as a transformative revolution in the human history of modernization. As such, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) decided to give higher priority to the research on the science and technology (S&T) roadmap for priority areas in China’s modernization process. What is the purpose? And why is it? Is it a must? I think those are substantial and signifcant questions to start things forward. Significance of the Research on China’s S&T Roadmap to 2050 We are aware that the National Mid- and Long-term S&T Plan to 2020 has already been formed afer two years’ hard work by a panel of over 2000 experts and scholars brought together from all over China, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. Tis clearly shows that China has already had its S&T blueprint to 2020. Ten, why did CAS conduct this research on China’s S&T roadmap to 2050? In the summer of 2007 when CAS was working out its future strategic priorities for S&T development, it realized that some issues, such as energy, must be addressed with a long-term view. As a matter of fact, some strategic researches have been conducted, over the last 15 years, on energy, but mainly on how to best use of coal, how to best exploit both domestic and international oil and gas resources, and how to develop nuclear energy in a discreet way. Renewable energy was, of course, included but only as a supplementary energy.

China is an energy-dependent country and its rapid economic growth in the past 30 years is accompanied by tremendous energy consumption. Constrained by resource endowment, most of the primary energy consumed in China is coal, which leads to serious global, regional and local environmental issues. To ensure sustainable development, China has formulated ambitious targets for developing renewable energy and dozens of policies to deliver it have been adopted. Especially since the enactment of the Renewable Energy Law in 2006, renewable energy has experienced a boom in China. Now China is the biggest developer of hydropower and wind power, as well as the biggest manufacturer of PV cells in the world. This book is a systematic review on renewable energy in China and focuses on four interrelated topics: resources, institution, policy and industry development. The introductory chapter will describe the overall picture of renewable energy in China. Then four industries, including wind power, solar power, biomass and ocean power, will be discussed in separate chapters around the policy, industry development, barriers and market prospective. In light of the important role in delivering renewable energy, the next chapter discusses the progress of smart grids in China, with a particular perspective on the institutional arrangement for promoting its development more effectively. A chapter is devoted to the progress of Golden Sun Program, the Chinese government's initiative to promote the domestic solar power market. Another chapter addresses rural energy, poverty and renewable energy, a special topic on social and developmental aspects of renewable energy. The last chapter presents the topic of energy systems in transition and proposes policy suggestions for delivering renewable energy in China.