China says their commitments to cut emissions are ‘pragmatic’

China’s special representative on climate change Xie Zhenhua has described the country’s commitments to cut emissions as “specific, powerful and pragmatic”.

Just days after air pollution in Chinese cities went off the charts and enveloped the capital Beijing in foul smog, China's cabinet, the State Council, made a number of wide-ranging commitments to cut emissions of major pollutants in the power sector by 60 per cent by 2020.

Those include a pledge to upgrade coal-fired power plants to save around 100 million tons of raw coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 180 million tons annually.

The cuts will be made through improved efficiency.

By 2020, China will have shut down plants that fail to meet the energy-saving standard, according to a statement from the cabinet, and China aims to cut total coal consumption to below 65 per cent of its total primary energy use by 2017 as part of adjustments of its energy structure.

"The biggest bottleneck problem in Chinese socioeconomic development is environment and resource issues, which reflect the necessity and the urgency to deal with climate change," Mr Xie said in an interview with the state news agency Xinhua.

China’s coal use has long been seen as a major impediment to meeting its commitments on climate change, and in some ways the current plans look aimed at dealing with air pollution specifically.

Although last year saw the first decline in China’s coal output after 15 years of consecutive growth, coal still accounted for 66 per cent of the country’s energy consumption.

China issued 155 coal-fired power plants with environmental permits in the first nine months of this year.

There is a broad expectation that China’s coal use is set to peak by the end of the decade.

Responding to criticism that China’s commitments on climate change were a little vague, Mr Xie said the country’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) included “mitigation and adaptation, strategy and policy, as well as specific measures, even several operational and specific projects.”

The plan included detailed measures on areas such as “agriculture, forestry, water resources, urban and ecologically fragile littorals in order to resist climate change and to improve gradually early warning, forecasting, disaster reduction and prevention system.”

Technology and capital were two key words in narrowing the gap between the INDCs and long-term climate change goals, he said, adding that China was prepared to help other developing countries improve their capacity in getting financed by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other international institutions in order to deal with climate change.

China has been critical of the rich countries’ failure to make deep cuts in greenhouse gases and also in helping developing countries pay for projects to fight global warming.