WHAT CHINA SHOULD DO

China climate change report sets out options
Chris Buckley (w/Ken Wills and Dean Yates), August 17, 2009 (Reuters)

"…[2050 China Energy and C02 Emissions Report] by some of China's top climate change policy advisers has urged the government to set firm targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions so they peak around 2030…Following are some of the key proposals…

"…[The study examines proposals to deepen market reforms of the energy sector, encourages more investment and private capital in clean energy and] proposes setting relative and then absolute targets for limiting China's emissions of the greenhouse gases from human activities…The "relative" targets could involve carbon intensity goals, curbing the amount of emissions needed to create each unit of economic worth."

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"Later, it says, the government could apply absolute caps on emissions, also allowing for the emergence of a "cap-and-trade" market so companies could buy and sell emissions rights, domestically and internationally…Movement to such a carbon-trading market should be cautious, the study says…[because the effective allocation of emissions allowainces could have unintended economic consequences]…"

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"The report devotes a chapter to the potential benefits and costs of a carbon tax…[on] fossil fuels…[to curtail emissions]…A tax of 100 yuan ($14.6) on every metric ton of carbon from 2010, which would rise to 200 yuan on every metric ton in 2030, could by 2030 reduce emissions by up 24 percent less than they would have been under a "business as usual" scenario…"

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"Jiang Kejun of the Energy Research Institute says that if China continues a "business as usual" approach focused on economic growth and does little to curb emissions, its carbon dioxide output from fossil fuel alone could peak at the equivalent of 3.5 billion metric tons of pure carbon a year by 2040. That does not include greenhouse gas emissions from other sources, such as livestock and land-use changes…[P]olicies to promote "low-carbon development," …[could hold emissions to] 2.4 billion metric tons of carbon a year by 2050…[A]n "enhanced low carbon scenario" of even more stringent steps, they could… [hold emissions to] 2.2 billion metric tons a year in 2030 and…1.4 billion metric tons in 2050…

"The U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has estimated China emitted 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon from burning fossil fuels in 2007, compared with 1.6 billion metric tons from the United States. (Emissions are also measured in CO2, with each metric ton of carbon equal to 3.67 metric tons of CO2)…"