China's new five-year economic plan--to be released in March--is likely to be the greenest strategy document in the country's history, according to a story in The Guardian.
It is likely to include measures to curb pollution, promote clean energy technology and establish an environmental tax.
Other measures could include caps on energy use and a shift away from GDP-based performance evaluation, as the country seeks to reduce its energy intensity over the next decade.
Even with these proactive environmental steps, the country's greenhouse gas emissions could double before peaking--sometime after the year 2030--according to Hu Angang, an economics professor at Tsinghua University who consulted on the plan. This is because the five-year plan will also include a scaling up of coal-fired power in the country to support its booming economy.
China is also planning to expand nuclear power production and build about 140 gigawatts of additional hydropower in the next five years--development that will have profound environmental impact.
"In clean energy, China is busy setting themselves up as a world
leader. If they meet their most ambitious targets for 2020, they'll have
the most wind, the most nuclear and the most hydro," Deborah Seligsohn of the World Resources Institute told The Guardian. "But
China is still playing catch-up on pollution. The air quality in Beijing
does not exactly feel like London or New York."
Read the in-depth story at the link below.
