The fourth China Low-Carbon Development Forum and the launching event of the Annual Review of Low-Carbon Development in China (2014) were convened in Tsinghua University on the 22nd of March. The scholars present agreed that important changes are emerging in China’s low-carbon development, and that under the current background of global industrial division and a relatively solidified domestic industrial structure, downward adjustment of the economic growth is beneficial to the reduction of carbon use, which will contribute to the transformation of the industrial structure and the realization of energy-saving goals. The participants also claimed that full play should be given to the synergy between green development and low-carbon development, promoting smog control and the advancement of new-type urbanization.

New-type urbanization should open up new paths

“China’s urbanization should take a green and low-carbon development path” said Qi Ye, director of the Climate Policy Institute of Tsinghua University. If we review urbanization in modern world history from the perspective of carbon emissions, we find that urbanization born with industrialization is actually a carbon-intensive process. At present, with China’s urbanization finding itself in the medium-term phase of its rapid development, it is of crucial importance for China and the entire world that China’s urbanization should open up a new path towards a low-carbon economy. The convening of the 2013 Central Urbanization working conference marked the shift in national urbanization towards a healthy direction characterized by intensiveness, intelligence, and green and low-carbon development.

Energy and the environment are two important constraining factors for the development of China’s urbanization, while low carbon is an inevitable requirement for new-type urbanization. The report points out that the shift from high carbon to low carbon is extremely tough. We should not only resolve the problems in existing urbanization, including improper scale and structure, mismatched infrastructure and imbalanced regional development, but also attempt to solve social problems through the huge investment and structural employment brought about by the shift towards green and low carbon development. The shift towards low-carbon urbanization is not just a transformation of individuals or institutions but a transformation of the whole social system, which will involve not only the efforts of central and regional governments but also the broad participation of enterprises and the public. It means changes in the modes of production, modes of employment and the whole social structure.

Efforts to reduce smog will drive low-carbon development

For the last two years, there has been frequent air pollution caused by smog in most regions of China, severely affecting people’s livelihood and health. China’s economic and social development is confronted with increasingly intensified constraints on resources and the environment. “There is no doubt that regional coal consumption and automobile exhaust are the main causes of smog and PM 2.5” says He Jiankun, director of the Institute of Low Carbon Economy of Tsinghua University, adding that the current measures taken in China’s coastal areas to control both total coal consumption and the number of motor vehicles will contribute to improving the air quality as well as promoting carbon-emission reduction.

Qi Ye expressed his feeling that regional smog control is beneficial to the implementation of the low-carbon development policy. He said that as an urgent issue to which both the government and the public pay high attention, smog control is of great significance for China’s low-carbon development as well as for its politics, society and environmental protection.

According to the report, the effort to reduce smog nationwide has effectively promoted the control of total coal consumption and is actively encouraging national energy production and a consumer revolution, which has verified the synergy effects between green and low-carbon development from a particular perspective. It can be foreseen that future policies will bring about more coordination and results beneficial to all.

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 576, March 26, 2014.

Chinese link: http://www.csstoday.net/xueshuzixun/jishizixun/88508.html

Translated by Yu Hui

Revised by Gabriele Corsetti