Photo: low-carbon-cities-China
Making low-carbon cities a reality for China
28 November 2013
by Richard Forster
Climate Change is a priority agenda for the Chinese government and in 2010, a pilot programme was launched for provinces and cities towards low-carbon, sustainable development. Peng Yan, East Asia Regional Director at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, looks at the opportunities for Chinese cities to advance the green agenda
The “Low Carbon Pilot Cities” programme launched in 2010 is of great significance for Chinese cities in terms of climate action planning because it is the first attempt by the national government to expand the sectoral climate policies to the city level.
The Chinese government selected five provinces and eight cities as the first pilot group to explore and experiment on climate action planning and implementation. All the pilot provinces and cities have established task teams, formulated implementation schemes, and promulgated their respective goals for carbon intensity reduction in the 12th Five-Year Plan period towards 2020. They also have vigorously developed low- carbon industries to promote green and low-carbon development.
However, there is little mention in the policies and programmes on how achievements will be measured. China has commissioned a number of research teams to develop city-wide emission inventories but has not yet decided on a common methodology. That said, it would be unfair to question Chinese cities on their commitment to climate action planning as the lack of a consistent measurement process for city-wide measurement practices is a common challenge globally.
International cooperation on climate change used to be a very sensitive topic in China because it was perceived as an issue for international negotiation, rather than one linked to urban development within China. The topic of climate change is no longer a subject only for the climate negotiation team but is seen as an opportunity to transform economic development patterns. In 2009, the government put forward the goal of reducing per-unit GDP greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40-45 percent by 2020 as compared to the levels in 2005. Therefore the State Council has made climate change a priority and required a task-breakdown plan to ensure that the energy use reduction targets are enforced through designated offices and teams in ministries at the national, government and city government level.
GHG emission inventory was among the core priorities of the climate change team at the national level, as part of the National Communication on Climate Change of China to the UNFCCC. The most significant milestones were the two start-up meetings in 2009 marking the full scale launch of ten subprojects under the “Enabling China to Prepare Its Second National Communication to the UNFCCC” programme. All the subprojects were completed and the results incorporated into the 2nd National Communication, which was made public in February 2013.
A major obstacle to low-carbon development for Chinese cities is the lack of targeted development plans. But a low-carbon plan needs to be based on good GHG emission inventory and GHG reduction planning. Two news tools are being developed to assist cities with this. These are: 1) A “Handbook on City Greenhouse Gas Inventory” by the Programme of Energy and Climate Economics (PECE), Remin University of China; and 2) a GHG Accounting Tool for Chinese Cities (Pilot Version 1.0) by The World Resources Institute (WRI) and its partners (based on the GPC) [WKF1]. The WRI tool is the first city- level GHG accounting tool in China that comprehensively covers GHG emissions and sinks from buildings, industries, transportation, solid waste, wastewater treatment and disposal, industrial processes, agricultural activities, and forest and land use changes. It will be a crucial reference for the National Development Reform Commission and will empower cities, counties and regions across China to measure their emissions and shift to low-carbon development. The earliest final publication of the WRI tool will be in 2014.
While city level climate actions follow such sectoral policies through the local office of the ministries, the launch of the comprehensive climate change program at the city level in 2010 marked a new role for cities in terms of climate action planning.
Progress of city-wide emission inventory and climate planning
Some Chinese cities such as Shenzhen, Kunming, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing have now started to develop their GHG emission inventories using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology. But the results remain either unavailable publicly or as a research finding and were not treated as official data for planning and management use. In the case of Shenzhen, the research team published the GHG Emission Inventory in 2012, which was based on the activity data collected by the team according to IPCC guidelines. The team also made comparisons with the results of other cities. It concluded that “the total CO2 emissions in Shenzhen were 65.69 million tonnes; the largest GHG contributor was the energy sector, contributing 80.8 percent to the total CO2e emissions in Shenzhen, while the industrial process, waste and AFOLU sectors (agriculture, forest and other land use) shared 16.5, 5.1 and 2.4 percent of total GHG emissions, respectively. The average CO2 emissions in terms of population and GDP were 7.49 tonnes/person and 0.84 tonnes/104 Yuan, respectively, which both were lower than the average levels of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing and Wuxi”.
A major obstacle to low-carbon development for Chinese cities is the lack of targeted development plans. A low-carbon plan needs to be based on good GHG emission inventory and GHG reduction planning. China’s National Development Reform Commission (NDRC) therefore welcomes tools which aim to develop a methodology of calculating GHG emissions at the city level, so that NDRC can use them as the basis to provide guidance to cities on their low-carbon development plans. Two tools to assist in developing such a methodology are: the Handbook on City Greenhouse Gas Inventory by the Programme of Energy and Climate Economics (PECE), and Remin University of China; A GHG Accounting Tool for Chinese Cities by The World Resources Institute (WRI). Both tools need to be tested, reviewed, and accepted by the NDRC and cities before becoming officially used by Chinese cities and the earliest final publication of the WRI tool will be in 2014.
When the Chinese government decides to apply the GHG Accounting Tool for Chinese Cities, they will have to consider the issues identified by the research teams, which include:
1. On the statistical system:
• There are no specific statistics for the building and transport sectors.
2. On data availability:
• There are incomprehensive energy balance statistics in some cities and a lack of detailed sector-specific data in most cities.
• There is inconsistency, incompleteness, double counting, and a lack of transparency of data.
3. Political sensitivity:
• Issues of data security and misuse.
The first two points are easy to understand. The third point refers to China-specific characteristics. International cooperation in general has been a very centralised process and the scope left for cities is mainly bilateral project-specific or ad hoc interaction with other countries. It is very rare for Chinese cities to be engaged in a multilateral organisation without steering from national government and while Chinese cities will share data as long as it is used for a pilot project or internal use, they are cautious to commit to international reporting.
Forward looking
It is important for Chinese cities to realise that developing detailed GHG analysis at the city level and producing robust, measurable, climate action plans to reduce emissions is a challenge that cities all over the world are facing. Working together with other cities already tackling these issues through city networks such as C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) is a great opportunity to tackle these issues together and to learn from cities around the world. However, working together requires trust. Trust to share challenges, failures and successes with peers in order to go farther, faster and more efficiently. This requires a platform to engage other cities around the world and the confidence that shared data and experiences will not be abused. C40 has launched an initiative on Measurement & Planning (M&P), in order to develop a value chain for all participating cities with the following goals:
- Promote knowledge management and capacity building
- Enhance each city’s ability to gather data, measure progress, and report outcomes
- Support planning efforts and maintain progress towards self-identified goals
- Encourage internal and external stakeholder action through consensus building
After several years of research it was clear that there needed to be a consistent methodology developed specifically for cities conducting GHG inventories. The figure below clearly indicates the scope of this problem in showing the variety of ways in which cities around the world are currently measuring their emissions.
To tackle this problem C40 began to develop the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC) through a partnership between C40, ICLEI and WRI along with supporting partners such as the World Bank, the UN-Habitat and UNEP. It is currently being piloted by 35 cities from around the world. By working with other cities around the world, Chinese cities would have access to the most updated methodology for GHG accounting at the city-wide level along with technical support.
