Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

The UN Climate Change chief, Yvo de Boer sees China as the green frontrunner, the world climate change leader of the future.

Although China’s President Hu Jintao didn’t state the country’s emissions target by 2020 at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on climate change (September 22 2009), he confirmed that there would be  deep cuts in carbon intensity over the next decade.

Hu Jintao also confirmed that there would be a 15 per cent increase in renewable energy from 2005 levels by 2020. There would also be a substantial growth in forest coverage by 40 million hectares and in forest stock volume.

Carbon intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product for each 1,000 yuan (US$147) of economic output.

For the five years to 2010, China set a goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 per cent to 2010.

A big test for the Chinese will be the need to redouble efforts on carbon intensity from current levels. But the goals for the 12th and 13th Five Year Plans between 2010 and 2020 are still being kept secret.

It will need to be large to have a significant impact, given that between 2001 and 2005, energy consumption grew at 1.2-1.5 times the rate of GDP. As the blog, China Sustainable Energy Energy Program pointed out,”such a low efficiency development pattern is wholly unsustainable. It requires enormous energy input.”

In a report  “China sustainable development strategy report 2009- China’s approach towards a low carbon future,” the team leader Professor WANGI Yi, chief scientist of the CAS Sustainahle Development Strategy sets out a low carbon economic development target.

The recommended scenario is that by 2020, China’s low carbon target be set at 40 to 60 per cent reduction of energy consumption per unit of GDP over the 2005 level, and CO2 emissions per unit of  GDP   be decreasing by about 50 per cent.

The  strategy study group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences suggested that if more restrictive policy measures were adopted for energy saving and carbon reduction, “China’s carbon emissions could be expected to peak between 2030 and 2040, and then stabilise and start to decline afterwards.”

This would be a disappointing outcome for cutting global carbon emissions,as the climate scientists are very concerned that countries have a duty to ensure carbon emissions start to fall before 2020.