New Guideline Released to Boost China’s Green and Circular Economy

China’s State Council has released a circular of guiding opinions on Feb 22, to boost the development of green and low-carbon circular economy, and to promote an overall green transformation of the economy and society, a move to set China on course to building towards its green future and carbon neutrality. 

The new guideline calls for efforts to improve utilization efficiency of resources, to strengthen protection of the ecological environment, and to effectively control greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the guideline, China will see a marked rise in the scale of green industries, a continued drop in major pollutants, and a slashed carbon emission intensity by 2025. 

By 2035, energy and resource utilization efficiency in key industries and for key products is expected to reach an internationally advanced level, and the goal to build a beautiful China will be basically achieved.

To meet those targets, the document outlines key measures to push forward the green and low-carbon transition of the production, consumption and circulation systems in the entire economic sphere. 

In addition, promoting greening infrastructure, establishing market-oriented green technology innovation system, as well as perfecting related supporting policies and regulations in areas such as green finance, green certification and standards, have also been placed on top of the agenda. 

The issuing of the document, which details China’s ambition in building towards a low-carbon society by setting on the right path to achieve its targets of carbon peak and neutrality by 2030 and 2060 respectively, has drawn so much attention within the energy sector. It is widely believed that renewables, including wind and solar, and especially energy solution providers including energy conservation and efficiency as well as integrated energy services, will reap the most benefits in the coming decade.

Some of the priorities outlined in the documents that concerning the energy sector are listed as follows, to name just a few:

- further liberalize competitive operations in energy conservation and environmental protection business in the oil, gas, power and chemical sectors;

- promote green renovations of data centers;

- encourage utilities to engage in energy management trusteeship services;

- boost energy and water saving performance contracting services;

- encourage the construction of integrated energy projects, where multi-energy including electricity, heating, cooling and gas supplies are complementary;

- prioritize the use of new and electric vehicles in transportation and logistics;

- speed up the construction of port shore power facilities;

- deepen the OBOR cooperation on green development;

- expand international cooperation on technology, equipment and services in areas such as energy conservation, environmental protection and clean energy;

- promote green power certificate trading to lead on green power consumption of the whole society;

- promote green and low-carbon transformation of the energy system;

- increase the share of renewables in energy consumption;

- vigorously push for the development of wind and solar power;

- speed up R&D of large-capacity energy storage technologies;

- improve transmission capacity of power grids;

- increase the supply of clean energy and promote the use of biomass in rural areas;

- upgrade urban and rural power distribution networks with smart solutions;

- accelerate the construction of natural gas infrastructure and interconnection;

- promote CCUS demonstrations;

- further develop supporting infrastructure such as EV charging and battery swap stations, as well as hydrogen refueling stations;

- continue to implement preferential tax policies on energy conservation, water conservation, environmental protection, comprehensive utilization of resources, and energy management contracting;

- strengthen statistical monitoring of energy conservation and clean energy, and improve data transparency;

- push forward carbon trading market development...