The “Chief Climate Protection Officer” Boosts the “4th Industrial Revolution” in the Carbon Age

On December 2, the 16th Session of the Conference Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Cancun, Mexico. At the same time, a unique “Chinese Carbon Policies” and 2010 Chinese Enterprises Low-carbon Development Summit was held in Beijing.

“In Cancun, it is just a sum of watered funds that may reach consensus or it’s a compromised transparency that might reach consensus, but our summit can go further.” It is a tall order set for the summit by Pan Jiahua, director-general of Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He believed that Chinese enterprises had taken action and have arrived at the strategic awareness that low-carbon was efficiency and productivity. He joked “the summit’s results will far surpass those of the congress held in Cancun”.

The summit was one of the series of activities for celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Paper and was jointly organized by the Paper and the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Many representatives from the government, industry, the academic sector and non-governmental organizations held heated discussions over three subjects of policy, pattern and industry in the “4th Industrial Revolution” – low-carbon revolution.

During the summit, the sponsors issued the “2010 Report on Low-carbon Development of Enterprises” and the low-carbon pioneer case enterprises covered in in the report jointly signed the “Beijing Enterprise Respond to Climate Change Manifesto”.

More Effective Control over the Total Energy Growth

Wang Yuqing, Deputy Director of the Population Resource and Environment Committee of the CPPCC and Chairman of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences addressed the forum: “Low-carbon economy should not be mystified. As a large developing economy, China is confronted with very high unit GDP energy consumption, so the most practical choice for the reduction of carbon emissions is to intensify energy conservation.”

Since China is in the process of industrialization and urbanization, overall energy consumption will continue to increase. Some research indicates that its energy consumption from fossil fuels would reach its peak by 2030.

Wang Yuqing said: “Presently our recent target for energy conservation is calculated in energy intensity consumption units, and a result the calculation is largely subject to the influence of the GDP variable, not easy to assess and measure. Take energy growth as the control target is more effective and embodies our determination to save energy and reduce emissions.”

One method to control energy growth is to increase the clean utilization of coal. In terms of our energy structure, over 70% of energy consumption is dependant on coal. Although renewable energy is witnessing very fast development, it is hard to change the energy structure in the short term. Wang Yuqing’s point of view is that it’s crucial to further reduce the unit energy consumption for power generation.

The Data reveals that 7,500,000t carbon could be reduced if the coal consumed by each kWh was reduced by 1g. Wang Yuqing pointed out: “Each kWh thermal power consumed about 320g of coal, but different places varygreatly, so there is big room for improvement.”

The reduction in the use of coal for power generation is a systematic project. Wang Yuqing believes: “We should make an overall plan for, and lead the way in promoting, starting from environmentally-friendly exploitation and environmentally-friendly mining, to washing, ore dressing, sorting and utilizing coal, and then to integrating recycling technology, multi-grade utilization and combined production technology.”

Another method to control the energy growth is to make adjustments to the structure. In Wang Yuqing’s opinion, on the one hand, strategic emerging industries should be developed to create more social wealth with a lower energy consumption, hence reducing energy consumption; on the other hand, we need to adjust our export structure.

Wang Yuqing said: “In reality, our heavy emissions are being used as a scapegoat for some developed countries.” According to the calculations, the US is the country where carbon imports outweigh carbon exports the most, up to 699 million tons a year, followed by Japan - 284 million tons a year. Yet In China, the exports of carbon were higher than imports of carbon, up to 1.147 billion tons.

A New Government-Business Relationship in Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction

“China is under hugr pressure to control it’s emissions of greenhouse gasses. Both the liability and the solutions lie with enterprises.” Sun Zhen, Deputy Inspector of the Climate Change Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, expressed, “regarding the issue of a response to climate change, if our government fails to maintain a good cooperative relationship with enterprises, our country will suffer great losses. Both parties should establish a new cooperative relationship.”

At the state level, during the “12th Five-year Plan” period, the country will control energy consumption from the source; from the development of high energy consumption, heavy emissions and high carbon industry, steering them from passively to actively reducing emissions. Gao Dongsheng, Deputy Director General of the Industry and Integrated Energy Conservation Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that low carbon should not necessarily be a burden for enterprises, but rather it should become a need for enterprises, especially for improving competitiveness.

Gao Dongsheng expressed, “The International community now takes carbon footprints into consideration, regarding taxes and tariffs. How can we adapt to market competition when the products exported by our enterprises fail to reach the standards. This is a practical problem.”

Gao Dongsheng also indicated that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology had selected 121 enterprises and plans to create a group of energy-conserving environment-friendly low-carbon model enterprises with experimental units across China over a three year period. Therefore, models established nationwide might lead the whole industry to save energy and reduce emissions in a self-conscious and active way, so as to realize low-carbon development.

In addition to administrative methods of reducing emissions, simultaneously the state should also provide desirable incentive policies and a market environment for enterprises to save energy and reduce emissions. Wang Yuqing believes that in formulating low-carbon economic policies, the state should put emphasis on providing clear, sustainable and dependable financial incentives and a fair and regulated market environment for enterprises to launch technical innovations, rather than providing hasty support to some selected enterprises before such technologies have been approved as sustainable and effective.

He also exoressed: “After communicating with some enterprises we learnt that, rather than state subsidies, they wish to get a type of clear and long-term signal, a kind of financial arrangement and a regulated market environment.”

At a business level, enterprises should show more initiative to face the strong government. Pan Jiahua believes that enterprises should not be passively subject to the requirements of the government for energy conservation and emissions reduction, but that they should have more interaction with the government and active participation, even start actively lobbying against some unreasonable policies of the government.

Obviously, “many policies formulated by the government are not rational.” Pan Jiahua pointed out that some local governments resorted to some mandatory administrative measures, such as power cuts to limit consumption and suspending or limiting production in order to meet the restrictive targets of the “11th Five-year Plan”. This will not help enterprises to maintain sustainable operations, but even cause great inconvenience to civilians.

“Therefore, enterprises should not merely give feedback to the government but even exert some pressure during this low-carbon development.” Pan Jiahua pointed out. Only by doing this, enterprises may take opportunities to lead the industrial development of the “4th Industrial Revolution”.

“Chief Climate Protection Officer” Boosts the “4th Industrial Revolution”

Responding to climate change is not merely a state task and international political negotiation, but enterprises will be exposed to more direct influences.

“The state will soon provide standardized and quantitative requirements for enterprises’ energy consumption, and carbon indices will, like that for the emission of pollutants, become strict indices for the existence and development of enterprises.” Wang Yuqing said, “so, the program of ‘”Chief Climate Protection Officer”’launched by the 21st Century Economic Report is of great significance for cultivating a low-carbon corporate culture.”

It’s worth noting that the “Chief Climate Protection Officer” is a unique brand concept initiated by the Paper. The Paper believes that the position is a new corporate management post coming into existence in the low-carbon age. Different from the conventional leaders in charge of environmental protection or public benefit, where previous enterprises all regarded environmental protection as expenditure or cost, the responsibility of the climate protection officer is to create sustainable cycle of profitability and competitiveness in the future society.

Chen Hongbo, director of the Low Carbon Weekly, expressed: “We, together with authoritative organizations, such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and NGO’s, launched the “21st Century Climate Protection Officer Plan”, with a view to guiding Chinese enterprises to promote and establish this position so as to help them to set out emission reduction objectives and cover low-carbon development in their business strategies.”

Through the “Chief Climate Protection Officer” plan, this Paper hoped to discover and motivate more low-carbon pioneer enterprises and to give a boost to the “4th Industrial Revolution”. Chen Hongbo, an associate researcher for the Institute of Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained: “Low-carbon pioneer enterprises are forerunners in the practice of business development.”

Their forerunning activities are mainly displayed in “minimizing carbon emissions during production, creating more products and services using the least amount of carbon emissions and carbon management through their overall value chains. For instance, low-carbon standard for purchasing upstream products, providing low-carbon or zero-carbon technology, equipment, products and services downstream, as well as removing and recycling waste to reduce carbon emissions across society.”

At the summit, the Paper and the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences jointly published the “2010 Report on the Low-carbon Development of Enterprises” (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), based on the results of investigations into the low-carbon development in 2010.

The investigation extended from September 2010 to November 2010, covering 12 categories, and 11 industries: electric power, chemical, steel and iron, real estate, finance, information industry, printing and packaging, food (drink), and new energy, etc, as well as an integrated group corporation. The investigation issued 106 questionnaires to 78 Chinese enterprises and 28 multinational companies (including joint ventures) respectively.

As mentioned in the Report, there were 15 enterprises appraised as “low-carbon pioneers” in 2010; BASF China Ltd., GE (China) Co., Ltd., Du Pont China Holding Co., Ltd., FUJIFILM (China) Investment Co., Ltd., Guangdong Galanz Group Co., Ltd., Guangqi Honda Automobile Co., Ltd, State Grid Corporation of China, Ricoh (China) Investment Co., Ltd., Tetra Pak China Ltd., China Vanke Co., Ltd., Industrial Bank, Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Ltd., and China Merchants Property Development Co., Ltd.

Chen Hongbo, the main writer of the Report, introduced the Paper and that the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences would compile the low-carbon practice cases of the above 15 enterprises into a green book titled “Report on Low-carbon Development of Chinese Enterprises” planned to be publish around March 2011 and will be translated into English for publication around the world.

Upon the conclusion of the summit, representatives of the above low-carbon pioneer enterprises jointly signed the “Beijing Declaration of Enterprises to Respond to Climate Change”, swearing to strive to become industrial models for sustainability in the low-carbon age. (source: ifeng.com)TOP