Hello, everyone! Let me begin the second section:
process and actions for global response to climate change.
In this section,
I will tell you,
against the background of global response to climate change,
energy reform and low-carbon development
has become a worldwide trend.
I will introduce,
against such a trend, what the major countries
adopted as their strategies, and their actions.
In order to protect global climate and sustainable development of human society,
we have already begun,
the process of cooperation in response to climate change.
In 1992,
at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
the Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted.
This Framework
established the objectives and principles for global response to climate change.
It aims to reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions
and restrict the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere,
so that the future temperature rise
will not affect the ecology and food production
and the sustainable development of human society can be guaranteed.
We know the Paris Agreement,
finally determined to control the temperature rise below 2℃,
or even below 1.5℃.
According to the UNFCCC adopted in 1992,
Conference of the Parties at Kyoto in 1997
adopted another legal document
known as the “Kyoto Protocol”.
Based on the objectives and principles established by the Convention,
the Protocol provided for developed countries, during the period 2008-2012,
quantified greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations,
which initiated
substantive action by human society to cope with climate change.
Then the 2009
Climate Conference in Copenhagen
and the 2011 Durban Climate Conference
adopted the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,
and started the Durban platform negotiations.
The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is from 2013 to 2020.
Durban platform negotiations
aimed to study and establish a post-2020
new institutional arrangements for global climate change.
The objective of Durban platform negotiations
had been achieved in the Paris Agreement
adopted last year in the Paris Climate Conference.
Achieving such an objective
marks a new start of
global response to climate change,
and is also a new milestone of
global cooperation to deal with climate change.
The Paris Agreement established
a new mechanism for post-2020 global response to climate change.
The next task is to implement
the Agreement,
and attain the objectives referred to in the Agreement.
Now how to reduce emissions to achieve the 2℃ goal,
as I have talked about just now,
still faces a great challenge.
If the current trend of emission continues to develop,
then, by the end of this century,
the global temperature rise is likely to
rise by 3.7℃ to 4.8℃ compared with the level before the industrial revolution,
which will exceed the earth’s ability of self-adaptation,
and bring urgent
or even irreversible danger to the earth’s ecology.
Therefor the implementation of the Paris Agreement
requires increasing all Parties’ emission reduction obligations.
In such a new situation,
the world
has begun the process of dealing with climate change.
Because the CO₂ emissions from the energy system
is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions
and the most important area of greenhouse gas emission reduction,
thus, under the urgent greenhouse gas emission reduction targets,
energy revolution is carried out throughout the world
so as to promote the transformation of world economic and social development mode to a low carbon one.
There are two main aspects.
On one hand, the world has begun to attach importance to
energy efficiency improvement and energy saving,
which help to reduce energy consumption
and enhance the efficiency of energy use and technological efficiency;
more importantly, it helps to
decrease the consumption of fossil fuels,
thus reducing CO₂ emissions.
On the other hand,
no matter how we save energy
and improve energy efficiency,
with economic and social development,
total energy consumption
still maintains a trend of growth.
But the growth rate of energy consumption will be lower than that of the economic growth.
Total energy consumption grows
while we have to reduce CO₂ emissions,
therefore, we also need to
change the energy structure to
reduce the proportion of high-carbon energy such as coal and oil,
and improve the share of non-carbon and renewable energy
including hydropower, wind power, solar power, and nuclear power;
and improve the share of non-carbon and renewable energy
meanwhile, we should also improve the proportion of low-carbon clean natural gas
to replace coal.
In a word,
we save energy and change energy structure
to promote the reform of energy system
and reduce CO₂ emissions from energy system.
Therefore, this trend
has promoted a fundamental change
to the mode of global economic and social development.
Low carbon development
has become a worldwide trend,
which is developed
together with energy strategy.
For example, the EU
has confirmed
a target of large proportion renewable energy in future
and an urgent goal of energy conservation.
Germany plans to, by 2050,
cut the total primary energy consumption
by half compared with the current amount,
and in its energy mix,
the proportion of new and renewable energy should be more than 60%,
and as for power system,
80% of the electricity would be generated by renewable energy.
These measures enable Germany
to cut greenhouse gas emissions in 2050
by above 80% compared with the level of 1990.
So such goals and strategic choices
also promote energy technology innovation
and rapid development of the new energy industry.
To achieve such a global goal (of climate change mitigation),
by the second half of this century,
net zero CO₂ emissions need be achieved in energy system,
which also means,
by the second half of this century,
a new energy system dominated by energy and renewable energy
should be basically built.
Therefore, in future, the energy system reform,
throughout the globe,
will accelerate,
and the growth rate of energy demand
and CO₂ emissions
will slow down by a great extent globally.
From 2000 to 2015,
in the past 15 years,
global energy demand increased by more than 2%,
global CO₂ emissions also grew by above 2%,
and energy consumption per unit of GDP
fell by about 1% annually.
From 2015 to 2030,
in the following 15 years,
with energy saving and new energy development,
the growth rate of energy demand
will be much lower in future.
In the 15 years from 2015 to 2030,
the annual growth rate of CO₂ emissions
will decrease to below 1% from the previous over 2%,
and the CO₂ intensity of GDP
will fall by
more than 2%
from the previous about 1%.
So generally it halves or doubles the previous number.
Such a trend
of slowing energy demand growth
and CO₂ emissions increase in future
will help CO₂ emissions
reach the peak globally and begin to decline,
will promote the process.
Future energy growth,
is mainly new and renewable energy growth.
Its growth rate will reach more than 6%,
while fossil energy such as coal and oil
will grow by less than 1%,
showing a slow growth trend.
So the speed of energy substitution will be accelerated.
What’s significant is,
thanks to energy technology innovation,
our current renewable energy development is very rapid
and the cost is also rapidly declining,
which makes replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy
not only technically possible
but also increasingly competitive economically,
so we can promote the sustainable development of renewable energy
through some market-oriented means.