China Sets 2020 Emissions Target in Interest of National Security

The Chinese government sees climate change as far more than a risk on the horizon — it represents a direct threat to the ruling party and to the country’s national security, says international business and security consultant Andrew K.P. Leung.

With that in mind, it wasn’t a surprise that the Chinese government today announced its first official 2020 carbon emissions target, Leung said.

“In the West, when we refer to climate change, it is in the context of a looming … risk to the trees and for ourselves and our children’s children.

"For China, it’s a clear and present danger. It is threatening the stability of the communist party, so it has been elevated to the level of national security,” he told SolveClimate.

The stability of the Chinese government depends on its ability to deliver some 20 million new jobs a year, every year, in a country containing about a sixth of the world's population, Leung explained.

“China has to grow very, very fast," he said. "Urbanization creates more jobs than agriculture, so China needs to push urbanization very, very quickly, especially in the provinces. And for that, China needs energy.”

China currently gets most of its energy from fossil fuels. The country is rich in coal, but coal is highly polluting and threatens the health of China’s increasingly urbanized workforce. In its cities, air quality is poor.

Fresh water supplies, needed for both health and producing energy, are also threatened with increasing competition from India as the Himalayan glaciers melt due to climate change.

It is in China’s interests to diversify away from fossil fuels and to urbanize as cleanly as possible, Leung argues.

He notes that China has already started to do this. It has become a world leader in solar and hydroelectric power, and it is a growing force in wind power.

The 2020 carbon intensity target announced today by the State Council takes those efforts a step farther. The target is a 40-45 percent cut in CO2 emissions from 2005 levels relative to gross domestic product, so it won’t mean an actual drop in emissions unless China’s economy stops growing at its current rapid pace, but it will slow the growth of emissions.

“China is now seizing the high ground. It is a very good signal in the run up to Copenhagen,” Leung said. “During Obama’s visit at the APEC conference, signals were being sent out and interpreted as if America has given up on coming to something meaningful in Copenhagen. There are lots of noises among the developing countries in particular sounding a very strident note.”

In announcing its setting of a carbon intensity target, which had been discussed for several years, the State Council described the move as "a voluntary action" taken by the Chinese government "based on our own national conditions" and "a major contribution to the global effort in tackling climate change," the official state news agency Xinhua reported.

That “binding goal” is to be written into China’s social and economic development plans. To meet it, the State Council said it would work toward a target of 15 percent of the nation’s primary energy coming from renewable energy sources and nuclear power by 2020.