It is an uphill battle to reach a carbon peak and be carbon neutral. The ninth meeting of the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee stressed that China's efforts to reach a carbon peak by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 are a major strategic decision made after careful consideration by the CPC Central Committee, which bears on the sustainable development of the Chinese nation and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

How do you view the key work proposed at the meeting and how is the progress so far? The 14th Five-Year Plan is the critical period and window period for carbon to reach its peak. How to promote green and low-carbon development in the next step? The reporter interviewed relevant departments and experts.

We will accelerate the development and utilization of clean energy and build a new type of power system with new energy as the mainstay

The last unit of the Wudongde Hydropower Station has been successfully hoisted, moving towards the goal of full operation and power generation. Two smart energy towns have been built in Tianjin, and the proportion of clean energy in the region can reach 90%. The first electric ship in the Taihu Lake basin has been launched, which can store the same amount of electricity as five electric cars. Recently, the good news about green and low-carbon energy development has injected abundant momentum into the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutral.

The ninth meeting of the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee pointed out that we should build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, control the total amount of fossil energy, focus on improving the utilization efficiency, implement the action of replacing renewable energy, deepen the reform of the power system, and build a new type of power system with new energy as the main body.

According to the official of the National Energy Administration, during the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan, China's installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic power and nuclear power under construction remains the first in the world. By the end of 2020, the installed capacity of clean energy power had increased to 1.083 billion kilowatts, surpassing coal power for the first time and accounting for about 49.2 percent of the total installed capacity. A diversified clean energy supply system had been put in place.

Nevertheless, the task of reducing carbon emissions in the energy and power sector is still heavy. Data show that energy combustion is the main source of carbon dioxide emissions in China, accounting for about 88% of all carbon dioxide emissions, and power industry emissions account for about 41% of energy industry emissions.

The development of renewable energy is an important measure to promote energy transformation. Aimed at meeting the "implementation of renewable energy alternative action", the National Energy Administration officials said that would promote renewable energy on a large scale, high rate, market development, improve the proportion of renewable energy in the energy, power consumption, make renewable energy during the period of "difference" to become the main body in primary energy consumption increment.

For "the construction of new energy as the main body of the new power system" this concept, the industry is also very concerned. "Wind power and photovoltaic power generation are volatile. In the future, with the rapid development of new energy and the wide application of new energy-using equipment, the difficulty in balancing supply and demand and ensuring safe and stable operation of the power system will increase correspondingly. Therefore, we should build a new power system." "Said Lu Gang, director of the Energy Strategy and Planning Institute of the State Grid Energy Research Institute.

What is the new power system with new energy as the main body? A person in charge of the National Energy Administration introduced that the new power system is widely equipped with flexible adjustment resources such as new energy storage and electric vehicles, which can adapt to the large-scale centralized and distributed renewable energy grid consumption with high proportion. In terms of structural characteristics, it centers on user-side security and reliability guarantee, and is mainly characterized by high digitalization and intelligence, synergistic interaction of source network load and storage, power multi-energy complementarity, strong ability of clean energy resource allocation, flat dispatch and operation, etc.

Industry experts believe that the construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body needs to make concerted efforts from many aspects, especially to accelerate the development and application of new energy storage technology, improve the coordinated and optimized operation capacity of multiple sources on the power side, and promote the comprehensive digitization of all links of the power system.

In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the National Energy Administration said that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the research will be guided to break through the energy storage technology with large capacity, high safety, low cost, high efficiency and long life, and improve the mechanism of energy storage to participate in the market and investment income. Give full play to the flexible adjustment ability of thermal power units, study and perfect the active depth peak regulation of thermal power units and implement the compensation mechanism of flexible transformation; Accelerate the research, development and application of intelligent technologies in power systems, and build highly intelligent dispatching and operation systems based on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing.

We will strive to upgrade the way we consume energy and reduce pollution and carbon emissions in key industries and sectors

The ninth meeting of the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee pointed out that the implementation of pollution reduction and carbon reduction action in key industries and areas, the industrial sector to promote green manufacturing, the construction sector to improve energy conservation standards, the transportation sector to accelerate the formation of green and low-carbon transport.

"Improving energy efficiency and controlling total primary energy consumption are the most direct and effective ways to reduce energy carbon emissions. Under the current energy structure, a reduction of 100 million tons of coal per primary energy consumption would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 200 million tons." Lu Gang believes that to build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, it is necessary to walk on "two legs" and coordinate the clean and low-carbon energy supply with the changes in energy use methods in major energy-using industries such as industry, construction and transportation.

As a highly energy-intensive industry, the steel industry has the largest carbon emissions among the 31 categories of manufacturing. In China Baowu Group Bayi Iron and Steel Company, the hydrogen-rich carbon cycle blast furnace test project is stepping up construction. The person in charge of the company introduced that, after the successful test of the project, not only the utilization coefficient of the smelting furnace can be greatly improved, but also the carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 30%.

Not only the industrial sector, other key sectors are also continuing efforts to reduce pollution and carbon.

In the field of construction, energy-saving transformation is advancing in an orderly manner, assembly construction is speeding up its promotion, and photovoltaic building integration is ready to take off... The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other government departments issued a plan that aims to increase the proportion of green floor space in new urban buildings to 70 percent by 2022.

In the field of transportation, China has eliminated more than 14 million old motor vehicles since the end of 2015. At present, the proportion of new and replaced buses in Beijing, Shanxi, Shanghai, Hunan and other places has reached 100%. It is estimated that the promotion and application of new energy vehicles in the transportation industry can reduce carbon emissions by about 50 million tons every year.

He Jijiang, executive deputy director of the Research Center for Energy Transition and Social Development at Tsinghua University, suggested that energy-saving transformation efforts can be increased in rural housing construction. "The air tightness of rural housing doors and Windows is poor, and it is easy to 'run air and leak air' in winter, and the potential of energy-saving transformation is large." He also suggested that supervision and management of third-party evaluation agencies should be strengthened and corresponding promotion policies should be given while improving energy conservation standards.

To promote green and low-carbon development of transportation, He Jijiang believes that the whole society needs to make joint efforts. For example, the construction of supporting facilities such as charging piles and bicycle paths should be improved to guide more people to choose green travel first. For another example, adjust the transport structure, give full play to the combined efficiency of various modes of transport, and realize low carbonization of freight logistics.

We will improve green and low-carbon policies and the market system, and accelerate the trading of carbon emission rights

Biogas is used for power generation, and biogas residue is turned into fertilizer, which is used after a truckload of garbage is treated at the Hongmiaoling Kitchen Waste Treatment Plant in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. "This is a public welfare PPP project, with a total investment of more than 600 million yuan, a long recovery period and a tight cash flow. Fortunately, the bank provided more than 200 million yuan of green energy saving and emission reduction loans in time." Fuzhou first sea environmental protection technology co., LTD., responsible for the project investment and operation, said.

At its ninth meeting, the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee decided to improve fiscal and taxation policies, pricing policies, finance policies, land policies and government procurement policies that are conducive to green and low-carbon development. Statistics show that China's green loan balance exceeds 11 trillion yuan, ranking first in the world. Green bonds have an outstanding balance of more than 1 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world. Not long ago, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other five ministries and commissions issued a circular, proposing that financial institutions, in accordance with the principles of commercialization, negotiate with renewable energy enterprises to extend or renew loans, give priority to subsidies and further increase credit support, to support the sound and orderly development of wind power, photovoltaic power generation, biomass power generation and other industries.

As for "improving the energy 'double control' system" mentioned at the meeting, Lu Gang believed that the top-level design should be strengthened, and the closed-loop management system of energy consumption budget, energy consumption monitoring, energy use rights trading and energy conservation evaluation should be established and improved. Taking into account the characteristics of different regions and industries, we will establish a mechanism for decomposing, implementing and evaluating energy conservation targets. He said, the more urgent, at present is according to the difficulty of industry carbon emissions in the whole society, alternative potential, the difference of technology economy and electricity emissions between the industry transfer, etc., to make reasonable structural arrangement between the carbon budget industry in our country, and make reasonable carbon reduction path design, especially carbon after peak time, peak and reached peak emissions curve.

"A carbon peak is not a carbon rush. Some local governments may think that before reaching a carbon peak by 2030, they can push ahead with projects that are high in energy consumption and high in emissions. This is a mistake, and we must resolutely curb it." He Jijiang reminded that the steel, chemical and other industries into the carbon emission rights trading market as soon as possible, to accelerate the improvement of the relevant marketization mechanism.

National Energy Administration officials said that the next will anchor carbon peak, carbon neutral goals, adhere to the government and the market to make both efforts, around the reduction of energy commodity attributes, the construction of a unified, open, competitive and orderly power market system, innovative trading varieties, promote the market way to expand the consumption of clean energy space.