China vulnerable to climate change

Li Gao, deputy directorgeneral of the department of climate change of the National Development and Reform Commission, says the country has made low-carbon development a core element for designing the nation's ecological civilization plan.

China will step up efforts in hammering out a legislative plan on climate change, said Li at a side event held during the talks in Lima.

The Chinese government recognizes the existence of climate change and the impact of human activity. The nation has organized an expert team to study what would be the corresponding policies that should be put in place from now to 2050 to realize a low-carbon transition.

China will reasonably control the incremental part of its energy consumption and strictly control its coal consumption, says Li.

Liu says China's current development stage and resource endowment make its response to climate change harder and more costly.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions by one metric ton costs the government 167 yuan ($27), it says.

The good news is that restructuring has been made a top priority, and innovation of technologies, streamlined economic structure and expansion of the service sector will all contribute to energy savings and emissions reductions.

If existing units are replaced with innovative technology, it could help reduce emissions by 420 to 700 million tons in 2030, said the report.

By 2030, carbon dioxide emissions from the energy supply sector are predicted to be around 4.5 billion tons, with 770 million tons from industrial processes and about 492 to 811 million tons through afforestation and sustainable forest management, according to the report.

With cleaner coal technology, the current power generation efficiency will increase by 4 to 7 percent, which is significant for a country that relies heavily on coal. Promotion of carbon capture, utilization and storage can reduce hundreds of millions of tons in carbon dioxide emissions every year.

China has also learned from other countries' experiences and lessons.

"As a developing country, China will try its best to cooperate with other developing nations to actively tackle climate change," says Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation at the talks in Lima.

"It's a very good initiative that we very much welcome," says Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Inspired by the leadership of China, Figueres says, the secretariat of the convention is going to open up a South-South Fund, which will mainly focus on adaptation knowledge sharing.

The third China national assessment report also finds the average land warming in China in the 1909-2011 period was in a range of 0.9 to 1.5 C, according to the latest instrumental records on temperature in the past century.