China’s Energy Transition Strategy in the Context of Global Climate Change

Abstract

Worsening climate change has brought grave challenges to global energy development. All countries need to make urgent joint actions to speed up low-carbon transition of the energy sector. China, as the largest energy-related greenhouse gas emitter, plays a crucial part in global low-carbon energy transition. Clear strategic guidance is one of the indispensable factors for the country’s successful transition. With the integration of energy system in mind, this chapter builds on the basic concepts of energy transition strategy and framework of system analysis to elaborate on China’s energy transition strategy amid global climate change. The chapter contains three sections: energy challenges in China, the history, recent trends and future path of China’s energy system, and policy recommendations for energy governance and energy markets. Overall, the challenge of China’s energy transition in the context of global climate change lies not only in the call to expedite carbon emission reductions in the energy system, but also in the need to address other energy issues such as energy equity, energy security, and environmental protection. To solve all these issues, it must consider the unique evolution and changing pattern of China’s energy system itself, follow the mechanism, and meticulously craft the strategy of energy transition (energy revolution) that suits the national situation. Under the policy objectives of the energy revolution, such as capping total energy consumption, peaking carbon emission, and increasing the share of non-fossil energy, China must accommodate energy system integration relative to coordination between energy and economy, between energy and infrastructure and between energy and regional development. To this end, this chapter envisions the “3+1” energy system integration, and proposes to build a regional smart energy system that features the blend of “smart energy farms—smart energy towns—smart energy industrial parks—smart energy transportation networks”. However, this poses new challenges to the existing energy governance system and energy market management. Therefore, it’s essential for China to empower energy planners, spur bottom-up energy innovation, remove the barriers to cooperation between the energy industry and enterprises, and redouble efforts to strengthen the energy management information system and dedicated think tanks in the energy sector.