Watching Government: China considers its choices

Policies to address environmental problems will be crucial as China pursues future energy and economic strategies, a leading official at China's Academy of Social Sciences said.
April 11, 2016
3 min read

Policies to address environmental problems will be crucial as China pursues future energy and economic strategies, a leading official at China's Academy of Social Sciences said.

"I believe ecosystems will be the biggest force. We should be less polluting as we move to a low-carbon economy that is no longer dominated by certain sectors," said Xiaojie Xu, who directs CASS's Institute of World Economics & Politics.

"Certain sectors" primarily involve fossil fuels, which supply 88% of the energy consumed there, Xu said during an Apr. 5 presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Public policies will need to be there as well, and reflect certain assumptions including population and economic growth and increased efficiencies," Xu explained.

An important journey

CASS's 2016 World Energy China Outlook includes not just a current policies scenario, but also an Eco-Friendly Strategy emphasizing a new pattern of economic development, an optimized energy system, higher efficiency, and lower carbon emissions. Primarily this means considering economic growth's quality as well as quantity, Xu said.

"We have made an important journey as a developing country. But China is coming to a crossroads where it will have to decide where to go next," he said.

"If it makes an energy transition moving forward, China could pave its own way to following courses different from other developing countries by reducing its per capita carbon dioxide emissions to much lower levels," he said.

Xu said he'd like to see China take a visionary approach with lower gross domestic product and economic growth, reduced fossil fuel demand growth, and more reliance on alternative sources including renewables, nuclear power, and increased efficiency.

"In the next 5 years, we see annual economic growth between 6.5-7% to help the economy double by 2020. We consider this the minimum," he said. "After 2020, economic growth could be a little slower, reflecting a relationship between size and speed."

Coal, gas, and oil

Coal will remain important to China, which is both a major producer and consumer, Xu said. It's also very dirty.

"We have to reduce its share of total energy consumption from 30% to 3%," he said.

China also should increase its tight shale gas development to supplement growing natural gas imports. "Oil will be tough to deal with its low demand and prices amid emissions reductions," he said.

Policies increasingly may have to reflect not just industrial and government needs, but also the public's, Xu said.

"We need to look at what the next generation's attitudes toward energy will be," he suggested.

"It may hold views on solutions that haven't been imagined. We need to make the energy systems more flexible to accommodate its ideas," he said.

About the Author

Nick Snow

NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020. 

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