Beijing should share 'lessons learned', says leading expert

BONN, Germany - At the ongoing United Nations climate talks in Bonn, global environment organizations and climate experts and officials hailed the opportunities and potential China offers in regard to global climate cooperation and to the implementation of measures to tackle changing weather patterns.

Speaking at a side event in the China Pavilion at the 23rd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dylan Murray, a policy adviser with The Nature Conservancy, said China can be a "net exporter of opportunities, lessons learned and best practices for countries in Asia or beyond".

"China has big plans for renewable energy, nationally determined contributions, forest restoration and forest carbon. We see a lot of opportunities with the Chinese government when it comes to policy issues and also opportunities for bottom-up projects," Murray said.

The US-based Nature Conservancy is working on harnessing nature to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Murray said a recent report of the organization found that over the next 13 years, 37 percent of methods to tackle climate change will come from natural means.

"But we are nowhere near to get the work done. We see China as really a good opportunity for us to scale up quickly," said Murray, eyeing greater presence in China for the organization.

Ottmar Edenhofer, a leading climate expert in Germany, sees great opportunities of cooperation between China, Germany and Europe.

Edenhofer expected that China and Germany step up cooperation in electric mobility, photovoltaic industry and city planning to enable electronic mobility as well as to address congestion and local pollution.

"As China is now pushing for electric cars, regulations in China will have a strong impact on European and German industry. So, in that sense, China is influencing our regulations and pushing us also to invest more in electric mobility, because China is an increasing market," said Edenhofer.

Shared scheme

Edenhofer added that best practices for the carbon emission trading scheme can be shared among China and Europe. "China should not replicate mistakes made by Europe" when implementing the scheme, the scholar said.

Brad Page, CEO of Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, said he sees great potential in China for boosting global efforts to tackle climate through carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) as China is accelerating quickly in this field.

Page said the institute published an annual report showing where the CCUS projects are located worldwide, and he revealed: "This year, in the catalog we are going to publish next week, China comes second in terms of the number of CCUS projects, just behind the United States."

"China is a very exciting place for climate change actions," he added.

Developing countries also held high expectations for cooperation with China.

Mr Nguyen Tuan Anh, with the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, said climate change adaptation is a challenge that must be jointly faced by developing nations, island nations, and lesser-developed countries.

"China's financing and development experience are very important to us," he said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 11/11/2017 page9)