Cambridge expert on China’s pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060

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China’s pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 will have far-reaching global consequences. Hector Pollitt, the Head of Modeling at Cambridge Econometrics, carried out a modeling-based study to look at China's impacts meeting its net-zero target both from an environmental perspective and from an economic perspective. He said the commitment would not only shave global warming projections but also raise China’s GDP.

[kckoay]

“We aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, ” announced President Xi Jinping.

While the prejudiced screams judgement, immediately pointing to the fact that China has contributed 28% of global carbon dioxide emission, they were silence on the the fact that China equally account for over 28% of global industrial productions, and 18.6% of world population.

Critics have similarly ignore an important decarbonisation effort China had taken over the last 40 years — increase its forest cover from just 12% to 23% now.

When one takes into consideration that of China’s national frontier stretches some 9.6 square million kilometres, about the size of the United States. In other words, China has planted just over 1 million square kilometres of forest. That is the size of Egypt!

In perspective, trees renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. The amount of oxygen produced by one square kilometre of trees per year equals the amount consumed by 4, 500 people, and simultaneously remove up to 640 tons of CO2 annually.

China is also the only country in world which has successfully reversed the seemingly unstoppable desertification, by turning its desserts into forest, farm lands, and wetlands. The area of desertified land in the country is dropping by an annual average of more than 2, 400 square kilometres, or 3 times the size of Singapore, compared to what used to be an annual average expansion of over 10, 000 square kilometres at the end of the last century.

Empirical evidence in fact, suggest that China will be able to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality sooner rather than later.

A case in point, Beijing was once rated as one of the ten most polluted cities in the world by the United Nations.

A December 15, 2006, released by the Asian Development Bank on urban air quality had pointed out that the inhalable particulate matter in Beijing’s air was 142 μg m3 or microgram per cubic meter. The urban air pollution index was 4 to 7 times the safety level set by the W.H.O.

The situation was in fact, as bad as those observed in Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu, Bangladesh’s Dhaka, and India’s New Delhi.

But today, all that had changed with massive oasification of the once encroaching desserts, the elimination of polluted industries, and a switch to green energy.

The result was profound, with monthly average air quality index observed over the months of July, August, and September 2020 improving tremendously to 41, 28, and 24 μg m3 respectively. In fact, for the first week of October 2020, it has improved further to 15 μg m3.

Similar improvements were observed in all other maga cities such as — Tianjin (19 μg m3), Shanghai (58 μg m3), and Shenzhen (28 μg m3).

In other words, the air quality observed in these Chinese cities are now comparable to their American counterparts of New York (3.7 μg m3), Los Angeles (32.8 μg m3), Chicago (2.2 μg m3), and Houstan (41.8 μg m3). Even when the economic activities in these American cities have largely been subdued by the pandemic.

[greygrath]

Yes China u can do it support from India

[nileshbhattacharya]

All the best china. You deserve lots of ❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳

[Earth]

Besides what's mentioned, this goal requires lots of investments in building energy efficiency, existing building and infrastructure retrofitting, and urban renewal projects. This will further boost the economy and will create lots of new job. This is going to benefit not only the environment, but also the people and the economy.

[wolf-man-bear-pig-torque]

Biggest question for this zero-net carbon campaign:
Morea Nuclear or less to no nuclear...

[goodfreelance]

This is bad news for carbon pollution industry such as coal and oil

[tschoong]

Carbon emission must be emission per capita in order to be fair to all countries.

[gregmakov]

hahaha, so funny :D:D 'xu thien duong' only needs 3 days to reach any level :D:D dont you believe it?! Did you know 'thanh giong' in 'xu thien duong'?

[ampm]

😁 That’d be a miracle! Go China.
Mmm then industrial cities will be suitable to live in.
Guangzhou - city in the south, should be sunny, instead the sky is gray.

[sunking]

Lmao 😂 2060??? Make it past next year and ill give you a trophey😂👽🌞⚡️⚡️⚡️✈️🔥🌏⏳

[aguywithananimeprofile]

Better fix the yangtze and yellow river first most of the life forms have gone extinct bcoz of the ill planned dams and dumping of wastes from the industries