China＇s Industrialization and Reduction of Greenhouse Emissions

Over the past two decades, the size of the Chinese economy has more than quadrupled and the energy consumption more than doubled. The drive for further industrialization over the next two decades will continue the trend on a much larger scale. The net increase in emissions from 1990 to 2001 amounted to 823 million tons of COy accounting for 27 percent of the world‘s total. Energy supply and security constitute key constraints to industrialization and,therefore, the mitigation of emissions can in fact contribute to the achievement of development goals. Many actions can be taken to balance industrialization and reduction of emissions.As a large and rapidly growing market, China shares many opportunities with European partners for business cooperation and joint efforts for the reduction of emissions through clean development mechanisms and other bilateral initiatives.     

Low Carbon Development： Challenges for China as a Rapidly Industrializing Developing Country

I. Rapid Industrialization and Need for Low Carbon DevelopmentIndustrialization is characterized by a rapid process of urbanization, construction ofinfrastructure,and transitionfromlaborto capitalto knowledgeintensiveindustrialstructures.Iftheseindicatorsareused,itisevidentthatChinaisstillin theearly stagesofindustrialization.In 2003,GDPpercapitaexceeded US$1,000 forthefirsttimein history (NBS,2004).Despiteshortages ofelectricity and increases in theprices ofraw materials such as steelan…