There are four major issues that need to be paid attention to in the green and low-carbon transition
Today's world is undergoing major changes unseen in a century, facing many problems such as international geopolitical dynamics, difficult economic recovery, in-depth adjustment of the global energy landscape, and frequent occurrence of extreme disasters in many places. Despite the increasing importance of energy security since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, under the premise that climate change has become a real crisis, on the basis of ensuring energy security, adhering to the green and low-carbon transition is the general trend, and non-active participation may damage the long-term competitiveness of the country. Especially for China, promoting green and low-carbon transformation is not only an important part of achieving high-quality economic development, but also a key move to meet the needs of the people in pursuit of a better life.
Since China put forward the "dual carbon" goal in 2020, the concept of green and low-carbon transformation has increasingly become a social consensus, and positive progress has been made in top-level design, institutional rules, and carbon trading market construction. At the same time, it should also be noted that as the external environment for green and low-carbon transformation and development becomes more complex, and the society has a deeper understanding and higher requirements for green and low-carbon transformation, it is necessary to pay attention to four major issues in order to better promote green and low-carbon transformation.
First, we should not only think about and promote green and low-carbon transformation from the energy sector.
Green and low-carbon transition is the direction of action of the whole society, not just the direction of action of a certain industry or individual, so "green and low-carbon transition" cannot be simply equated with "low-carbon energy transition".
On the one hand, the green and low-carbon transition cannot be limited to the energy sector. At present, in the total carbon emissions of the whole society in China, the CO generated by energy activities2Emissions account for a relatively large amount. Among them, the power industry is a "big contributor" to carbon emissions, accounting for about 4% of the energy industry. Therefore, to promote green and low-carbon transformation and promote the realization of the "dual carbon" goal, energy is the main battlefield, and electricity is the main force. Because of this, some people equate the green and low-carbon transition with the green and low-carbon energy transition, ignoring other sectors, such as transportation, construction, agriculture and other fields.
On the other hand, the impact of the green and low-carbon transition cannot be considered only from the perspective of the energy sector. The green and low-carbon transition is a broad and profound economic and social transformation, which is essentially a transformation of the economic system, and the same is true for the green and low-carbon energy transition. To promote the green and low-carbon energy transition, it is necessary not only to ensure energy security, but also to promote high-quality economic development, eliminate energy poverty, achieve fair access, and protect the ecological environment. In particular, some economic policy measures need to consider their costs, benefits, risks, etc., and should not only consider their advantages and disadvantages or pros and cons from the energy field. For example, thanks to policy promotion and its own economic advantages, the current electric vehicle industry is developing very rapidly, reducing the consumption of refined oil, which is good for the low-carbon energy transition. However, from the perspective of the energy industry, almost half of the price of refined oil consumed by fuel vehicles is taxes and fees, and many of these taxes and fees are used for urban construction and environmental pollution control. In the future, the proportion of electric vehicles will further increase, large-scale replacement of fuel vehicles, and the taxes and fees related to refined oil will be greatly reduced.
Second, we must treat high-carbon and low-carbon industries objectively and rationally to avoid imbalances in the industrial structure.
Under the guidance of the trend of green and low-carbon transformation and the constraints of the "dual carbon" goal, government departments in some regions ignore the diversity and relevance of different industries within the economic sector, artificially divide industries into "high-carbon industries" and "low-carbon industries", and simply equate high-carbon industries and high-energy-consuming industries with high-carbon emission industriesThe illusion that "green and low-carbon transformation and development are overriding everything".
In fact, whether it is a "high-carbon industry" or a "low-carbon industry", it is only a nature of the industry itself, and it is a necessary part of the national economic system. Among them, high-carbon industries are industries that use high-carbon raw materials as the main factors of production, so it is not possible to decide whether to develop an industry based on the industrial characteristics of carbon emissions alone.
Considering that China's manufacturing industry accounts for more than 30% of the world's total, as well as the basic national conditions of heavy industries with high energy consumption and high carbon emissions such as steel and chemicals, if the pursuit of green and low-carbon is excessive, the implementation of "one-size-fits-all" restrictions on high-carbon industries and high-energy-consuming industries when introducing relevant policies, and even by reducing the loans of "two highs and one capital" industries, "de-production capacity and output of related industries" In order to reduce carbon emissions and quickly reduce high-carbon industries, it will not only destroy China's relatively perfect industrial system and weaken the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry, but also is not conducive to China's goal of building an independent, controllable, safe and reliable industrial chain and supply chain industry under the trend of increasingly fierce competition between major powers and the ecological reconstruction of the global industrial chain.
At the same time, the "low-carbon theory" will also lead to the disorderly development of low-carbon industries, which may lead to many risks: first, it is easy to form disorderly industrial competition, even if it seeks an industrial technology innovation path that meets market demand, it will quickly eat up its profit margins due to disorderly competition, which is not conducive to strengthening the industry; second, many enterprises and funds invested in a specific low-carbon industry will repeat the "overcapacity before mature development" Third, a large amount of capital will be invested in green and low-carbon industries, which will correspondingly reduce the investment in green and low-carbon transformation of high-energy-consuming industries, and increase their bankruptcy and exit risks. Moreover, if the green and low-carbon industry is virtualized due to capital speculation, it will also disrupt the normal development trend of the industry and lead to the accumulation of financial risks.
Third, we should not rush green and low-carbon technologies.
Although green and low-carbon technology innovation plays a very critical and important role in low-carbon transformation, is the foundation of the transformation, and the state has also issued relevant policies to support the development of green and low-carbon energy technology, it should also be noted that based on the development law of low-carbon energy technology itself, green and low-carbon transformation cannot only rely on the development of low-carbon energy technology, and low-carbon energy technology cannot solve all the problems encountered in green and low-carbon development. In addition, from historical experience, there are still many obstacles to the development and commercial application of low-carbon energy technology.
First of all, there are still problems to be overcome in green and low-carbon technologies, such as small scale, low efficiency, large investment and high risk, and there are uncertainties in their development and breakthroughs. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has assessed that in order to achieve carbon neutrality, 35% of the technologies that will be relied on to reduce carbon emissions by 2070 are still in the demonstration stage, and 40% of the technologies have not yet been developed.
Second, it will take a long time for the large-scale commercial deployment and popularization of green and low-carbon technologies. At present, although some enterprises and scientific research institutions have proposed low-carbon, zero-carbon, carbon sequestration, carbon-negative technologies and other innovative directions and small-scale experiments, there is a big difference between small-scale experimental application and large-scale commercial application, and it often takes decades or even hundreds of years for a new green and low-carbon technology to be proposed from theoretical concept to large-scale, industrialized and commercial operation. Because of this, both the radical transformation in Europe and the robust transformation in North America still face a series of technical difficulties, and the existing green and low-carbon technologies cannot support the rapid transformation. In particular, the development path of high-efficiency energy storage technology is not clear, and technologies such as battery energy storage and compressed air energy storage are still in the demonstration stage and lack commercial operation. Low-carbon energy technologies tend to be small-scale, inefficient, high-risk, and require high initial investment.
Third, for green and low-carbon technologies, it is necessary not only to be technically feasible, but also to be economically viable. If there is a lack of comprehensive consideration of economic rationality and people's livelihood, and a lack of cost-benefit analysis, green and low-carbon technologies will face the situation of "unaffordable". Taking the carbon emissions of gasoline vehicles as an example, some technology may be adopted to collect and use the carbon dioxide produced by them, but the cost is still high. In addition, a large amount of energy is required in the process of capture and utilization, coupled with the carbon emissions of the whole process such as technical facilities, and the carbon emissions of comprehensive accounting are very likely to "make ends meet" compared with the carbon absorption capacity obtained.
Fourth, it is necessary to pay attention to promoting the comprehensiveness and diversity of policies and avoid the sudden advance of individual soldiers.
The green and low-carbon transition includes both the transformation of the production side and the transformation of the demand side, which is a complex system engineering that cannot be achieved by any single driving factor, and needs to be driven by multi-dimensional factors in parallel. Taking the low-carbon energy transition as an example, it is necessary to avoid a relatively single energy structure, a single driving factor, and a single promotion link, so as to achieve comprehensive policies.
Avoid a single energy structure, that is, due to the industrial characteristics of low-carbon energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower, even if it reaches the stage of carbon neutrality, it is impossible to achieve all low-carbon energy supply and traditional fossil energy to be completely replaced. Even within low-carbon energy sources, it is difficult to ensure a continuous and stable supply of electricity by relying solely on a specific low-carbon energy source. Moreover, a high proportion of a single low-carbon energy source is more likely to reduce the resilience of the power supply system. Therefore, it is necessary to give full play to the respective advantages of traditional fossil energy, low-carbon energy and different low-carbon energy sources to achieve multi-energy complementarity, so as to avoid energy shortage.
Avoid a single driving factor, that is, although the energy transition paths of various countries are very different, the driving mechanisms behind them are similar, and the systemic changes in the energy system are mainly driven by four types of factors: government policies, technological innovation, market reform, and subject behavior. Although government policies have played a greater role in promoting the energy transition compared with the previous two energy transitions, it cannot be used as a core driving force in the long term. In order to play a sustained boosting role, it must rely on other factors to promote it, not alone, and it is especially necessary to promote market mechanisms such as electricity market reform and carbon pricing mechanism reform.
Avoid a single promotion link, that is, to promote green and low-carbon transformation purely from the production field, and lack of an inducement mechanism to force the green and low-carbon transformation from the consumption field. At present, there are some problems in China's consumption field, which are not conducive to guiding the green and low-carbon transformation and development: first, green and low-carbon consumption is unconscious, the concept of low-carbon consumption is not strong, and the "carbon quota" is not very constrained. Second, the green and low-carbon labeling of consumer goods is not clear, and most consumer goods, such as household appliances and building materials, as well as intermediate investment products, such as raw materials, do not identify the degree of carbon emissions of products, making it difficult for people to accurately carry out green and low-carbon consumption. If there is no green and low-carbon consumption preference mechanism in the consumption sector, producers will cater to consumers' high-carbon consumption preferences, which will inevitably affect the initiative and enthusiasm of producers in green and low-carbon transformation.
The author is a senior researcher in the energy industry
