The 2023 Global Carbon Neutrality Annual Progress Report was released
The "2023 Global Carbon Neutrality Annual Progress Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") was officially released in Beijing recently.
Compiled by the Institute of Carbon Neutrality and the School of Environment of Tsinghua University with the joint support of Tencent and many experts, the report tracks 169 indicators, covers 197 countries around the world, discusses the performance of countries in key indicators such as carbon neutrality goals, technology, finance and international cooperation, and uniquely generates more than 1,500 spatial allocation schemes for carbon emissions representing different fairness principles to evaluate the matching degree between national carbon neutrality goals and various allocation schemes. Bridging the gap between global carbon neutrality progress and the Paris Agreement's temperature rise target provides important information and references.
It is understood that as of September 2023, more than 150 countries around the world have made carbon neutrality commitments, covering more than 80% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, GDP and population.
Professor Wang Can, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University and Director of the Pollution and Carbon Reduction Coordination Center of the Institute of Carbon Neutrality, said that countries have issued carbon neutrality commitments, but developing and developed countries have their own merits. There is still a gap between current action and what is needed to meet the global goals, and there are significant differences in the efforts required by countries to close the gap under different principles.
"Carbon neutrality is easier said than done. From commitment to implementation, it is important to assess progress towards carbon neutrality. We need to assess the current level of action of various countries, take stock of the gaps in action, identify the opportunities and challenges of carbon neutrality transition, and share successful experiences. Wang Can believes that accelerating progress on carbon neutrality requires "actions speak louder than words", and countries should strengthen the introduction of carbon neutrality goals at the regional and industry levels, and promote international cooperation in finance and technology to support the realization of global and national carbon neutrality goals.
According to the report, there are still some deficiencies in the current global progress on carbon neutrality.
First of all, climate finance is an important obstacle to the implementation of carbon neutrality by most countries, especially developing countries, and the leadership of developed countries in climate finance and action has not translated into sufficient scale of international climate finance. At present, the annual investment scale of developed countries in the world is about 34 billion US dollars, and even according to optimistic estimates, the scale of investment in 2025 will be less than 80 billion US dollars, which is difficult to meet the financial commitment of 100 billion US dollars.
Second, there are problems in the field of international technology transfer, such as the low proportion of hard technology and the insufficient technology transfer in the non-energy field. The proportion of soft support represented by training and capacity building is too high, and the deployment of non-energy fields such as energy-saving technologies, green hydrogen technologies and CCUS technologies in developing countries is relatively lagging behind, and more technology transfer and financial support are needed.
Third, the carbon neutrality goals of many countries lack the support of regional and industry-level target decomposition, and the proportion of sub-national actors with carbon neutrality plans is only about 25%, and there are relatively high proportion plans that only stay at the level of total emissions, intensity, and reduction targets. Industries other than renewable energy lack the relevant goals of carbon neutrality.
"In general, carbon neutrality has become a global trend, and different countries have different characteristics of their action models, including climate capables and low-key emission reductions with relatively significant action results, as well as low-carbon growers with relatively backward results. Wang Can pointed out that looking ahead, we hope to continue to evaluate the progress of global carbon neutrality, promote the attention of all parties to action, especially accelerate the two-wheel drive of technology and finance, strengthen mutually beneficial and win-win international cooperation, improve the global governance system, promote global equitable transition, and ultimately share the fruits of carbon neutrality transformation to achieve sustainable development.
