In the first year of the 15th Five Year Plan, China has intensified efforts to promote energy conservation and carbon reduction in key areas, significantly improved energy utilization efficiency, and accelerated the formation of green production and lifestyle.

In the first year of the 15th Five Year Plan, energy conservation and carbon reduction are accelerating. Every minute, renewable energy generates 6.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity nationwide, accounting for over 60% of the total installed capacity. Every hour, over 2000 new energy vehicles are produced nationwide. In June, the sales of new energy vehicles reached nearly 60% of the total sales of new cars. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the cumulative energy consumption per 10000 yuan of GDP in China has decreased by 27.2%, which is equivalent to reducing energy consumption by 1.4 billion tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 3 billion tons nationwide. China has become one of the countries with the fastest decline in global energy intensity.

The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core attaches great importance to energy conservation and carbon reduction work. In 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that energy conservation is generally regarded as the fifth energy source after coal, oil, natural gas, and non fossil fuels, which is more prioritized than development in the world. This concept is worth promoting. When explaining the new development concept, he emphasized that promoting the formation of green development and lifestyle is an inevitable requirement for implementing the new development concept. In 2020, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a major strategic decision to coordinate the domestic and international situations, proposing to strive for peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, and put forward new and higher requirements for promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in all fields of society. During multiple local inspections and research, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to vigorously promote the energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation of traditional industries, strengthen and optimize green and low-carbon industries, establish and improve a green industry system, and accelerate the formation of sustainable production and lifestyle.

Following the strategic direction guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping, a series of top-level designs and policy measures to promote energy conservation and carbon reduction have been successively introduced. Incorporate green and low-carbon binding indicators into the national medium - and long-term development plan, introduce the 15th Five Year Plan for Carbon Peak Action, steadily promote the peak of coal and oil consumption, accelerate the construction of a new energy system, and continuously optimize the energy structure. As of now, the proportion of non fossil energy consumption has reached 22%, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2012.

In Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, this steel company will switch to hydrogen produced by green electricity for steelmaking in 2026. With this alone, the company will reduce carbon emissions by 800000 tons in one year, equivalent to the carbon sequestration capacity of the Saihanba Forest Farm in one year. Energy conservation and carbon reduction create new opportunities for the industry. At present, China has built the world's most complete new energy equipment industry chain, producing about 80% of photovoltaic modules and 60% of wind power equipment worldwide. The national output value of the clean energy industry has reached 15.4 trillion yuan. In the past five years, China's exported wind and photovoltaic products have cumulatively reduced carbon emissions by about 4.1 billion tons for other countries.

In 2026, the central government will introduce a comprehensive evaluation and assessment method for carbon peak and carbon neutrality, incorporating energy conservation and carbon reduction work into the comprehensive evaluation scope of the party and government leadership team, forcing responsibility implementation through rigid assessment, and promoting industrial structure adjustment. A more green and low-carbon lifestyle. Since the implementation of the two new policies more than two years ago, the proportion of household appliances with first level energy efficiency has jumped from over 60% to 90%, saving more than 400 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to the annual power generation of four Three Gorges hydropower stations. In 2026, China will continue to deepen the green and low-carbon transformation in key areas such as construction and transportation, continuously increase the number of new energy vehicles, accelerate the construction of green and comfortable houses, promote energy-saving renovation of old residential areas, and generally improve building energy efficiency by 20% after renovation. The outline of the 15th Five Year Plan proposes that by 2030, China will strive to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 17% and energy consumption per unit of GDP by about 10%.

This article was reprinted from CCTV News Network      Editor/Gao Xue