EF China News

In late July, Ji ZOU, CEO and President of Energy Foundation China, was invited to Bayannur, Inner Mongolia to deliver a lecture about how to build a new growth engine and accelerate industrial upgrade through carbon peaking and neutrality goals, and in the near future dual control targets for total energy consumption and intensity.

Inner Mongolia’s Development and Reform Commission held training in late April 2021 on how to coordinate work streams of energy consumption cap, energy intensity control, and carbon emissions peaking in the autonomous region, inviting technical support from Energy Foundation China (EF China).

December 10, 2020, Multiple Cities—Energy Foundation China launched a new report today, China’s New Growth Pathway: from the 14th Five Year Plan to Carbon Neutrality, a major deliverable of our Long-Term Strategy Task Force. It provides an overall picture of the pathways which support China’s carbon neutrality goal and its new vision for growth and development. The report identifies both long-term sectoral strategies and near-term actions to prepare China to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

President Xi’s recent announcement of China’s ambitious new climate target is already transforming our conversations with grantees and government partners. Whereas, previously we were often the ones pushing long-term thinking and the concept of deep decarbonization, now stakeholders—especially at local levels—are actively asking us, “What is carbon neutrality?” and “What steps should we take toward achieving it?”

On October 27, 2020, Zou Ji, CEO and President of Energy Foundation China, addressed the UK-China 1.5 track dialogue organized by the British Embassy in China. In response to President Xi Jinping’s carbon neutrality announcement at the UN General Assembly in late September, the meeting shed light on the most pressing challenges ahead and fostered consensus on future UK-China climate collaboration.

In mid-September, 2020, the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and Energy Foundation China convened an online Sino-U.S. energy storage policy dialogue. The event aims to shed light on the research priority into China’s future energy policy, by contrasting the experiences in the world’s two largest holders of installed energy storage capacity.

During the 75th United Nations General Assembly held on September 22, 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that China will peak carbon emissions by 2030 and strive to realize carbon neutrality by 2060.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) period, China will encounter the most complex and severe challenges in economic and social development since the reform and opening up. The short-term downward pressure will be increased by domestic structural, institutional, and cyclical problems in deepening reforms intertwined with the risk of potential reverse of economic globalization amid the global pandemic.

In late April, 2020, Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau and Energy Foundation China (EF China) reviewed their cooperation in 2019 and kicked off new research programs for 2020, with attendees including Chen Tian, bureau chief; Li Xiaohua, deputy bureau chief; and Zou Ji, CEO and President of EF China.

In late March 2020, Energy Foundation China, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Institutes of Science and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, European Climate Foundation, Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) Secretariat organized an online expert meeting for the council’s Special Policy Study (SPS) on global climate governance and China’s role. More than 70 economics and climate experts from China, the UK, and European countries discussed what the current global responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn are, how to shape a new growth story through green stimulus packages, and how to coordinate a low carbon stimulus with China’s near-, medium-, and long-term plans to promote high-quality development and modernization.