The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond by O'Neill Jim

Author:O'Neill, Jim [O'Neill, Jim]
Language: rus
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2011-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

Another significant change since 2004, and one that has latterly increased in momentum, is the attitude in China and India toward developing alternative sources of energy. The industrialization and urbanization of China are undoubtedly the main drivers of the current supercycle in commodity prices and production. But no one enjoys paying high prices for energy and commodities, so in addition to developing its supplies of traditional fossil fuels, China has also launched a vigorous program of investment and support for renewable energy. Western critics may point at China’s polluted cities and rivers and call the country’s growth unsustainable, but China’s leaders see exactly the same problems, feel them even more acutely than these distant critics and are busily seeking solutions.

By 2020, China plans to have reduced its carbon intensity by between 40 and 45 percent compared with 2005 levels.3 Writing in the Financial Times in November 2009,4 Sir Gordon Conway, cochair of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), described China’s plan for a low-carbon economy. “The Chinese leaders are moved by a sense of urgency,” he wrote. “Following the traditional economic model is not an option: resource, social and environmental constraints make it impossible. They are also aware of the danger that rapid growth will lock China into industrial and urban structures that will become a liability in a low-carbon world.” As a result, the Chinese leadership had asked the CCICED to draw up three scenarios. Under the first, China continues down its current path of energy consumption, and produces nearly 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2050, nearly twice what it produces today (already more than the United States and Canada combined). The second scenario would limit emissions to 9 billion tons by 2050. The third would let emissions peak in 2025 and then fall to 5 billion by 2050, equivalent to what the United States emits today.

The key to cutting emissions, wrote Conway, is “decoupling growth from greenhouse gas emissions.” This would mean reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 75 to 85 percent by 2050, through a comprehensive efficiency scheme, involving everything from low-carbon cities and transport systems to revamped factories. Fossil fuels would be used more efficiently, use of renewables and nuclear energy would expand and carbon-heavy emissions would be captured before they polluted the environment. Not only do the Chinese see this plan as a means to cleaner air and water, and less dependence on fluctuating fossil fuel prices, but they also see it as a way for China to develop a competitive advantage in a low-carbon world. The ambition and detail of this policy far outstrip anything we have seen from the United States.

Applying the impact of China’s low-carbon measures to predictions for China’s oil consumption in 2050 is fascinating. If China were to succeed in supplying 50 percent of its new energy needs with renewable resources by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050, as the CCICED reports it hopes to, then this would have a dramatic effect on our projections for global oil demand.

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