China Races to Net Zero: How to Survive the Freezing Winter 2020/2021?

The China climate observers' community remains fixated on solving the carbon-neutral puzzle before 2060, when city after city, region after region in the country experience unprecedented black-outs and tightening restrictions on electricity use. Not only neon-lights and building facades are ordered to turn off and industrial facilities are required to turn down production hours, office buildings and households also have to dramatically reduce hours of electricity use and bear the freezing temperature this winter.

What has had happened? Sharp rise in manufacturing that requires more energy use to power is one of the reasons on the list, but also the government's recent decision to ban import of coal from Australia. For the latter, we do know that the imported coal is most used for industrial processing rather than heating. And now with the high-profile China's more stringent commitment to peak its use of coal and emissions in the next couple of years and achieve carbon neutral before 2060, decision-makers are put in a challenging situation and have to answer some of the toughest questions of its clean energy revolution, energy security and resilience.

I could literally "see" some steep uphill battles in the next few months when the country is putting together its 14th Five-Year Plan. On one side, global community expects more clarity and details of a radical decarbonization strategy and action plan that would convincingly set the world largest GHG emitter on a pathway to lead the fight against climate change; on the other, how quickly the country would be able to put all the pieces of the energy transition together that not only successfully decarbonize its energy trajectory, but also ensure that abundant clean energy is supplied to meet the demand of its continued growth of economy and society on the foundation of energy security remains to be answered.

Resilience becomes such a crucial piece of the puzzle that shall be addressed by decision-makers in China. And the first test of Resilience is how to ensure people, literally hundreds of millions of them, "survive" the hardship of an especially cold winter for most part of the vast country. Though the nation and its people are "used to" dire hardship in its national DNA over centuries, including extreme weather events such as freezing winters, 21st century generations have quite different expectations of lifestyle and living quality. As the leadership of China have committed to its people a continuously improved livelihoods and life, beautiful China, modernized China, healthy China, a technology powerhouse China - all those inspiring ambitions and goals - have to be delivered. Resilience, more than ever, has a much deeper implications for the world most populous country.

Regions and cities, actually, don't have to be stuck in the current situation. Solar, wind and even biomass energies have already proven their bounty at a close to parity cost compared to coal and other fossil fuels. The country leads global renewable energy revolution, backed up by its unique capability of industrialization. Its contribution to global scaling renewable energies has been recognized and proven. It is time for Chinese cities and regions, as well as industrial parks/clusters and industrial facilities themself, to shift, from reliance on highly centralized energy supply through the two State-owned grid system - the State Grid and China Southern Grid, to a much decentralized energy system that relies on local renewable energy sources and smart mini-grids.

This will not only address the "energy security" challenge, but also turn cities and regions, industrial clusters and industrial facilities to a clean-energy "pro-sumer". Empowered and enabled by the ubiquitous digital technology capability, an expanding network of local clean energy producers+consumers emerges to fundamentally transform the world second largest economy's energy trajectory - both meeting the increasing energy demand and accelerating the radical decarbonization of its currently heavy fossil-fuel energy system. This not only applies to cities, but also the broad rural areas where local farmers and communities can become part of the clean energy revolution.

Therefore, I hope that China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) won't become a product of surrendering to fossil fuel energy industry, but rather proves the first national clean energy transformation plan. It shall solidly set the country onto an energy transformation pathway towards the goal of below 1.5C warming.

We all know how challenging and disruptive this can be, and so pointing fingers to China's current difficulties won't help much. What is required is collaboration and cooperation, in the context of shared understanding and support in time of hardship - the empathy. The mess we are in today is made by us all, especially industrialized countries over the centuries of industrialization. Finally, we seem to realize that we have to be in it together to shift our economic systems, infrastructure, and governance. Or, we are all sins. Blame ourselves. Blame our won greeds and wants. We seem not having much choice but to work together to survive as a species on this plant, don't we?