China’s Energy-Environment Problems and Some Issues Related to the Post-Kyoto Arrangement
China’s Energy-Environment Problems and Some Issues Related to the Post-Kyoto Arrangement

Author(s): Jun Pang
Subject(s): National Economy, Energy and Environmental Studies
Published by: Hokkaido Slavic-Eurasian Reserarch Center
Summary/Abstract: China is a country with a large population, and by the end of 2007 this population had reached 1.321 billion or approximately one-fifth of the total world population. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, China has achieved rapid economic growth. The GDP of China in 2007 reached RMB 24.95 trillion with a growth rate of 13.0%. With the in-depth implementation of reform and the gradual improvement of the socialist market economic system, China’s social vitality and the development of China will be further stimulated. As described in The Outline of the 11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic & Social Development of the People’s Republic of China (SCPRC, 2006), or the 11th FYP in short, the total population of China will be kept under 1.36 billion by 2010, and the annual growth rate of GDP will be maintained at 7.5 percent during the 11th FYP period to double the 2000 per capita GDP by 2010. However, China is still a developing country, and must make development the top priority. Maintaining a relatively high economic growth rate is an important principle of China’s sustainable development policies; at the same time, some policies such as environmental standards, the emission charging system and emission trading system have also been adopted in the development process in order to protect the environment and promote China’s sustainable development. This is determined by the reality of China at this stage. Currently, a higher rate of economic development in China is conducive to many development targets, such as poverty reduction, increasing the socio-economic sustainability, overcoming various macroeconomic risks, maintaining economic stability, creating a larger middle class and coordinating the gap between the rich and the poor, thus enhancing the payment capacity of the people and cultivating more efficient market demand, which is beneficial to reducing social conflicts and improving investment & consumption demand, and is also beneficial to the implementation of the scientific development philosophy and the strategic thinking of building a harmonized society.

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