China's carbon-neutrality target is a very important announcement concerning the global response to climate change, Heymi Bahar, senior analyst of renewable energy markets and policy at the International Energy Agency (IEA), told Xinhua in a recent interview.
In order to achieve sustainable development and the Paris Agreement's climate goals, it is necessary for countries to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix, ensure universal and reliable access to electricity, and actively build inclusive, resilient and low-carbon energy systems, said Bahar.
Renewable energy development and deployment have been resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic as developers in most countries did not halt construction, but accelerated their installation activities instead, according to a report released by the IEA in November.
For instance, global hydropower capacity increased in the first half of 2020 in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly owing to the commissioning of large-scale projects in China.
"China is the leader of renewable energy markets and our data shows that it will remain by far the largest country in the coming years," said Bahar, co-author of the report.
In September, China pledged to strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and see the implementation through.
China's renewable capacity has grown by 350 percent over the past decade, three quarters of which came from wind and solar PV, said Bahar, who expects that China alone would account for 40 percent of global renewable capacity growth in the next five years.
According to the IEA's analysis, global emissions would need to fall by 40 percent by 2030 in order to reach net zero by 2050, which requires large-scale investments in renewable energies and innovation in new technologies.
As one of the countries that have been driving the rise of global renewables in recent years, China's policies have been successful in achieving rapid growth of renewables, said the expert.
"Considering the ambitious carbon-neutrality target of China, we would expect the plan to include measures to support strong growth of renewable expansion over the next five years," he said, hailing the policy framework of the 14th Five-Year Plan revealed in October.
Editor: Galia
