China has been urged to adopt a new development model based on “well-being” rather than GDP growth in order to fulfill its 2060 net-zero emissions goals and head off the mounting threats of climate change by a team of influential economists.
The team which includes two former chief economists of the World Bank also called on China to cap total fossil fuel consumption and establish a detailed “pathway” for reducing emissions in their report that was published on Thursday which its recommendations have already been submitted to the Chinese government.
Co-author Nicholas Stern, chair of Britain’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, told reporters he hoped it would play a constructive role in China’s 2026-2030 “five-year plan”.
The report said the world is at risk from the old development model adopted by China and which drove its rapid growth over the last four decades.
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Even though China is aiming to bring emissions to a peak by 2030, the level at which they will peak currently remains unclear and Stern said it needed to set a specific numerical target in order to bring “clarity” to its decision-making.
Some of the recommendations made in the report include a call to China to give greater prominence to public transport and set a timetable for the elimination of fossil-fuel vehicles while it should also promote low-carbon agriculture, including plant-based meat and dairy.
Concerns mounted about the environmental damage done by rapid industrialisation prompted China to begin experimenting with “green GDP” in 2005. Although a government report concluded that environmental losses amounted to 3 per cent of total GDP in 2006, critics believed the actual figure was much higher.
Though the green GDP project was cancelled in 2009, China promised in 2013 to abandon a “growth at all costs” model and said GDP would no longer be the sole criteria on which officials would be assessed.
Some provinces have recently resumed efforts to create new indicators reflecting the environmental costs of development, with central China’s Hubei using a pilot “gross ecosystem product” that can be applied to individual districts, rivers or development projects.
Story was adapted from CNA.
