To make a first assessment on the implementation of the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change 2035, China’s Ministry of Ecology and the Environment (MEE) issued a progress report on China’s climate change adaptation on June 2, which systematically summarizes the achievements of China’s adaptation to climate change since 2022.
With its action plan, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) aims to provide guidance to China’s cement sector for achieving energy savings and carbon reduction. The main goals of the plan are to keep cement clinker production capacity at about 1.8 billion tons and to support the entire industry to comply with rules under an efficiency benchmark. The energy intensity of cement clinker production is targeted to decrease by 3.7% compared with 2020, thereby saving 5 million tons of standard coal and 13 million tons of CO2 by 2025.
China’s Ministry of Ecology and the Environment (MEE) issued a program for a carbon footprint management system to develop low-carbon supply chains. This program of MEE is the first national-level policy to establish a domestic carbon footprint management system. The target of the program is the establishment of a general standard for product carbon footprint (PCF) accounting with international standards. It will define about 100 carbon footprint accounting standards for key products until 2027 and 200 until 2030.
China’s State Council issued a 2024-2025 action plan for energy saving and carbon reduction. Goals include cutting energy consumption by 2.5% and CO2 intensity by 3.9% in 2024 while increasing non-fossil energy usage to 18.9% in 2024 and 20% in 2025. The plan projects a reduction of approximately 50 Mt of standard coal and a decrease in emissions by around 130 Mt of CO2. Measures involve strict coal consumption controls, the promotion of new energy vehicles, and enhanced energy efficiency in industries such as steel, petrochemicals, non-ferrous metals, building materials, architecture, transportation and public institutions.
In the past two years, the NDCI project has collaborated with Shandong province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on policy comparison and economic and energy modeling. Following the approval of a project extension, the German and Chinese governments agreed that the NDCI project should work with eight provinces over the next two years. These provinces are Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shandong, and Sichuan.
This paper provides additional insights into multi-level climate governance taking the example of Germany, which is organised as a federal parliamentary republic that consists of 16 regional states. Germany is also a member state of the European Union (EU) and a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and its climate policy is firmly embedded in the international and European climate policy architecture. As such, Germany’s national contribution to the achievement of the Paris Agreement forms part of the EU’s joint Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) which was submitted on behalf of all member states. At the national level, Germany has established a climate governance framework that provides for strong federal responsibilities with a smaller but still significant role played by the regional states.
In order to support financial institutions and real economy sectors to achieve their development goals of a green and low-carbon transition path and to facilitate climate-resilient investment and financing in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, there is a growing need for local enterprises and financial institutions in Chinese cities to improve their understanding of the international policy framework for carbon accounting and to strengthen their capacity to conduct carbon emission accounting and sustainability information disclosure, especially for regions with international trade links.
Mainstreaming gender practices and gender justice has become a key aspect of project implementation. The German government’s International Climate Initiative (IKI), has recognized gender justice as a central element to address the nexus between climate change, biodiversity loss, and gender. To further strengthen the implementation of gender mainstreaming within IKI Projects in China, speakers from the IKI Office, the research institute Chatham House, and GIZ’S IKI projects held an exchange on its relevance in a Gender Capacity Building Workshop on 29 February 2024.
