US and Chinese Experts Share Methods for Low-Carbon Planning

BEIJING (Sept. 29, 2011) – From September 27 to 29, 2011, the Global Environmental Institute (GEI) and the Institute for Policy Management at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASIPM) held a “Workshop on US-China Subnational Low Carbon Planning Methodology” in Beijing. ON the final day of the workshop, GEI, CAS-IPM, GIEC and CCS jointly signed a “Memorandum of Understanding on U.S.-China Subnational Low Carbon Development Planning Methodology.” The four parties expressed hope for continued cooperation, in order to develop a low carbon planning methodology at China’s provincial level.

The aim of the workshop was to discuss low-carbon development planning methodology for China’s provinces and cities in order to assist provinces and cities in their low-carbon development and planning transformation and strengthen the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) “Five Province, Eight City” low carbon pilot program.

CCS’ Dr. Tom Peterson (at podium) introduces CCS’ innovative methods for low-carbon development – GEI 2011

Feedback from Experts

Wang Shu, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy and Treaty Department of the NDRC’s Department of Climate Change

Director Wang emphasized the need for each province to enact effective policies in response to climate change in order to help achieve the national 17% carbon intensity reduction target written into the 12th Five Year Plan. Speaking highly of the workshop, Director Wang Shu also expressed two hopes toward the US and Chinese experts:

1. “Simple, usable, direct and reliable” models of policy analysis are helpful for policy makers to make decisions. Therefore, Director Wang hopes that the Chinese and US experts can discuss more in depth how the model may be further simplified for policy makers in order to be an effective tool for policy support.
2. Chinese data on climate change, particularly at the local level, are often incomplete, and thus he hopes that Chinese and US experts can discuss how the US model could be adapted using the limited Chinese data available.

US-based Center for Climate Strategies (CCS)

Seven experts from CCS were to discuss methodology and tools from case studies in US-state climate action planning. The methodologies integrate sector-based microeconomic cost-benefit analysis and macroeconomic analysis of regional socio-economic factors (e.g. the Regional Economic Modeling Inc. or REMI model), making full use of multi-stakeholder participation.

Dr. Tan Xianchun, a research associate at CAS-IPM, Dr. Liao Cuiping, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIEC)

Together, Dr. Xianchun and Dr. Cuiping discussed low carbon planning process and methodology used by Chongqing and Guangdong.

The experts also discussed main differences in low carbon planning methodology between Chinese provinces and US states, including differentiating sectors at China’s provincial level, data collection, regional GHG accounting, establishing policy packages as well as the localizing of CCS’ planning methodology in order to better realize China’s regional low carbon planning needs.