China has been reducing emissions since it made conserving energy and reducing the country's carbon footprint part of its national strategy.
China will continue with its efforts to deal with climate change and actively participate in multilateral mechanisms to curb global warming, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Friday, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his country's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change, which is aimed at curbing change by capping greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists and international society at large believe global warming may prove disastrous to the human race.
China has promised to fight global warming despite needing colossal amounts of power to fuel its industrial development. Shifting to clean energy-generating methods is a major part of reducing carbon emissions.
According to the 13th Energy Development Five-Year Plan, released earlier this year, China will continue developing clean energy capacity and reducing its reliance on fossil fuel. Coal will go from supplying 66 percent of China's energy in 2015 to 58 percent in 2020. Greater utilization of more efficient natural gas will account for around 10 percent of energy consumption by then.
With all these efforts, per GDP unit carbon emissions will be reduced by 40-45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
In order to achieve this goal, non-fossil fuels will account for 15 percent of all energy consumption by 2020, up from 11.8 percent in 2015. The figure is expected to grow to 20 percent by 2030. Hydropower, solar energy, wind and nuclear power are China's major sources of renewable energy.
China already has the world's largest clean energy capacity, and in 2015, the country's investment in clean energy exceeded $100 billion, accounting for one-third of the world's total, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. More investment will pour in the field in order for wind-generated power capacity to reach 210 million kilowatts by 2020, and 500 million kilowatts by 2030; solar power capacity will reach 110 million kilowatts in 2020 and 600 million kilowatts in 2030.
China is also home to the world's fastest growing nuclear power generating capacity. Currently China is in fourth place in terms of total nuclear power capacity after the U.S., France and Russia, with 34 generators. But there are 20 generators under construction, and by 2020, the country will have more than 90 generators, second only to the U.S.
