Towards carbon neutrality and China's 14th Five-Year Plan: Clean energy transition, sustainable urban development, and investment priorities
Open accessAbstract
China's 14th Five-Year Plan, for the period 2021-25, presents a real opportunity for China to link its long-term climate goals with its short-to medium-term social and economic development plans. China's recent commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 has set a clear direction for its economy, but requires ratcheting up ambition on its near-term climate policy. Against this background, this paper discusses major action areas for China's 14th Five-Year Plan after COVID-19, especially focusing on three aspects: the energy transition, a new type of sustainable urban development, and investment priorities. China's role in the world is now of a magnitude that makes its actions in the immediate future critical to how the world goes forward. This decade, 2021-2030, is of fundamental importance to human history. If society locks in dirty and high-carbon capital, it raises profound risks of irreversible damage to the world's climate. It is crucial for China to peak its emissions in the 14th Five-Year Plan (by 2025), making the transition earlier and cheaper, enhancing its international competitiveness in growing new markets and setting a strong example for the world. The benefits for China and the world as a whole could be immense.
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Different regions, countries, and cities have developed strategies to improve carbon removal or sequestration and achieve carbon neutrality.
“Different regions, countries, and cities have developed strategies to improve carbon removal or sequestration and achieve carbon neutrality (Hepburn et al. 2021; Pedersen et al. 2020; Huang and Zhai 2021), yet achieving net-zero carbon emissions is challenging (Wang et al. 2021).”
From Strategies to achieve a carbon neutral society: a review (2022) · cites this paper as Hepburn et al. 2021
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Strategies to achieve a carbon neutral society: a review
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- Authors
- Hepburn, C., Qi, Y., Stern, N., Ward, B., Xie, C., & Zenghelis, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK)
- London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Xie, Chunping
- Venue
- Environmental Science and Ecotechnology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-10
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 100130
- ISSN
- 2096-9643 (ISSN-L)
- 2666-4984
- PMC
- PMC9488078
- OpenAlex
- W3205589517
- Cited by
- 583
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 88 · 2025: 147 · 2024: 147 · 2023: 126 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 17.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Rare & Special e-Zone (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Energy Foundation
- Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Government of the United Kingdom
- Foreign and Commonwealth Office
- University of Oxford
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Sustainable Development
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Sustainable Development and Policies
- Keywords
- carbon neutrality, 14th Five-Year Plan, China, clean energy transition, sustainable urban development, investment prioritization, emissions peak, climate policy, COVID-19 recovery, international competitiveness
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