China: The Top-Down Push
In China, the urgency to go sustainable and de-carbonize has been raised a notch as the government committed to reach peak carbon emission by 2030 and carbon neutral in 2060, as President Xi announced in the United Nations General Assembly in September 2020.
Importantly, not all is static. The Chinese economy is expected to grow at a fast pace of circa 5% annually in the coming 10-15 years. Energy consumption will inevitably rise as the nation’s economic quantum expands. The pace to engage in sustainable development will have to be expedited sufficiently fast simply to abate, let alone reduce, carbon emissions. Increasingly forceful regulatory requirements will be promulgated. The leaders and early adopters of sustainability drive in the private sector will be the winners.
Already various provinces and cities have rolled out measures and regulations in a drive to attain the goals. The measures and regulations can be broadly categorized as: