How is China doing on sustainability? Website: https://www.pascalcoppens.com/ CONTENT In this video I explain how China is still polluting the world more than other countries, but their commitment to turn round the direction to a cleans society is impressive and much needed. TRANSCRIPT How is China doing on sustainability? Well if you look at the numbers, it's not doing very well. China is doing twice as bad as the US, about 28% of all the carbon dioxide emissions in the world are coming from China. The US is at about 15% and Europe is at about 12%. So most countries are at around 1% in Europe and then a country like India is at about 7%, so China's not doing very well. Now, if we look at it from a manufacturing output perspective then what we see is that China is also at 28% of the world's manufacturing output, while the US is at 16.6% and that's a big difference. Countries like Germany and Japan are at 5% and 7% of the world's output but they only emit about 1% to 2,5% of CO2, so Germany and Japan are doing quite well. China not so well but compared to the US, it's doing about the same if we look at it from a manufacturing output. Let's not forget that most of the factories of the world are now being placed in China and these weren't always the best or cleanest factories in the past when they started off so they have a lot to recover. If we look historically, which could be a way to look at it, then China is not doing that bad because over time China has only produced 13% of the world's emissions or bad emissions into the atmosphere. While the US is at 25% and Europe at 22%. But we shouldn't really look at the history because it's about today. The biggest problem in China is the coal production, 50% of the world's production of coal is happening in China and that is not always a very clean industry. Now, China is trying to recover this and to make more new clean coal production happen but it's taking time. The problem is that despite the mix of coal amongst all the other energy productions like renewable energies but also fossil fuels and other productions like natural gas, coal is shrinking every year so it's getting smaller. Despite its getting smaller, the amount of output of coal is still going up and that's because China needs more and more energy because consumers are consuming more. It's about factories but it's also about cars and air conditioners these days, so a big difference. China wants to create this Green China and so they have three objectives: one is to reduce the carbon dioxide, the other one is to reduce the dependency on coal and the last one is to have the share of this not clean energy to reduce proportionally and basically increase the renewables and that's a great goal. So what did China do over the past years? We have to start in 2014, Li Keqiang the premier of China said very clearly that he wants a war on pollution. I've lived in China, in Shanghai and I can tell you that in 2014 there weren't many skies that were blue. Most of the skies were not looking very healthy and sometimes we stayed indoors because it was so bad, so the people feel it and China wanted to get clean blue skies. If you go to Shanghai today, you'll see a lot of blue skies so it has changed and improved. In 2015, Xi Jinping went to Paris and signed the Paris Agreement, he agreed to achieve the 2 degrees goals of the Paris Agreement by 2030 to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide to the number that Paris actually put forward. The US on the other hand with Trump, he bailed out just after the election so China has taken the role of a responsible clean society for the future and they've done that in number of things. I believe in the new 14th Five-Year Plan that is happening from 2021 to 2025 and that is getting designed the last quarter of this year, I think China will take serious decisions on how to look at the next five years in becoming a more ecological society and so this is all going to change. I have a good feeling that China will continue its commitments of the Paris Agreement, that China will become the biggest producer and user of Green Energy in the world which it already is today for many things like solar and wind energy, and most of it has been built in the past 5 years. I think China will lead that transformation into a more sustainable society and let's hope they do because if they don't, I think the world will be in serious trouble and I think China realizes that that would backfire on them as well. In my view, by the end of the year we should know whether China will save the world by taking its commitments. KEYWORDS Pascal Coppens, China, innovation, trends, keynote, speaker, public speaker, sustainability, Paris convention, green bonds, CO2 emissions ABOUT PASCAL COPPENS: Website: http://www.pascalcoppens.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pacovision/ Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTdWsl15oEt0nZZy9Z1fnhQ BOOK - CHINA's NEW NORMAL http://www.pascalcoppens.com/shop