China creates vast research infrastructure to support ambitious climate goals

Carbon-neutrality institutes, and other initiatives to support a pledge to achieve net zero by 2060, are popping up like mushrooms across China.

承诺在2060年达到零排放，中国的碳中和研究机构和其他对应的支持措施像冒出来的蘑菇一样遍地都是。

China, the world’s top carbon emitter, has for the first time published plans broadly outlining how it might achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, and a peak of emissions before 2030 — promises it made in 2019.

中国碳排放量居世界首位，首次公布了大体的草案计划如何在2060年实现零排放，并在2019年承诺到2030年达到排放峰值。

Researchers say the documents, released ahead of the COP26 climate talks that concluded on 15 November, send a strong message to industry, government agencies and universities in China to ramp up their efforts to help the country meet its climate goals.

研究人员说，公布在11月15号结束的第26届联合国气候变化大会之前的这份文件，对中国加大努力帮助国家达到气候目标的工厂、政府机构和大学传递了一条强有力的信息。

Already this year, more than ten prominent universities and institutions have set up carbon-neutrality-research institutes; the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched a centre last month.

早在今年之前，超过十所著名的大学和机构都建立了碳中和研究室，就在上个月，中科院也启动了一个相关的研究中心。

“We start right now,” says Jiang Kejun, a modeller at the Energy Research Institute in Beijing.

北京一所能源研究机构的建模员蒋克军说，“我们这就开始”。

The country is experiencing a “national movement”, says Wu Libo, an environmental economist at Fudan University in Shanghai, as companies, regional governments and academia shift gears.

随着公司、地方政府和学院转变方向，国家正在经历“全国运动”，上海复旦大学的环境经济学家吴立波说。

Wu is also director of the Shanghai Research Institute for Energy and Carbon Neutrality Strategy, a collaboration launched earlier this month by the university and the Shanghai city government.

吴同时也是这个月复旦大学和市政府合作启动的上海能源和碳中和战略研究机构的院长。

Once it secures funding for research grants, the institute will focus on the deregulation of the electricity market and climate finance, she says.

一旦批准获得了稳定的研究资金，机构就会专注于撤销电力市场的和气候的资金管控，她说。

Significant challenge

Achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 “is a big challenge for China”, says Xie Xiaomin, an energy-policy researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU).

上海交通大学的能源政策研究人员谢晓敏说，在2060年前实现碳中和对中国是一项巨大的挑战。

She is vice-director of the university’s Research Institute of Carbon Neutrality, which was established in May and has already received about 20 million yuan (US$3.1 million) in funding to work on a broad range of energy technologies, she says.

她是大学碳中和研究机构的副院长，该机构五月份成立就已经接收到约2000万的资金用于广泛能源技术的工作，她说。

From emitting more than 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020, China has to drop to net zero within four decades. This is a scale and speed that no other country has attempted before, says Gang He, an energy-systems modeller at Stony Brook University in New York, who has studied China’s power system.

从2020年排放超过11吨二氧化碳开始，中国需要在40年内降低到0排放。在纽约斯托尼布鲁克大学学习中国能源系统的能源系统建模师何光说，这样的规模和速度是之前没有其他国家尝试过的。

China’s current emissions are more than double the United States’ and three times as big as those of India, which made a similar pledge to reach net zero by 2070 during COP26.

中国目前的排放量超过美国的两倍，是印度排放的三倍，印度也在COP26期间做出了类似的承诺，在2070年达到零排放。

“There will be a lot of areas needing contribution from researchers,” says Fu Sha, a modeller with the non-profit Energy Foundation China in Beijing.

将会有很多领域需要研究人员的贡献，北京非盈利国家能源中心建模家付莎说。

These include low-carbon energy technologies, from hydrogen fuel cells to batteries; market-based mechanisms to control emissions, such as carbon taxes and trading schemes; and modelling that will help local governments and industries set realistic targets for cuts, she says.

这些包括低碳能源技术，从氢能源燃料到电池；基于市场的机制去控制排放，比如碳排放税和交易计划；而建模可以帮助当地政府和行业建立实际的削减目标，她说。

Researchers will also need to study which sections of China’s population will be most affected by the transition and learn how to help them cope, says He. Establishing the path to “a more just and inclusive transition would be a very important research topic”, he says.

研究人员还需要去学习中国人口的哪一部分会因为这一过渡而最受影响并且学习如何帮助他们处理。建立“更公平和包容过渡道路将会是一个非常重要的研究话题”他说。

Solar, wind and hydro

But many research institutes have a long way to go in terms of aligning their research departments with the carbon-neutrality goals, says Jiang.

但是很多研究机构用他们的研究部门对齐碳中和目标的话还有很长一段路，蒋说。

They will need to drop traditional engineering subjects that focus, for example, on coal-fired boiler technology and internal combustion engines, notes Zhang Xiliang, a climate modeller at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which launched its own Institute for Carbon Neutrality in September.

他们需要去放弃传统的工程学科，比如，关注燃煤锅炉技术和内燃机，张希亮指出，他是北京清华大学的气候建模师，该大学九月份刚建立了自己的碳中和研究机构。

The two highly anticipated policy documents the central government released in October — a working guidance and a 2030 action plan — outline a path for researchers and flesh out for the first time how China plans to achieve its carbon goals.

中央政府十月份发布的两份备受期待的政策文稿，一份工作指导和一份2030年行动指南，给研究人员指明了道路，同时也第一次生动的阐释了中国如何完成碳目标的计划。

The documents talk about “strengthening basic research and research on cutting-edge technologies” — such as nuclear fusion, smart grids and new materials — and the formulation of “an action plan to ensure science and technology better support” achieving carbon neutrality.

这些文稿谈论“加强基础研究和研究尖端技术”，比如核聚变、智能电网和新材料，制定“一项实际能确保科学和技术得到更好支持的计划”实现碳中和。

Also detailed in the documents are commitments to increase the share of power China produces from renewable and nuclear sources from just 16% today to 80% by 2060.

文稿同时也详细承诺了，到2060年中国从可再生资源和核能源中的电力产能从现在的16%提高到80%。

Solar and wind capacity are planned to reach 1,200 gigawatts by 2030 — enough to power hundreds of millions of households — and 80 gigawatts of hydropower will be installed over the next decade.

太阳能和风能发电能力计划在2030年达到12000亿瓦特，足够给数亿家庭供电，在接下来的十年里还会安装800亿瓦特的水力发电。

Carbon capture and sequestration technologies will also be important to achieving China’s goals, according to the documents, and could be another focus for researchers. There is also a plan for electric and hybrid vehicles to make up 40% of those sold by 2030. Much more detail is expected to come in future documents, say researchers.

根据文件，碳捕获和封存技术对中国实现目标也很重要，也可能对研究人员来说是另一个关注点。还有一个在2030年电力混动汽车销售占比达到40%的计划。研究人员说，更多细节希望会在未来的文件中披露。

Global ramifications

Despite this rush of activity towards net zero within China, some researchers are still disappointed with the commitments the country has made so far.

尽管中国国内的活动迅速降低至净零值，一些研究人员仍然对中国目前所做的承诺有一些失望。

At the COP26 meeting, the nation signed a joint declaration with the United States to find steeper cuts, but frustrated some scientists by not offering more-aggressive pledges for the next decade, and also for pushing for text concerning coal in the final agreement to be edited from ‘phased out’ to ‘phased down’.

在COP26会议上，“国家”和美国签署了一份寻找更大幅度削减的联合声明，但是让一些科学家很受挫的是，他们没有为接下来的数十年提供更积极的承诺，同时推动最终协议中关于煤炭的文字从“逐步淘汰”到“分阶段淘汰”。

China’s promises so far are not likely to keep global warming to below 1.5 °C — the more aspirational of the targets set by world governments at the United Nations Paris climate meeting in 2015 — says Yan Qin, an economist and carbon analyst based in Oslo with Refinitiv, a company that provides data on financial markets. “What has been pledged falls short,” she says.

中国的承诺目前来看似乎不能将全球变暖目标控制在1.5℃以下——2015年世界政府在的联合国巴黎气候会议上指定的一个有抱负的目标，一家在财务市场提供数据的公司的经济XXXXXXX说，“所承诺的内容依然不足”。（你礼貌吗？）

China has also not yet set any absolute limits on emissions, nor targets for emissions of other greenhouse gases besides carbon, such as methane, but has committed to doing both. Researchers say these measures will be crucial for the world to have a chance at limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C.

中国至今也没有设立绝对的排放限制，也没有对甲烷等除碳排放外其他温室气体的排放目标，但是却都做了承诺。研究人员说这些措施对世界是否有机会将全球变暖降低到1.5℃以下很重要。（哪位研究人员？姓谁名谁？家住哪里？）

China’s size means its pledges have global ramifications, says Pep Canadell, chief research scientist at the Australian government’s CSIRO Climate Science Centre in Canberra. “When China moves a little to the left or the right, up or down, the whole world feels it.”

中国的体量意味着它的承诺将会有全球性的后果，傻XXX说。当中国向左或者向右，向上或者向下移动一点，整个世界都可以感受到。

And He says that although China’s goals are not as ambitious as some would like, they are at least realistic. “What China should do is sometimes not what China can deliver,” he says.

他说尽管中国的目标没有其他国家大，但至少很实际。中国应该做的有时候不是中国可以做到的？？？？？？？？这是什么脑残文章啊，还能出现在nature上