Making a clean break

Editor's note: China aims to peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, major goals in a national green transition drive. This series looks at efforts in various sectors to meet the goals.

Coal-rich province rolls out wide-ranging measures on energy transformation to help meet country's low-carbon goals

For villager Wang Fugui, who lives in Tianzhen county of North China's Shanxi province, the shift from coal to clean energy for heating has improved the quality and comfort of his life.

"In previous years, I had to get up in the dark and add coal to the stove several times a day. The house was always dirty and full of dust; it was very exhausting," Wang said.

"After the local government helped us install electric heating, it has saved us a lot of trouble and money. It's now clean and safe, and as warm as springtime, even in the first few days of winter."

Wang is among the beneficiaries throughout Shanxi of a wide-ranging transition to clean energy generation and consumption. The coal-rich province has traditionally relied heavily on the fossil fuel to feed furnaces across China in order to help power the nation's rapid development in recent decades.

China aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.According to an action plan released last year, the country is set to raise the share of nonfossil energy consumption to about 25 percent by 2030, and lower CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by more than 65 percent by 2030, compared with the 2005 level.

During this year's two sessions－the annual meetings of China's top legislative and political advisory bodies－President Xi Jinping said that achieving the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals is "a broad and profound initiative and a long-term task, which should be advanced with unswerving efforts and in a scientific and orderly manner".

Shanxi is moving to the forefront of the green push as it gears up the reform of its pillar energy sector, including the extensive implementation of energy-saving measures and promotion of carbon-reducing technologies.

Major steps, such as the cleanup of polluting enterprises along the Yellow River and the rollout of ultra-low emissions standards for industry, are set to help the province achieve an annual reduction of more than 3 percent in energy consumption per unit of GDP, according to provincial authorities.

The moves have reached major coal-related stakeholders across the province, covering at least 22 iron and steel joint enterprises, 14 coking enterprises and 10 cement enterprises, which completed ultra-low emission transformation of bulk coal last year.