The People’s Republic of China

Initial National Communication on

Climate Change

Executive Summary

Beijing . October 2004

National Circumstances

National Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation

Policies and Measures Related to Climate Change Mitigation

Research and Systematic Observation

Education, Training and Public Awareness

Needs for Funds, Technologies and Capacity Building

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Executive Summary

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)stipulates that all Parties to the Convention should, on the basis of equity andin accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and re-spective capabilities, protect the climate system for the benefit of present andfuture generations of mankind. The Convention requires all Parties to submitnational inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals bysinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs), as well as to promote exchanges of infor-mation on climate change and measures to deal with it. In accordance with theGuidelines for the Preparation of Initial Communications by Parties Not In-cluded in Annex I to the Convention as contained in Decision 10/CP.2, theNational Coordination Committee on Climate Change prepared the InitialNational Communication on Climate Change of the People’s Republic of Chinaby consulting officials and experts from relevant government departments,social organizations, scientific research institutions, universities andenterprises. The contents and nationwide data in this report do not includethat of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao SpecialAdministrative Region and Taiwan Province except for division of adminis-trative areas, territory and other points specified.

1. National Circumstances

China covers a land territory of approxi-mately 9.6 million square kilometers and anadjacent sea area of some 4.73 million squarekilometers. China’s climate is characterized bytwo distinct types, the continental monsoonclimate and the complex climate. The precipi-tation in China varies markedly between theseasons, with rain falling mostly in summer,and is distributed very unevenly from regionto region. Topographically, China slopes fromthe west to the east, forming three distinctterraces. Mountainous regions, hilly areas andplateaus comprise 66% of the total territory.China has a shortage as well as an uneven dis-tribution of water resources. China’s per capitawater resources are about one fourth of theworld average and per capita energy resourcesare less than half of the world average.

China is the world’s most populous country. In1994, China’s mainland population was 1.1985billion and those employed totaled 674.55million, with an employment ratio of 54.3: 22.7: 23.0 in the primary, secondary and tertiaryindustries. China’s urbanization level was 28.5% in 1994, and this has increased to 36.2%by 2000.

China is a low-income developing country witha prominent disparity in economic developmentin different regions. China’s total GDP in 1994was RMB4.6759 trillion with a per capita fig-ure of only RMB3901. The ratio of per capitaGDP between China’s eastern, central and west-ern regions was 1: 0.59: 0.44 in 1994, high-lighting the disparity in regional developmentlevels. The breakdown of the GDP across theprimary, secondary and tertiary industrial sec-tors in that year was 20.2: 47.9: 31.9. The an-nual net income of rural residents averagedRMB1221 while the average disposable in-come of urban residents stood at RMB3496.The residential electricity consumption percapita was 72.7 kWh in 1994.

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The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory forChina in the year 1994 includes estimated netanthropogenic GHG emissions from the en-ergy sector, industrial processes, agriculture,land-use change and forestry, and wastes, andreports on emissions of such gases as carbondioxide (CO

2), methane (CH

4) and nitrous ox-

ide (N2O).

The energy activities inventory mainly coversemissions of CO

2 and N

2O from the combus-

tion of fossil fuels, emissions of CH4 from

coal mining and post- mining activities, fugi-tive emissions of CH

4 from oil and natural gas

systems, and emissions of CH4 from the burn-

ing of biomass fuels. The industrial processesinventory includes emissions of CO

2 in the pro-

duction processes of cement, lime, iron and

2. National Greenhouse Gas Inventory

steel, and calcium carbide, as well as emissionsof N

2O in the production process of adipic acid.

The agricultural activities inventory coversemissions of CH

4 from flooded rice paddy

fields, animal enteric fermentation and manuremanagement as well as emissions of N

2O from

croplands and animal waste management. Theland-use change and forestry activities inven-tory mainly covers changes in the stocks of for-ests and other ligneous plants as well as emis-sions of CO

2 due to the conversion of forests

to non-forest land. The waste treatment inven-tory mainly covers emissions of CH

4 from

treating municipal solid waste and that fromtreating municipal domestic sewage and indus-trial wastewater.

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The 1994 Inventory has been prepared withmethods provided by the Revised 1996 IPCCGuidelines for National Greenhouse Gas In-ventories and using IPCC Good Practice Guid-ance and Uncertainty Management in Na-tional Greenhouse Gas Inventories as areference. The inventory agencies establishedthe technical approaches for developing the1994 National Inventory on the basis of defin-ing China’s sources of emissions, ascertainingthe key sources of emissions, the availabilityof activity data and emission factors and ana-lyzing the applicabil i ty of the IPCCmethodologies.

According to the estimated results, China’stotal net emissions in 1994 are: CO

2, 2666

million tons (728 million tons of carbonequivalent), among which emissions from en-ergy activities amount to 2795 million tons andemissions from industrial processes amount to

278 million tons whilst emission removals bysinks from land-use change and the forestrysector amount to 407 million tons; CH

4, 34.

29 million tons, among which emissions fromagricultural activities amount to 17.2 milliontons, emissions from energy activities amountto 9.37 million tons and emissions from wastetreatment amount to 7.72 million tons; N

2O,

850,000 tons, among which emissions fromagricultural activities amount to 786,000 tons,emissions from industrial processes amount to15,000 tons and emissions from the energysector amount to 50,000 tons. Calculated ac-cording to the Global Warming Potential(GWP) values provided by the IPCC’s SecondAssessment Report, China’s total GHG emis-sions in 1994 was 3650 million tons of CO

2

equivalent, with CO2, CH

4 and N

2O contribut-

ing to 73.05%, 19.73% and 7.22% of the emis-sions respectively.

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In order to reduce uncertainty on the estimatedresults of the GHG inventory, efforts weremade to perfect work on data quality, method-ology and reporting format. To ensure accu-racy of the data, official statistics were usedas far as possible coupled with sample surveysand on-the-spot examinations and at the sametime taking into account the default values rec-ommended in the Revised 1996 IPCC Guide-lines for National Greenhouse Gas Invento-ries and the IPCC Good Practice Guidanceand Uncertainty Management in NationalGreenhouse Gas Inventories. With regard tothe method used, while IPCC methodologieswere followed in general, some improvementswere made in accordance with the national con-di t ions of China, thus ensuring thecomparability, transparency and consistency ofthe estimates in the inventory. As to the for-mat of report, the format recommended byGuidelines for the Preparation of Initial Com-munications by Parties Not Included in An-nex I to the Convention was adopted to theextent possible.

There are still some uncertainties in theinventory, the reasons for which are: Firstly,as a developing country, China has a relativelyweak position with regard data, and in particu-lar has many difficulties in obtaining activitydata for estimating GHG emissions; Secondly,though sample surveys and on-the-spot exami-nations were carried out to some extent in theenergy, industrial processes, agriculture, land-use change and forestry, and waste treatmentsectors to collect the basic data for inventorydevelopment, the time span and specific sampleobservation points may not be fully represen-tative due to the constraints in funding, timeavailable and other factors.

The principal factors affecting China’s futureGHG emissions are: population growth and in-creasing urbanization, the changes in the pat-tern of economic development andconsumption, the expansion in people’s dailynecessities, the adjustment in economic struc-ture and technological progress, and thechanges in forestry and ecological preserva-tion and construction. Analysis shows that onthe one hand, the growing need for daily ne-cessities and economic development in Chinain the future will result in more GHGemissions, whereas on the other hand theimplementation of a sustainable developmentstrategy will enable China to do its best withinthe limit of its capacity and development levelto reduce the growth rate of GHG emissions.Thus China can make positive contributions tomitigating global climate change while emis-sions have to be necessarily increased.

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3. Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation

Chinese scientists began to assess the im-pacts of and vulnerability and adaptation to cli-mate change since the early 1990’s. The stud-ies were concentrated on the four areas closelyrelated to the economy, namely, waterresources, agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems,and the coastal zones including offshore ma-rine ecosystems. The models used for assess-ing the impacts of climate change have mainlybeen introduced from abroad, whilst few mod-els have been developed in China. The assess-ment on the impacts of climate change is pre-l iminary and there are st i l l a lot ofuncertainties. The initial results are nowoutlined.

The trend of climate change in China in the pastcentury is corresponding to the general trendof global climate change, and the 1990’s wasone of the warmest decade in the last 100 years.In terms of geographical distribution, it can beseen that the warming trend was the most obvi-ous in northwest, northeast, and northern China,while not so obvious in the areas south of the

Yangzi River. Furthermore it can be seen thatthe warming increment in winter is the mostobvious effect during the seasonal cycle. Chinaexperienced abundant precipitation in 1950’sand then a progressive decrease since 1950’sonward, which has lead to a warm and dry cli-mate in northern China. Though some differ-ences exist between different simulations ofglobal climate models (GCMs), it can be seenthat an overall general trend from most GCMprojections are that the warming would con-tinue and the precipitation would increase un-der the scenarios where equivalent CO

2 con-

centration in the atmosphere continues to in-crease from 1990 onwards and taking into ac-count the interaction with the levels of sulfateaerosols. Several studies on the extremeweather/climate events also show that the ex-treme cold events are likely to decrease, whilethe extreme hot temperature events are likelyto increase, and the drought and flooding arelikely to be enhanced.

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It can be seen from observations during the past40 years that the runoff of the major rivers inChina has decreased. There has been a continu-ous drought in the North China Plain since the1980s, while flooding disasters have happenedfrequently in southern China. This impact hasbeen especially enhanced since the 1990s. Itcan be seen from the assessments on the im-pacts of climate change under the SRES (IPCCSpecial Report on Emission Scenarios) sce-narios A2 and B2 that the amount of runoff islikely to decrease in northern China and in-crease in southern China. This will intensifythe water shortage in northern China and con-sequently affect the sustainable developmentof society. Since climate warming occurred inthe 20th century, the mountain glaciers in Chinahave been shrinking, the glacier area in the westChina has reduced by 21% over this period. Themelting of glaciers does seem to mitigate thereduction of mountain runoff to some extentin the near future, but also threaten the futureexploitation of the glacier as water resources.Climate warming would speed up plant growthand shorten the crop growing period, and con-sequently would affect the accumulation of drybiomass and the grain yield. It seems that theadverse impacts of climate change would in-crease the costs of future agriculturalproduction. Current assessments show thatthere would be an overall decreasing trend forthe major crops in China due to climate change.Climate warming would influence the distri-bution of climate resources over time andspace, and accordingly induce changes in crop-ping systems. Under the scenario where theconcentration of CO

2 in the atmosphere

doubles, the single crop season area would re-duce by 23.1%, whilst the double cropping areawould extend to the middle of the present

single cropping area. The triple cropping areawould increase from its current levels of 13.5% to 35.9% and its northern boundary wouldextend 500 km northwards, from the presentYangzi River valley to the Yellow River basin.Likewise, changes would also take place in thedistribution of major crops in China. Simula-tions indicate that the potential food produc-tion would decrease by 10% due to climatechange and extreme climate events during2030~2050, under the present croppingsystem, present crop varieties, and present man-agement levels. There would be an overall de-creasing trend for wheat, rice, and maize yield.

The impacts of climate change on the ecologyof China can be predicted from observationssuch as the advance of the seasonal cycle innortheast, north China, and along the lowerreaches of the Yangzi River where recordssince the 1980’s show the temperature has beenincreasing in spring. The vegetation zones orclimate zones would move to high latitudes orwestwards, and there would also be correspond-ing changes for scope, acreage, and demarca-tion lines of vegetation zones. Climate changewould have the most obvious impacts on theforests in southwestern, central, and southernparts of China. Climate change would not haveobvious impacts on the geographical distribu-tion of preliminary productivity of forest, butthe productivity and yield of forests might in-crease to some extent. However, the forestfixed biomass might not increase because ofthe increased likelihood of more disease andpest problems and the increased likelihood offorest fires due to climate change, the suitablearea for the current tree species mightdecrease. The climate over the pasture in north-ern China would become warmer and drier, and

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the pasture varieties in the arid areas wouldmove to the wet areas, i.e., the present demar-cation lines of grassland would moveeastwards. It is also shown from the simula-tion that there would be great impacts of glo-bal warming on the frozen earth, marshes, anddeserts in China.

With regard the impacts on coastal zones, itcan be seen that there is an increasing trend ofsea level rise along China’s coast since the1950s and this trend has become significantlymore obvious in the past few years. The sealevel currently has a rate of rise of 1.4~2.6 mmper year. Chinese scientists have used a sea levelrise model to project that the relative sea levelrise over five typical coastal zones would rangefrom 31cm to 65 cm by 2100, which wouldaggravate the coastal erosion. The intrusion ofseawater into the river mouth would beenhanced, and it would degrade the fresh waterquality and adversely affect the fresh water sup-ply along the river mouth.

The relevant adaptation measures already takenmainly include: promulgating 13 related lawsand regulations; constructing water conserva-tion projects, such as strengthening the em-bankments against flooding along major rivers,diverting water from the South to the North;adjusting the agricultural structure and crop-ping systems; cultivating and spreading the newdrought-resistant varieties; establishing the

nature reserve zones, forest parks, and naturalforest conservation zones.

The relevant adaptation measures to be takenmainly include: developing water-conservationagriculture and industry; protecting and improv-ing ecological environments; cultivating dis-ease- and pest-resistant varieties; convertingsome of the cultivated land to pasture, forest,and grassland; improving agriculturalinfrastructure, curbing and stopping defores-tation and ecological damage; expanding the useof nature reserves; setting up and strengthen-ing the monitoring, forecasting, and early warn-ing systems for control of fire, disease, andpests of pasture and forest; raising the standardof embankments; strengthening the construc-tion of coastal infrastructure against the tide.

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4. Policies and Measures Related to Climate Change Mitigation

Since the 1980s, China, in accordance withits own national conditions and capacity andthrough carrying out various policies andmeasures, has succeeded in supporting a rapideconomic development with a relatively lowgrowth rate of energy consumption and green-house gas emissions, thus making a positivecontribution to relieving the increase of green-house gas emission and protecting the globalclimate.

Since 1992, the Chinese government has takena series of actions and measures and effectivelypushed forward the process of China’s sustain-able development. In 1994, China’s sustainabledevelopment strategy, China’s Agenda 21, wasformulated and released. In 2003, the Chinesegovernment formulated the Program of Actionfor Sustainable Development in. China in theEarly 21st Century. In compliance with the prin-ciples and spirit of sustainable development,China enacted numerous laws on protectingnatural resources and the environment. Begin-ning from the late 1980s, the Chinese govern-ment started paying more attention to the trans-formation of the economic growth pattern andthe adjustment of the economic structure. Akey component of China’s industrial policiesis to reduce consumption of energy and otherresources, improve the comprehensive utiliza-tion and efficient use of resources and energy,promote cleaner production and prevent andcontrol industrial pollution. The State Counciland its relevant departments respectively pro-mulgated the Decision on the Focus of thePresent Industrial Policy, the Outline Pro-gram of State Industrial Policy in the 90s andthe List of Industries, Products and Technolo-

gies Currently Encouraged by the State. Sincethe 1990s, the government has closed down alarge number of enterprises that used backwardtechnologies or had high consumption of en-ergy and materials or caused serious pollution.The Chinese government has drafted and imple-mented a series of incentive policies in termsof finance, credit and taxation toward energyconservation projects, including interest pay-ment rebates, differential interest rates, revok-ing of import taxes, reduction of income taxof enterprises and accelerated depreciation,etc. These measures have been applied to en-ergy conservation technical upgrade projectsand purchases of energy conservationequipment. Other tax reductions or exemptionshave been applied for projects in the areas ofcomprehensive utilization of resources, powergeneration from municipal wastes, wind powergeneration and renewable energy in rural areas.

Since the 1980s, the Chinese government hascarried out a series of reforms, policies andmeasures in the energy sector, optimized theenergy structure and promoted the technicalprogress and raising of the sector’s efficiency.Marketization has been achieved in the invest-ment and pricing of the coal industry. The pe-troleum and natural gas industry has been re-organized with the establishment of the ChinaNational Petroleum Corporation (PetroChina)and the China Petroleum and Chemical Cor-poration (Sinochem). International practice hasbeen followed in the pricing of crude and re-fined oil products. Pluralistic investment andownership in the electricity industry has beenestablished and the separation of governmentand enterprises in the electricity sector

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completed. Beginning from the drafting of theSixth Five-year Plan for National Economicand Social Development, the Chinese govern-ment has incorporated energy development andconservation plans into the national economicand social development plans. By the year2000, the Chinese government had formulatedenergy conservation plans from the sixth to thetenth five-year plan periods and energy con-servation plan for each year, identifying con-crete development goals, key projects and prin-cipal policies for energy development andconservation. From 1995 to 2000, China’s in-stalled capacity of hydroelectric power wit-nessed an average annual increase of 8.7%. In2000, the installed capacity of nuclear powergeneration in operation stood at 2.1 GW witha further 6.6 GW under construction. 26 windfarms were built and connected to the grid withtheir installed capacity growing from 30 MWin 1994 to 375 MW in 2000. From 1990 to2000, 13.1 GW of small thermal power unitswere substituted. From 1996 to 2000, about10 GW of coal-fired condenser units, whichwere below 50MW each, were shut down.From 1995 to 2000, the proportion of the ther-mal generating plant with unit rating 300MWand above rose from 22.5% to 34.4% as a per-centage of the total capacity. In the sameperiod, the installed capacity of combined heatand power units rose from 16.54 GW to 28.68GW, averaging an annual increase of 11.6%.The share of oil and natural gas in China’s pri-mary energy production went up from 19.5%in 1994 to 25.2% in 2000. In compliance withthe goals of national poverty eradication andenergy development in the rural areas, the statehas formulated a series of policies and mea-sures for supporting and fostering the devel-

opment of new and renewable energy. By 2000,hydropower stations in more than 1,500 coun-ties in China had been developed comprisingsome 40,000 rural hydropower stations withthe total installed capacity of 24.8 GW andgenerating about 80 billion kWh of electricityper year. In addition to wind power and small-scale hydropower stations, China has energeti-cally popularized firewood- and coal-conser-vation stoves, biogas, solar energy and geother-mal technologies in rural areas. In 1994 and2000, the utilization of renewable energyequaled to respectively 10.26 million tons and33.57 million tons of coal equivalent.

For a long time, the Government of China haspersisted in the principle of “developing andconserving energy simultaneously, with con-servation put in the first place”. After the1980s, the State Council and government de-partments in charge at various levels formu-lated and implemented a series of energy con-servation rules and regulations, set up a three-tier energy conservation management systemat the central, local/industrial and enterpriselevels and implemented a series of policies onenergy-conservation technologies. Theylaunched the national “energy-conservationpublicity week”, established and appliedstandards, labeling and certification of energy

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efficiency and effectively boosted the work onenergy conservation and raising energyefficiency. From 1980 to 2000, China’s energyintensity went down by an average annual rateof 5.32%.

The Government of China has also consistentlyfocused on energy conservation in the energyintensive industries. From 1990 to 2000, theoutput of iron and steel doubled, yet its totalenergy consumption increased only by 34%.During the same period, the energy consump-tion for each RMB10, 000 of production out-put in the chemical industry declined by an an-nual rate of 5.15%. The building materials in-dustry has also undertaken a series of measuresand lowered the per unit energy consumptionof their products.

Since the 1980s, the State Council and its rel-evant departments successively promulgatedand implemented a series of policies and regu-lations to direct and standardize the energyconservation work of the construction sector,such as the Circular on Opinions on Acceler-ating Innovation in Wall Materials and Popu-larizing Energy-conservation Buildings, thePolicies on Energy-conservation Technolo-gies in Buildings and the Regulations onManagement of Energy Conservation in CivilBuildings. The released standards for energyconservation in buildings mainly include theDesign Standards for Energy Conservationin Civil buildings (the part of heated residen-tial buildings), the Grading of Insulation ofthe Outside Windows of Buildings and ItsTesting Method, the Design Standards forLighting in Civil Buildings, the Design Stan-dards for Thermal Engineering in CivilBuildings, the Design Standards for EnergyConservation in Thermal Engineering and

Air Ventilation in Tourist Hotel Buildings, theTechnical Directive Rules on Energy Conser-vation Renovation of the Existing Residen-tial Buildings and the Design Standards forEnergy Conservation in the ResidentialBuildings in Areas Unusually Hot in Summerand Cold in Winter. Starting from 1992, theMinistry of Construction began a pilot programfor energy conservation in buildings and at theend of 2000 had accumulatively built around180 million square meters of energy-conser-vation buildings. During the 1996 – 1998period, the China Green Lighting Programpopularized a total of 267 million high-effi-ciency lighting products and saved 17.2 billionkWh of electricity.

Since the 1980s, the relevant government de-partments drafted and implemented regulationsand standards such as the Provisional DetailedRules on the Management of Energy Conser-vation in Railways, Policy on Energy Con-servation Technologies in Railways, DetailedRules on the Implementation of Energy Con-servation Law in the TransportationIndustries, Standards for the scrapping ofmotor vehicles, Regulations on Energy Con-servation in Railway Engineering Design,Rules for the Publication of Energy Conser-vation Products of Automobiles and Vessels,

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Limits for Automobile Emission of Pollutantsand Their Testing Method. Certain progresshas been made in the development and applica-tion of substitute fuels for motor vehicles. Bythe end of 2003, the Air Cleaning Program –Clean Automobile Action set up nationwide 16key demonstration sites for clean automobiles.Gas-driven automobiles numbered 193,000and 594 gas stations were built.

Since the 1980s, China has widely applied thehousehold-based contract system to thepastures, identified the responsibilities, rightsand interests in the construction and protec-tion of pastures and mobilized the enthusiasmof the great masses of herdsmen in developinganimal husbandry and protecting the grassland.In breeding and popularizing good strains offorage grass, every year the acreage of seed-ing reached 40,000 hectares, that of aerial seed-ing 1.5 million hectares and the vegetation cov-erage of pastures rose to above 80%.Accumulatively 16 million hectares of artifi-cial and improved pastures and 10 million hect-ares of fenced pastures were built. In total, 90million hectares of pastures were preventedfrom rat and pests damage.

Since 1980, China successively formulated andamended the forestry laws and regulations suchas Rules on the Implementation of Forest

Law, Rules on Forest Fire Prevention, Ruleson Plant Disease and Pest in Forests, Regu-lations on Converting Cultivated Land toForest and Regulations Concerning UrbanAfforestation. The systems of compensationfor forest ecological benefits, voluntary treeplanting by the people, pricing of forests, for-est funds, loans for afforestation and forestcertification were established. China succes-sively carried out ten forest ecological pro-grams including the shelterbelt developmentprograms in the “Three Northern regions”, up-per and middle reaches of the Yangtze Riverand other key regions as well as natural forestresources protection programs. In 2000, theacreage of conserved artificial forests nation-wide was 46.667 million hectares and the acre-age of hillsides closed for afforestationreached 30.19 million hectares.

In the past decade or so the Chinese govern-ment has issued a series of such administra-tive regulations, policies and criteria for wastetreatment such as the “Rules on the Manage-ment of Urban Appearance and Environmen-tal Sanitation”, “Rules for Handling Munici-pal Garbage”, “Notice for Issuance of Opin-ions on Pushing Forward IndustrializationDevelopment for Municipal Sewage and Gar-bage Treatment”, “Notice of StrengtheningManagement Work on Landfill Gas Emis-sions” “Pollution Control Criteria on Land-fills for Domestic Garbage ” and “Policy onTechnology for Treatment of Domestic Gar-bage and Pollution Prevention”. All theseregulations have provided the basis for the treat-ment of municipal wastes and the preventionof pollution in the course of treatment. Up tothe end of 2001 there were a total of 741 gar-bage treatment sites in China, of which 571

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were used for sanitation landfill, 134 for com-post and 36 for incineration.

The Chinese government has all along attachedgreat importance to international cooperationin the field of climate changes and it has con-ducted extensive exchanges and cooperationrespectively with a number of countries andinternational organizations. In the fields of en-ergy efficiency and renewable energydevelopment, the relevant departments of theChinese government have, by using the supportof the UNDP, World Bank and the Global En-

vironment Facility, implemented the projectssuch as the “China End-Use Energy EfficiencyProject”, the “China Energy ConservationProject” and “Capacity Building for the RapidCommercialisation of Renewable Energy inChina”. In the forestry field, the recent 10years have witnessed the execution by theState Forestry Administration of internationalcooperation and aid programs totaling 269 inall in more than 20 provinces, autonomousregions and municipalities directly under thecentral government.

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5. Research and Systematic Observation

China hasestablished alarge three-dimensionalnetwork forcomprehen-sive observa-tion of theatmosphere.

Currently it owns 143 reference climatestations, 530 basic weather stations and 1,736ordinary weather stations. Presently the mainproblem for meteorological observation liesin the uneven distribution of observation sta-tions that are laid out densely in the east butsparsely in the west. Along with the increasingurbanization, the environment for meteorologi-cal observations has changed. Furthermore thework to standardize airborne observation equip-ment and measurements needs improving. Themeasures for airborne observation were sim-plistic in some way. There were few airborneobservation stations over the Qinghai-TibetPlateau and insufficient atmospheric trace gasobservations have been made. Furthermorethere is a weak basis with regard to the obser-vation equipment and methods, testing and ana-lytic measures and quality control.

China has set up a relatively integrated marineobservation and monitoring system consistingof stations for ocean observation, voluntaryobservation vessels, buoy observations, marineinvestigation vessels, a nationwide network forocean tide testing, seashore ice-monitoringradars and “China Haijian” airplanes. However,most of the ocean observation stations are con-

centrated along the seashore of China’s main-land and are limited in number and also dis-tributed unevenly. The observation equipmentand facilities are backward while the observa-tion data is mostly for oceanic hydrometeo-rology with only a few observations made forsea-atmosphere interaction.

The terrestrial observation system mainly con-sists of a network measuring data for hydro-logical systems, ice-snow, ecological systems,agro-meteorology and environmental protec-tion and so on. The main problem currently isthat the network of different channels has notbeen integrated into a sizable and coordinatedone necessary for continuous observations.

The Chinese meteorological satellite for re-mote-sensing observation has played an impor-tant role in the monitoring and warning of theweather and meteorological disasters. Withregard the monitoring and study on climatechanges, the weaknesses of the remote-sens-ing observation lies in the limited number ofweather parameters monitored, the short time-series available, the non-standard data-process-ing and the relatively weak domestic ability inclimate analysis and modeling techniques.

There is currently a certain infrastructure forthe construction of a climate information sys-tem in China and especially in the regular man-agement of the data obtained in atmosphericobservation. However, at present thecollection, storing, quality control and disper-sion of the climate observation data lack anintegrated, coordinated and common standardapproach.

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In the future, China will further develop andimprove the national and regional network forsystematic climate observation on the basis ofextensive international cooperation, strength-ening the management and sharing of the cli-mate system data, and thereby adapt effectivelyto the impact of climate changes in its ownterritory.

China has done a lot of work in the scientificstudy of climate changes. Over the past 20years, the Chinese scientists have carried out agreat deal of work in such studies as on the his-torical facts and possible causes of climatechanges in China, possible climate change sce-narios induced by human activities in future,the possible impacts of climate change onChina’s sensitive economic sectors and vulner-able areas, the possible impacts on China’seconomy entailed by international policies andmeasures for mitigating climate changes aswell as the national strategy for addressing cli-mate change and so on and so forth. In theseaspects China has conducted a lot of researchwork and has achieved a series of initial results,thus providing scientific support to the coun-try in working out policies to deal with the cli-mate change problem and to implement theUNFCCC, and has also laid a foundation forthe development of climate science in thefuture.

In terms of international cooperation for thestudy of climate changes, the Chinese depart-ments concerned have carried out manyprojects for capacity building and cooperativestudies together with such international orga-nizations as the World Bank, Asian Develop-ment Bank, the UN Development Program and

the Global Environment Facility and with thegovernments of the United States of America,Canada, United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Ger-many and Switzerland.

Nevertheless, there still exist several problemsin the scientific study on climate changes inChina. These problems include the limited in-vestment for the study of climate change andthe fact that a system for climate change de-tection and modeling hasn’t been establishedyet. Furthermore China does not have enoughtrans-disciplinary studies between the naturalsciences and social sciences and has not hadmany innovative scientific results that can bepractically applied. Going forwards, China willfurther strengthen the support for the scien-tific studies, carry out activities for scientificassessment of climate changes and continue totake an active part in the relevant activities ofthe IPCC and strengthen international coopera-tion and information exchanges. By way ofstrengthening scientific research China willwork hard to provide the international commu-nity and domestic departments concerned withmore comprehensive and more reliable scien-tific information for dealing with climatechanges.

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6. Education, Training and Public Awareness

Improving education, training and publicawareness on climate change is an importantmeasure for persuading the whole of societyto jointly participate in activities for the miti-gation of and adaptation to climate change. Inrecent years, China has strengthened the train-ing and education on climate change with greatefforts made in enhancing the public awarenessof climate change and for promoting sustain-able development. This is mainly carried outvia the channels of China’s existing educationalsystem, which includes regular and non-regu-lar education, and topics have included educa-tion on sustainable development and environ-ment protection and climate change. Addition-ally China has also organized a nationwidequestionnaire on the awareness of climatechange amongst different segments of thepopulation including students of institutes ofhigher learning, high-school students, civilservants, workers, farmers, urban residents andsocial communities. Efforts have also beenmade through the media for strengthening thepublicity on climate change, such as the “ChinaYouth Daily” starting a special column entitled“climate change” and the Central Radio Stationof China special program of “climate change”.China has also set up websites on climatechange, such as www.ccchina.gov.cn, which hasopened up an information channel for peopleto learn about the latest developments on cli-mate change at the national and internationallevel and to find out the relevant policies andmeasures adopted in this field in China. Manylectures have been held on the basic knowledgeand reports on climate change, and many do-mestic and international scientific conferencesand seminars have been organized which are

related to climate change. Aside from thesepublic events, many internal talks and discus-sions have also been organized to consider theproblem of c l imate change and theenvironment. Initiatives have been carried outto compile and publish various kinds of publi-cations and publicity materials on climatechange. China is also exploiting at every op-portunity other important activities on the en-vironment and related equipment fairs to popu-larize the training and education with regard toclimate change.

All these activities have helped greatly to en-hance the public awareness about climatechange. However, the result of the survey ofpublic awareness of climate change shows thatthere is much more to be done to further en-hance the propagation of this knowledge andto ensure all segments of society continue tobe educated about climate change. China willcontinue to carry out in an earnest way theeducation, training and public awareness on cli-mate change as required by the UNFCCC. Inthe meantime, however, it is our hope that theinternational community will continue to sup-port us in our education, training and aware-ness raising.

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7. Needs for Funds, Technologies and Capacity Building

China is ad e v e l o p i n gcountry with arelatively lowlevel of eco-nomic devel-opment and in-sufficient ca-

pability of technology development. Thus Chinais simultaneously facing the pressures of botheconomic development and environmentalprotection. As one of the non-Annex I Parties tothe Convention, and in order to honor effectivelythe commitments as stipulated by the Convention,China needs developed country Parties to pro-vide assistance to it in terms of funds, technolo-gies and capacity building in line with their obli-gations under the Convention, so as to strengthenChina’s capacity for the mitigation of and adap-tation to climate change and improve the levelof relevant studies.

The development of a greenhouse gas inventoryis a complicated and continuous work requiringspecial scientific knowledge. It needs not onlythose personnel engaged in the development ofthe GHG inventory to have a certain professionalquality and expertise but also it needs the conti-nuity and stability of these personnel. It is nec-essary for developed countries to provide us withfunds and technical support and to carry out ca-pacity building activities and international ex-changes so as to improve China’s capability ofpreparing greenhouse gas inventories. There arecertain differences between the existing statis-tics index system in China and that used in theinternational community. This is another area thatrequires the contribution of funds and technicalsupport from the international community to im-prove the capability in obtaining the basic datafor the greenhouse gas inventories and reduce

the uncertainties in the national greenhouse gasinventories. To scientifically determine theemission factors, the input of funds and techno-logical support is also required to get the mea-surement techniques and equipments for obtain-ing emission factors for fuel combustion in in-dustrial boilers and kilns, combustion of biom-ass fuels, emissions from rice paddy fields andanimals, biomass quantities in forestry and car-bon contents in soils.

The technical needs for climate change mitiga-tion in China mainly include: technologies re-lated to environmental protection and the com-prehensive utilization of resources, various en-ergy technologies, advanced technologies fortransportation, advanced technologies related tomaterial and manufacturing industries, buildingsector technologies, etc. China is relatively sen-sitive and vulnerable to climate change in thefields such as agriculture, natural ecology andforestry, water resources, sea level and coastalbelts, desertification and natural disasters. Tech-nical support and funds are also needed for miti-gating or adapting in these above mentionedareas. In the area of climate system observation,China’s major technical needs include: variousadvanced technologies in regard to the observa-tion of atmosphere and ocean, satellite technolo-gies concerning meteorology, oceanography andresources as well as other relevant technologies.

In view of the needs for capacity building in de-veloping countries as presented in the MarrakechAccord, China is in general faced with all theseneeds. China has already started the project of“Needs Assessment of National Capacity Build-ing” by the end of 2003, according to whichChina will carry out a comprehensive needs as-sessment of its capacity building requirementsin the field of climate change and this is sched-uled to finish by the end of 2004.

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