I would like to focus on the significance of carbon neutralization to China.

China's efforts to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutralization by 2060 are a major strategic decision made by the Party Central Committee after careful consideration, which is related to the sustainable development of the Chinese nation and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

 

 

The ninth meeting of the central financial and Economic Commission

First of all, the height of carbon neutralization has far exceeded carbon itself, rising to the issue of China's sustainable development.

It is related to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, building a modern socialist power and building a community with a shared future for mankind. We need to understand the deeper significance of carbon neutralization, that is, to promote major changes in human society.

Secondly, the central meeting clearly put forward that carbon peaking and carbon neutralization are a broad and profound economic and social systematic change.

As a social and economic systematic change, everyone, every system and every organization will be involved, and no one can stay out of it.

In addition, the Central Committee also re proposed "modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature".

China adheres to the basic national policy of saving resources and protecting the environment, adheres to the principle of giving priority to conservation, protection and natural restoration, forms a spatial pattern, industrial structure, mode of production and lifestyle of saving resources and protecting the environment, comprehensively controls pollution, ecological protection, responds to climate change, and promotes the sustainable improvement of the ecological environment, Strive to build a modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

So, what stage are we in now?

According to the central government's statement, China's ecological civilization construction has entered a key period of focusing on carbon reduction, promoting the synergy of pollution and carbon reduction, promoting the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, and realizing the improvement of ecological environment quality from quantitative change to qualitative change.

In other words, this is not a one-day plan for today or tomorrow, but we will focus on carbon reduction until at least 2060.

Academia and business circles look at carbon reduction from the perspective of carbon itself, such as energy structure transformation, industrial structure transformation and so on. In fact, for the country, it is more important to promote major systematic changes in the whole economy and society, so we will see the introduction of a series of reform policies in the future.

The only way for sustainable development of enterprises

Carbon neutralization has a far-reaching impact on mankind.

First, major catastrophic climate has become the norm;

Second, sea levels rise and glaciers melt.

According to scientists' prediction, if mankind does not take effective measures, sea level rise will lead to the disappearance of many island countries by 2050. Some models show that even part of Shanghai will be covered by seawater.

Climate change will not only give birth to major natural disasters, but also produce ecological disasters, which will cause unpredictable damage to plants, animals and even human health.

Why do almost all developed economies begin to pay attention to climate change at the same time after the epidemic, especially laws and measures to accelerate policies to deal with climate change?

Because COVID-19 has made the world realize that a small virus can bring the whole human society to a halt. If we do not take timely measures, climate change will do several times more harm to human society than the epidemic.

Therefore, almost the world's major economies and all countries that have signed the Paris climate agreement are far more proactive than usual in their actions on climate change.

Under the goal of carbon neutrality in the future, the sustainable development capacity of enterprises will include three new factors:

Low carbon development capacity

Low carbon development capability will become an important part of enterprise sustainable development capability. The core of low-carbon development capability is the technology and R & D capability of low-carbon development.

Corporate responsibility

In the past, many Chinese entrepreneurs believed that corporate social responsibility was mainly for public welfare; In the future, enterprises will bear more responsibilities for the environment and climate change, and more responsibilities for the public and society. These include broader areas such as whether consumer data is abused, whether consumer rights are damaged, and responsibility for the environment and climate change.

Corporate governance capability

Enterprises should first understand the purpose and significance of enterprise existence.

The ultimate goal of an enterprise must not only be for the development of the enterprise, but also for the public, the society and even the progress of human society. Therefore, enterprises need a fair, open, standardized and transparent corporate governance mechanism and governance capacity to safeguard and protect the interests of all stakeholders.

Corporate governance capability requires that all responsibilities of related parties should be incorporated into the corporate governance system. Therefore, our original management system, management procedures and management ideas should be adjusted accordingly, which means that new content has been added to the ability of sustainable development.

Now, if we talk about the products and market prices of enterprises in the global market, the pattern will be too small; All enterprises must talk about social responsibility and corporate governance in the world, because this is the common international language and the common responsibility and value of enterprises. Products and market prices belong to the special language of the enterprise itself. Only by talking about characteristics on the basis of common language and common value can people accept you.

Requiring enterprises to have the ability of sustainable development is the first impact of carbon neutralization.

Climate change urges human society to take larger-scale actions, more active measures and develop more new technologies to promote carbon reduction and release. However, at present, almost all enterprises are not prepared enough and lack technology. First of all, they don't even know how much carbon they emit. It is even more difficult to think about how to reduce carbon, which will lead to the market in turn putting pressure on enterprises.

What are the specific aspects of these pressures?

First, corporate image.

In the past, the corporate image depended more on the development ability of the enterprise, that is, the growth power of the enterprise or the organic growth of the enterprise, such as sales growth, profit growth and product sales.

Now, these standards are not enough. Today's corporate image increases the requirements of green, low-carbon and ecological environmental protection.

Second, enterprise value.

Corporate image is not empty, which will directly affect corporate value.

Now, enterprise value has been directly related to more carbon and less carbon.

Traditional fossil energy enterprises are facing great pressure, which is considered to be unfavorable to the long-term development of society, the corporate image is hit, and the value of the enterprise is directly reduced.

In the past, the industry leader with such a large market value was the goal we competed to catch up with; Now, the assets of a US new energy (4.560, 0.03, 0.66%) listed company may be hundreds of times less than these traditional leaders, but the market value has far exceeded the traditional leaders.

Therefore, although the output and profits of traditional energy enterprises have not declined rapidly, the current situation faced by the whole industry is that the market value has been declining all the way.

More importantly, if traditional enterprises do not take ecological civilization as the main driving direction, refinancing will be very difficult and more and more expensive. In the face of market pressure, traditional enterprises must make greater investment, take more radical measures, make plans to accelerate energy transformation, and reduce the stock of carbon through technology as soon as possible.

Third, information disclosure.

In the future, in the capital market, any country will require enterprises to disclose carbon emissions in the annual report, which will seriously affect the corporate image, exert invisible pressure on enterprises, and urge enterprises to take measures actively.

We can see that large energy enterprises around the world are implementing energy transformation plans, including taking various measures to promote CCUs (carbon capture, utilization and storage); Chinese enterprises should make great efforts to make more efforts in carbon utilization.

For enterprises, it is not only a major challenge, but also a new opportunity for transformation and development.

Fourth, carbon tax and carbon footprint.

Let's talk about the carbon tax first. In short, it is to levy a carbon tax on imported products not produced locally according to the carbon content. The EU has vigorously promoted the "border tax" on carbon, and the United States will soon follow. Once implemented, enterprises will face the pressure of rising costs. Conversely, we need to think about how to adopt more advanced technologies and processes to further reduce the carbon content in products.

Next, let's talk about what we often call the carbon footprint.

In China, many people don't know this concept. What is the carbon footprint? The footprints left by each step are called footprints. Carbon footprints refer to the carbon traces left by various products in different fields of society in the process of being used.

In western developed countries, enterprises should manage or govern carbon in three areas:

● the first area of carbon is how much traditional fuel is used in the process of manufacturing products, and how much carbon is released into the atmosphere through soot after fuel combustion. In China, we often say that carbon emission mainly refers to the amount of carbon dioxide released after fossil fuel combustion.

● carbon in the second area is the amount of carbon dioxide contained in the products produced. In the fields of chemical industry, steel and other industrial manufacturing, in addition to the carbon dioxide released after the combustion of some fuels, some fossil energy is used as raw materials of products, which are finally transformed into a part of products. The amount of carbon dioxide in products formed by different raw materials, different products and different technological processes is also different. This is the second amount of carbon in enterprise carbon management or carbon governance.

● the third area of enterprise carbon management or carbon governance is how consumers use carbon containing products after they are sold to consumers, whether carbon emissions are increased or reduced in the process of use, one link or multiple links, etc. After the enterprise products enter the society, the management of carbon change in products also belongs to the responsibility of the enterprise. The change process of carbon dioxide is the so-called carbon footprint.

At present, Chinese enterprises have not considered the carbon footprint as their own responsibility. I hope to consider it earlier, which will become a concerted global action. Prepared early and took the initiative later. We should be clear that under the general trend of strengthening global response to climate change, the rules, methods and systems of the international community on carbon neutrality will gradually become consistent, so we should prepare early and take the initiative early.

Each of us, each unit, each community, each school and each hospital has the problem of carbon reduction, because we are all using cars, air conditioners and electrical appliances. More than 70% of domestic electricity comes from fossil energy and has a large amount of carbon emissions. Therefore, everyone, every enterprise and every unit have the responsibility to reduce carbon and form a green and low-carbon lifestyle. As individuals, how much carbon they consume and release in a year and how to reduce the carbon will form a set of rules to turn the reduced carbon into our personal value.

Fifth, green finance.

If enterprises do not participate in global ecological governance, take no action to reduce carbon, vigorously develop clean energy or develop new low-carbon industries, enterprises may not be able to borrow money, or the loan price is higher.‍