China is making solid progress towards carbon peak

Since General Secretary Xi Jinping made the solemn commitment of "3060" on behalf of the Chinese government in September 2020. more and more industries and enterprises have been able to look at "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" objectively and rationally, and have more dialectically handled the relationship between economic development and the "dual carbon" goals. The Party Central Committee and the State Council have promoted energy conservation and carbon reduction in various enterprises, industries and the whole society, especially key energy-consuming products in the industrial field, from the perspective of strategic deployment and program design, and the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant ministries and commissions have promoted energy conservation and carbon reduction in various enterprises, industries and the whole society, especially in the industrial field, from the perspective of industrial policy.

All parties continue to work hard to accelerate the transformation of China's economic and social development towards green and low-carbon development, and promote China's new industrialization to accelerate the formation of green production methods and green lifestyles for the whole society, striving to achieve carbon peak around 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

The challenges facing the dual carbon goals of the petrochemical industry are even more arduous.

First, the industrial attributes:

The petrochemical industry is an important pillar industry of the national economy, and it is also a resource-based and energy-based industry. According to the latest statistics, the total energy consumption of the petrochemical industry in 2023 is 805 million tons of standard coal, accounting for 14.1% of the total national energy consumption; carbon emissions are 1.63 billion tons, accounting for about 13% of the total national emissions. Both total energy consumption and total carbon emissions are at the forefront of the industrial field.

Second, the raw material structure:

my country's petrochemical industry is different from developed countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan and the Gulf region. Due to the constraints of resource endowment, coal chemical industry accounts for a high proportion. The carbon emission intensity of producing chemicals and synthetic materials with coal as raw materials is much higher than that of using oil and natural gas as raw materials.

Third, the product structure:

Compared with developed countries and regions such as the United States and Europe, the product structure of China's petrochemical industry is mainly based on bulk basic chemicals and general synthetic materials. The process of producing basic products and general materials consumes more energy and materials than the production of high-performance materials and high-end fine chemicals, and the carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity are also much higher. Therefore, compared with developed countries, my country's petrochemical industry faces more arduous challenges in achieving the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality".

Faced with the above situation, the entire petrochemical industry and the majority of petrochemical enterprises are facing the challenges and practical difficulties they are facing, and are actively taking actions to move towards the "dual carbon" goal and make solid progress. We have organized "Energy Efficiency Leader" and "Water Efficiency Leader" activities for many consecutive years, and organize green factories, green chemical parks, green products, green designs and other creation activities every year. It not only sets a benchmark and cultivates models for the petrochemical industry and petrochemical enterprises, but also has achieved obvious results.

The realistic path is energy conservation, and the key to the future is innovation, accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of the petrochemical industry.

Promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is a key link in achieving high-quality development. According to the latest statistics, in 2022. my country's energy consumption per 10.000 US dollars of GDP is 3.02 tons of standard coal, while the United States is 1.28 tons and Japan is 1.43 tons, that is, my country's energy consumption intensity is 2.36 times that of the United States and 2.1 times that of Japan.

For many years, my country has been the world's largest energy consumer and carbon emitter. From the perspective of energy consumption intensity, there is still a clear gap with advanced countries and international leading levels, and there is huge potential for energy conservation, emission reduction and carbon reduction. The innovation focus of the petrochemical industry is to increase original innovation, independent innovation and key core technology research, while continuously improving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, increase the use of advanced and applicable technologies to transform traditional industries, vigorously promote clean production technology transformation and circular transformation, promote advanced and applicable energy-saving, low-carbon, water-saving technologies and comprehensive waste utilization technologies, attach great importance to the economical and intensive use of various resources, continuously improve the overall technical level of the petrochemical industry, and continuously reduce the material consumption, energy consumption and "three wastes" emission levels of the petrochemical industry.

Actively guide the substitution of clean energy and green electricity, improve the level of renewable energy consumption, encourage the application of low-carbon production processes such as short process, reaction process intensification, and ultra-high pressure steam generation from catalytic cracking waste heat, support oil refining enterprises to accelerate the industrialization demonstration of CCUS projects, explore the demonstration of carbon dioxide conversion, solidification, hydrogenation and chemical products, promote the integrated development of the oil refining industry and renewable energy, replace coal power and gas power with green electricity, and replace traditional steam cracking with green electricity cracking, encourage enterprises to vigorously develop renewable energy hydrogen production, support the construction of green hydrogen refining demonstration projects, promote green hydrogen substitution, and gradually reduce the industry's coal-to-hydrogen use.

At the same time, innovation must also grasp new trends, increase innovation efforts in terms of light raw materials, low-carbon processes, and waste resource utilization, explore the supplementary substitution of clean energy such as geothermal and hydrogen energy, accelerate the upgrading of low-carbon deep processing technology of inferior residual oil, accelerate the industrialization of component refining, molecular refining and direct production of chemicals from crude oil, and promote the greening, low-carbonization and high-endization of the petrochemical industry.

The 28th United Nations Climate Conference held at the end of 2023 reached a consensus on "transitioning away from fossil fuels in a fair, orderly and just manner" and reiterated the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. which will inevitably have a profound impact on the development of my country's petrochemical industry.