Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
This week in China, the national conversation turns to something invisible yet powerful, energy efficiency. And it's not just about turning off the lights, it's about redefining how we build, drive, trade and even live. So what's fueling this green,
momentum? And how far are we from turning ambition into action? Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable. I'm He Young. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun in the studio. First on today's show...
This week marks China's National Energy Efficiency Promotion Week, a timely moment to spotlight the country's growing momentum toward a low-carbon future. From ultra-low energy consumption buildings and the rise of electric vehicles to carbon trading mechanisms that are reshaping how we think about emissions, green innovation is no longer a niche topic. It's going mainstream. But how do
these pieces fit together in the broader push for sustainable development? And more importantly, what role do individuals, businesses, and cities play in making energy efficiency more than just a slogan? To kick things off, let's take a look at what are the key highlights and activities of this year's National Energy Efficiency Promotion Week and Low Carbon Day as well. And I wonder if you guys have gotten the text message already.
Everybody's getting that blanket text message in China, I suppose, or at least in Beijing, alerting us, well, this is the time. Yeah, so this National Energy Efficiency Promotion Week, we can also call it 节能周 or Energy Saving Week. It is scheduled from June 23rd to June 29th with the theme Energy Efficiency Improvement, Innovation Leading the Way, or in Chinese 节能增效,换新引领.
This National Low Carbon Day is set for the third day, I would say it is, the June 25th, right? And its theme is Carbon Pioneers, Green Future, or 碳路先锋绿洞未来. So there's two main events here. One of them is the week-long event, right? National Energy Saving Promotion Week.
And then you've got the specific day, National Low Carbon Day, happening just a couple of days from now, right? During the week, the National Energy Saving Promotion Week, the National Development and Reform Commission, they are going to collaborate with relevant departments. And the plan is to organize diverse and rich public awareness activities. The activities themselves are
can aim to enhance public awareness and capacity for energy saving and carbon reduction. And they want to focus on concepts like ecological priority, resource conservation, and green low-carbon development, along with things like related technical knowledge, too. Those are all pretty science-y words, but basically it's all about doing what we can for the planet.
Yeah. And emphasis will be placed on promoting industrial energy efficiency improvement, like building energy saving and carbon reduction, also green and low carbon transformation in transportation and the construction of conservation oriented government agencies, also energy saving and emission reduction in agriculture and rural areas and the promotion of product production.
carbon footprint experiences, all of these, I think they are spanning all walks of our lives. And I think everybody can get into the activities of this Energy Saving Week. Yeah, so that's what the plan is for National Energy Saving Promotion Week. And then on the National Low Carbon Day, that's when the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and they'll be working together with some other departments too, they'll conduct both online
online and offline promotional activities centered on key work in addressing climate change. And the goal there is to really deeply promote low-carbon development concepts. They also want to popularize climate change knowledge and enhance public low-carbon awareness. I think for me, and I think this is true for a lot of people,
We know that the planet needs more help. We talk about it all the time. But I think we need reminders. I need reminders specifically on how that can be done. And it helps to encourage people to do that with the more knowledge we have. So that's one of their priorities as well. And then by doing that,
By coordinating efforts in carbon reduction and pollution control and greening and growth and all of those things, all of those things together can help them to reach their goal. Yes. And this National Low Carbon Day will fall on Wednesday. And we will have a special discussion, an in-depth discussion with a special guest that day. So you have that to look forward to in March.
a couple of days time. And guys, how are cities such as Shanghai turning these big themes that you've mentioned into real life engagement? Yeah, actually, they've already
Started a lot of activities. Shanghai's specific activities for this energy saving week include approximately 400 green themed events under the theme of a green city movement brand, fostering a collaborative approach involving government,
businesses, districts, and the public, of course. And these include like media tours highlighting corporate green transformation, appliance trading subsidies, student carbon exploration camps,
interactive energy-saving stations in office buildings and low-carbon markets where citizens can earn equal rewards. So this actually reminded me of something that we may talk about later, and that is something that every citizen that can take part in
And then even though it is a huge topic of saving energy or reduce the carbon emission, but actually all of the small moves that all the citizens can do in their daily lives can contribute to a huge impact.
in reducing the carbon emission. Yeah, all working together to achieve a goal, right? They're also encouraging family-based green actions through volunteerism and incentivizing those actions as well. Businesses and districts in Shanghai, they're joining in with discounts and green services and competitions and exhibitions and community activities. And what they're doing there is they're creating this entire citywide wave of sustainable engagement. Mm-hmm.
Now that we've set the stage, let's dive into one of the most intriguing tools in the climate action toolkit, carbon trading. It sounds kind of technical, but its impact touches all of us. How does carbon
trading work in China? Yeah, so actually carbon trading or carbon emission trading is an innovative market mechanism actually designed to put a price or price tag on carbon emission and create incentives to reduce them. Or more likely it is measuring carbon
mostly enterprises' carbon emission rights. It works similarly to kind of a trade your toys game. Government agencies assess the maximum pollutants allowed in a region and divide it into emission quotas, which with each quota representing a pollution discharge right. So companies that can reduce their emissions below their allocated quota have surplus credits, right?
when companies with high emissions that exceed their quota must purchase additional allowances to remain compliant. And in this way, this kind of system creates this carbon trading market, which are structured systems aimed at promoting emission reduction and resource optimization, and also encouraging companies to innovate and lower their carbon footprints. Because think about that. They have a certain way to...
to produce, right? But that's likely they have the certain amount of emission they need to release. But when they have innovative ways to do their production in a more green way,
they may emit less and then they can have surplus credits and then they can maybe sell it on the market. It's a financial incentive to encourage companies to meet carbon goals. If that was confusing, just think about it like this. Imagine you have a class full of students and they're having a pizza party and the teacher gives out 10 slices of pizza. Well, that's the cap, right? That's the total amount of pizza.
And some students will eat less and some students will eat more. The students who eat less can sell their remaining pizzas to the students who will eat more. That's kind of the same system here. But the idea is, and this is the main point, is that there's no more than 10 pieces of pizza. That's it, right? So there's a max, there's a cap. There's a total amount that companies can sell.
can emit in a certain region. This isn't brand new, by the way. This carbon trading mechanism originated from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And again, it's a market-based system and the goal is to promote emission reductions.
China's been developing its own carbon market as part of its efforts, the country's efforts to achieve peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Those are known as the dual carbon strategic goals. Yes. And to be honest, you know, EU carbon market is highly financialized.
and has been developing for many years. And China's market is still in its early pilot phase and is continuously improving. And I know this because I went to Wuhan, which is one of the pilot points of this carbon trading market. And I went to that specific organization and asked the, I think, one of the founders of this organization. And they tell us that it is actually...
quite the pilot stage and we still need a lot of time to develop and I think include more areas into this carbon trading market. Yeah. See, we've been talking about this and hearing news about China's national market system regarding carbon trading for a few years. In the beginning stage, I think it was more like an interesting concept and people really did have thoughts
skepticism towards it? Because like you said, Steve, you mentioned with your pizza party analogy that you need there to be a finite, a cap on the amount of emissions to be allowed. But in reality, what if somebody...
What if a factory just decided to secretly emit and then nobody knows or they somehow fly under the radar? And then, you know, is the penalty in place? Is everybody on board? At least the major players, are they on board? And what about the sneaky smaller players? You know, there are just so many...
That needs to be closed for this kind of mechanism to truly work. And I suppose these are some of the challenges that for this kind of model to truly land and flourish will face. And in China, I think we're still experimenting. We're still piloting and still possibly in the designated areas working.
where, well, you got to start from somewhere and this is a vast country and then we're seeing progress being made slowly. So what do you see after your reporting, Yushun, you know, maybe the small changes that are happening on the ground? Yeah, exactly. Actually, I'm
In the first few years or the stage of they trying to create a mechanism of that, many companies were quite skeptical and treating these as just another regulation or cost. But financial pressure due to these allowance shortfalls pushed them to actually strengthen management. Even some of them will set up a dedicated carbon management team to...
actually invest in low carbon technologies or just to
invest and analyze the importance of the carbon emission trade. And that is the way that they realized that emission reduction was an opportunity. And this transformation can actually turn cost-saving strategies into a competitive advantage. And as exemplified by Huaxing Cement, which is a cement manufacturing company in Wuhan,
I visited, they actually build or they used household waste instead of fossil fuels.
of course, part of the fossil fuels, right? So that helped them achieve their goals. Yes, exactly. And they had surplus credits and they can actually invest more or they can get benefits from this kind of mechanism. Yeah. This is done internationally as well. I was on a California government website and they've had their... It's also called the cap and trade system. They started theirs years ago. And
And the cap covers now, I saw an update from 2022. That was the most recent update that I could find. The cap covers 85% of the California economy, which is pretty impressive, I think. You talked about the smaller players, right? The entities in California that are subject to the cap
There are now about 450 of them, but they do have to be large enough to qualify. They have to emit at least 25,000 metric tons annually to trigger engagement through the program. So if they don't meet that standard, they don't qualify to get the incentives, I guess. And then in the EU, they've been doing this for a while as well. Part of, they say, the experts say that it was met with mixed results, although improvements have been made over the years, a
according to what I read. But part of the initial criticism is that the financial incentives weren't necessarily enough. The sale prices were too low. So, you know, you weren't incentivized to save or to try to meet your emission goals because selling those extra tickets, if you call them that, it just wasn't enough to make companies want to do it. Yeah. And very much have we assumed for those who looked
looked at this market, it's the companies that are the players here. And Yushun, you
gave me this interesting idea after your reporting that individuals can take part in carbon trading as well. How useful really is that? Yeah, because when we're measuring, you know, the carbon emissions when these huge enterprises were emitting, right? It's like metric tons as the number. But when we're talking about individuals or like small enterprises, they emit like
several or not metric tons no like like grams or when we're like looking at these um maybe energy
green energy mini programs that we can actually participate in like planting trees right in Alipay that's kind of a little feature that you can use you're saving like several grams of energy to plant the trees but in another way we can see it as is it's kind of a like a web it is collecting
A lot of citizens' energy or green footprints, in that way, it is creating a huge, huge amount of, I think, saving of energy. Yeah. Doing things that we do in our daily lives is how individuals can accomplish this goal. It's not like...
You know, you have to go out into the middle of the forest and plant a tree, right? That's just not feasible for somebody to do on a Monday afternoon. They have to work probably or study. But you can walk instead of drive if your destination is close enough. That will earn you some individual carbon...
carbon credits. You can also save on electricity at home. That will also earn you credits. Or how about this? This is easy. You can use a reusable coffee cup. All of those things can earn individuals carbon credits. And then your next question, of course, will be, all right, so what can those credits get you? Well, you can redeem those for different things like discounts or rewards or in some cases even real money, which is a thing that everybody loves. Yes, that's...
Truly when financial incentive rings the loudest. For people, yeah. Yeah. And transportation is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions, but it's also where we're seeing some of the fastest innovation. What breakthroughs are driving the green transformation of transportation in China, especially in the booming new energy vehicle market? Actually...
The new energy vehicle market is experiencing rapid growth in recent years, contributing significantly to the green and low carbon transformation in the area of transportation. And what we can see is that the numbers is absolutely showing this kind of trend. In May 2025, NEV production and sales in China reached 1.3%.
almost million and 1.3 million units respectively and representing a year-on-year growth of 35% and 37%. And from January to May 2025, cumulative NEV production and sales reached 5.7 million and 5.6 million units. That's quite close, which is an increase of more than 45% and 44% year-on-year respectively. So
What we can see is that more, absolutely, on the road, we can see more EV, more green. Number plates. Yep, yep. When you go out into the streets, you see them everywhere. There still were challenges or there still were concerns to address for...
for consumers, charging is a big one, right? And they're trying to tackle this issue with two main technologies that are rapidly developing at the same time. One is megawatt level supercharging,
and one is battery swapping. Let's talk about the supercharging first. So this technology allows vehicles to receive a certain amount of electricity in a very short period of time. And the amount is significant compared to what they could do in the past. This would reduce charging duration from hours to minutes.
And this is a big deal for consumers because, right, if you're thinking, oh, where do I have to – where and how do I charge? Oh, and if I do, then it's going to take me hours to do it. They're alleviating that concern. Huawei, for example, they've introduced a 1.5 megawatt supercharging solution. And what they can do is they can add 20 kilowatts of power per minute to
And so you can charge your car in 15 minutes, which is amazing. And then they've collaborated with commercial vehicle companies too to develop even more technology. BYD's in on the game for supercharging. Zeker's in on the game for supercharging. And then you've got international manufacturers too.
Daimler truck, Mercedes-Benz, MAN commercial vehicles. They're also introducing these electric heavy trucks supporting ultra-fast charging. So it's not just for your everyday vehicles. It's for larger, heavier trucks too. Yeah, and the policy is also trying to support
the development of supercharging. China is accelerating the standardization and large-scale deployment of megawatt charging facilities, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has included megawatt charging for commercial vehicles in its 2025 automotive
work plan and cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, and Chongqing are implementing plans to build supercharging stations with Beijing aiming for 1,000 supercharging stations this year. It's pretty exciting, isn't it? I mean, it's a big development, especially from a consumer's point of view. Hmm.
You think, oh, it'll just take minutes to charge my car as opposed to hours because, you know, minutes, that's the same amount of time you spend filling your car with gasoline, right? There's no difference there. So that's one big development. The other one, as I mentioned, the battery swapping. Oh, have you seen the videos for this?
I actually did. This is really, really cool. This involves quickly replacing a depleted battery with a fully charged one and it takes very little time to do it from the videos that I watched. CATL, they're a domestic battery company. They project that any V penetration in heavy trucks will exceed 50% in the next three years. They're also collaborating with the Ministry of Transport on a national battery swapping network.
aiming for what they call an eight horizontal and 10 vertical network covering 80% of national truck line capacity. And they want to get this done by the year 2030. They've also partnered with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation to build a nationwide battery swapping ecosystem, planning 500 stations this year and 10,000 for the long term.
The video that I watched, the battery swap, because before I watched the video, I was thinking, wait a minute, how do you do that? Do you pull up and then you get out of your car and you take the battery out of your car? No, no, no. No, you pull in. It looks like a car wash, like an automatic car wash. And you just drive onto the platform and you don't even get out of the car, at least not in the examples I saw. The machine comes under and it
Takes out the battery and puts in a new one and then off you go with a fully charged battery. And it takes minutes. That sounds great. And also just to play devil's advocate a little bit, you'll probably need a unified standard and system for that car to be able to get in there and for the robotic arms or whatever to detect.
detect the right battery in the right size and be able to take it off and replace it right and also how do I know that the battery that I get swapped is as good as my original one or you know that there are some there are some of these practical issues and are they being addressed at all
Of course, that's some of the concerns of a lot of consumers, to be honest. One example is that I was concerned that the battery that was swapped is not as good as the original battery that I bought from this car, right? That's, I think, a different mindset than when we are having that service of battery swapping. It's because you're not owning that battery anymore. It's just using the service of battery.
the battery swapping. So you don't really or actually need to think about the quality of the battery that you have in that car because you are keeping changing that battery if you have that service. - I don't know if this is a fair comparison or not. The phone battery charging stations that you see everywhere around Beijing, right? They're these little machines and you just use your QR code and then, boop, battery pops out and you plug it into your phone.
But that's a power bank. It's a power bank, but at the same time, you don't think, my point is, you don't think, oh, is this power bank better than the last power bank that I got? It's still charging your phone. The batteries that you're getting are still charging your vehicle. And I think from a company perspective, they're going to do their darndest to make sure that their product is of top quality. Otherwise, you know, people wouldn't want to use it anymore.
Yeah. And still, I think right now we're at that important phase that you got to get the good word out because otherwise people aren't going to just convert. And we're seeing that happen. Now let's zoom in on where we live. Buildings may look the same from the outside, but the way they're
Hmm.
That is, I think, quite amazing and astonishing idea. I would say when I first saw this idea, ultra low energy building. And this is a high standard type of construction specifically designed to drastically reduce energy consumption, especially for heating and cooling. And these buildings incorporate a suite of advanced and livable technologies, including green building, healthy building and prefabricated buildings.
construction techniques and the defining feature of these buildings is their ability to maintain comfortable indoor environments or temperature warm in winter and cool in summer and you don't need to spend a lot of electricity or energy on turning on your AC or your heating system when it's in summer or winter but the whole building is in a kind of a
circular system that it can offer you a very comfortable temperature and environment. Yeah, I was looking at the Canada website to see where
Canada stands in terms of its building energy efficiency. And I just found a couple of interesting statistics. Buildings account for 13% of energy use in the country, in Canada. And in a typical house that's been constructed according to the building code, roughly 60% of the energy used in that building, in that house, will go towards heating and cooling. Yeah, it's right. It's much higher than I expected. Yeah.
What we're witnessing is a dynamic blend of public participation, forward-thinking policy, and cutting-edge green energy coming together to offer not just a roadmap, but a lived preview of sustainable development in action. Energy efficiency is no longer about cutting back.
It's about designing smarter systems from the ground up. Done right, this isn't merely about reducing waste. It's about creating cities that are cleaner, more equitable, and built to withstand the challenges of the future.