ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the range of expert opinion about the most consequential issues in environmental uncertainties, namely the impact of China's still massive resource and energy consumption on its future carbon emissions and on climate change. China, the report stated, faced 'a major strategic choice' to 'retake the road of developed countries' or to take a low carbon pathway that would reduce annual energy consumption by almost 20 percent and emissions by almost 30 percent. The Continued Improvement scenario (CIS), and an enhanced energy efficiency or Accelerated Improvement scenario (AIS) indicates that energy consumption would approach a plateau around 2040, but CO2 emissions would plateau or peak in 2025 under AIS and in 2030 under CIS. Researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) were less charitable, arguing that China's policies were at best a repackaging of existing strategies that happened to have 'co-benefits' for climate change mitigation.
