Petroleum Policy and Future Strategy of plastic reduction

On the evening of June 11, Zheng Ping, director of the Oil Control Research Project of the Natural Resources Defense Association (NRDC), brought us a knowledge training on the theme of "plastic reduction from the perspective of oil control".

Why should we focus on plastic issues?

From what angle should the discussion on plastic issues be carried out?

What does the consumption of plastics have to do with the total oil consumption?

Today, the editor will take you to review the main contents of this training and explore these issues.

The most concerned issue of total oil control is how to make China's total oil consumption reach its peak as soon as possible, and then begin to decline gradually, so that China can better avoid taking the oil dependence path of western developed countries. China will cross the oil era as soon as possible and directly enter the period of clean energy use.

No.1

The pressure of oil consumption

1. Energy security pressure

From the data in 2019, we can see that the degree of external dependence of China's oil in 2018 is more than 70%. Data from the International Energy Agency show that most of the global appreciation of oil consumption in 2019 comes from the Chinese market. The increment of China's oil consumption mainly depends on imports, and the main source countries of China's oil imports are mainly in Russia, the Middle East and other regions.

During the epidemic period, the international oil price fluctuated greatly, and the severe turbulence of the oil market had a great impact on the economy of the big oil importing countries. Due to the consideration of many factors, it is necessary to control oil consumption reasonably as far as possible, and to support the optimization of national economic structure and energy structure is the most effective way to deal with it.

two。 The impact of oil development and utilization on the environment urgently needs to be reflected through price.

Air pollution in some large cities is increasingly affected by mobile sources. In 2017-2018, for example, traffic accounted for more than 40 per cent of air pollution in Beijing and Shenzhen. At the same time, ozone pollution is becoming more and more serious, which also has an impact on public health.

In the study of the real cost of oil, we find that the impact of oil on the environment in production, transportation, consumption, treatment and other links has not been reflected in the price of oil, but these environmental costs can not be ignored. It also requires the government and relevant agencies to use the effectiveness of policies and regulations to reflect the negative impact of oil on the environment by raising the price of plastic products and to encourage the use and development of more other clean energy.

3. Climatic pressure

The main carbon dioxide emissions in China come from coal. From the data in recent years, it is found that the carbon emissions caused by oil and natural gas account for an increase in the overall carbon emissions. If the carbon emissions generated by oil can be effectively controlled, it will help our country to achieve the carbon reduction targets promised in the Paris Agreement. At the same time, effective control of oil consumption can even allow us to achieve carbon reduction commitments ahead of schedule by 2025.

No.2

Oil consumption scenario and Peak Analysis

Teacher Zheng Ping predicts and analyzes three different scenarios of China's oil consumption:

1. Benchmark scenario (continuing current consumption patterns and following existing policy developments)

two。 Enhanced policy scenarios (strengthening oil and fossil energy consumption on an existing basis)

3. Temperature control scenario (development of future oil consumption demand under the 2 ℃ temperature control target)

According to the development trend of oil consumption in China, the oil control path shown in the figure is inferred. This path provides a strong data support for a series of policy recommendations to control the total oil consumption. At present, the oil control path set by our study is to reach the peak consumption of 720 million tons in 2025, and then decrease year by year. By 2050, the total consumption can be reduced to 420 million tons, in order to better promote the realization of the 1.5C temperature control target.

No.3

How to implement oil control path

The consumption of oil and other energy has a certain inertia, if we want to do a good job in the implementation of the oil control path, we must carry out long-term path design, which can start from the key departments, key approaches and grasp.

Among them: the two major sectors refer to the two areas with the largest oil consumption in China, namely, transportation and chemical industry.

In the coming decades, we suggest reasonable control over major areas of oil consumption and internal structural adjustments, such as a reduction in the use of transportation oil and a slight increase in the proportion of chemical oil.

The five approaches are: reduction, high efficiency, substitution, structural optimization and cleanliness. The most important of the five ways is: substitution, finding cleaner and alternative raw materials in the transportation and petrochemical industries can effectively reduce the total consumption of oil.

Focus on three aspects of control: no combustion, clean plastic, calibration. For example, in the field of transportation, controlling the use of traditional fuel vehicles and advocating the use of new energy vehicles; restricting the unreasonable use of plastics in the chemical industry, including the control of post-treatment plastic pollution; and in other areas, improve fuel efficiency and pollutant emission testing standards; through these industry controls, technological upgrading and policy constraints to solve most of the problems of total oil consumption control.

No.4

How to determine the focus of our plastics work

China is currently the world's largest producer and consumer of plastics, and we need to provide a reliable basis for policy recommendations in our policy research.

For example, in the process of analyzing and studying the ecological footprint of plastic products, two different dimensions need to be considered: one is to make a general classification according to the importance of different plastic products to people's lives. the other is to assess the hazards of different plastic products from the perspective of ecological environment and the whole life cycle.

At home and abroad, especially in China, Europe and the United States and North America, there are different discussions on plastics. In China, according to a preliminary study, it is found that with the rapid development of China's economy, the consumption of plastic products in China has increased sharply in the past decade. There are also two important factors: the improvement of public living standards and the prevalence of consumerism. Of course, we cannot lower our quality of life, and if it is difficult for us to change our consumption patterns in a short period of time, then we need to try to produce and consume plastics as reasonably and sustainably as possible in such a consumption environment.

A large part of Chinese plastic is used for packaging, although the complete restriction on plastic packaging products can not be achieved, but it can be effectively managed and reused, or alternative materials can be developed. In the control of plastic products, we suggest that we should first control key places (such as supermarkets, schools, centralized office buildings), key products (such as disposable hand-held plastic bags, disposable tableware, etc.) and key behaviors (such as reducing "unnecessary" gifts bundled by merchants, increasing recycling, etc.). In addition to encouraging consumers to change their consumption habits, businesses and producers also need to make adjustments, and the mode of cooperation can achieve better res