China’s carbon-neutrality target establishes a direction for realizing a zero-carbon China and will greatly support the drive toward ecological civilization and green, sustainable, and high-quality development. It will also be a strong driving force for revolution in the energy sector. In addition, the carbon-neutrality goal will activate the market and encourage more long-term value investors to focus on zero-carbon development and invest in zero-carbon assets, projects, and technologies.
In this report RMI identifies seven key investment areas for China’s zero-carbon transition: resource recycling, energy efficiency, demand-side electrification, zero-carbon power generation, energy storage, hydrogen, and digitalization. These zero-carbon technologies are currently at different phases in terms of market expectations and industrial maturity. They therefore face different challenges and opportunities, which require different policy and market enablers to become more bankable. The market size of these seven areas will reach nearly ¥15 trillion (US$2.32 trillion) by 2050. Meanwhile, from 2020 to 2050, there will be about ¥70 trillion (US$10.8 trillion) in infrastructure investment leveraged directly or indirectly.