GREEN IS GOLD

The rural environment has been largely improved in Anji County of Zhejiang Province.
© Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, MEP, P.R. China
In addition, in the first four years of the 12 th Five-
Year period, China succeeded in providing safe
drinking water for 281 million people living in
rural areas. By the end of 2014, 78% of the rural
population had access to centralized water supply,
up from 38% in 2004. The drinking-water sources
of those villages that participate in environmental
improvement projects have been protected, domestic
sewage, waste, and pollution from animal husbandry
haven been effectively controlled and the rural
environment has been improved (Chen, 2015).
4.5 Progress in addressing climate change
In the first four years of the 12 th Five-Year period,
China’s CO 2 emission per unit of GDP – cumulatively
- dropped by approximately 16% (in 2014– the
fourth year of the period, the reduction was 33.8%
from the level in 2005) (Chen, 2016a). In 2014,
non-fossil energy accounted for 11.2% of primary
energy consumption, installed hydropower capacity
reached 300 GW (2.57 times that of 2005), the
grid-connected installed capacity of wind power was
95.81 GW (90 times that of 2005), installed PV
capacity was 28.05 GW (400 times that of 2005)
and installed nuclear power capacity was 19.88 GW
(2.9 times that of 2005)(State Council, 2015d).
35