Data shows China generated as much new clean energy in the first half of this year as Britain did from all sources in the same period last year, while wind and solar output continued to rise in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
According to a report, power generation from coal and gas in China fell by 5% in July compared to the previous year. Update from The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) think-tank on Thursday presented its analysis based on data released by the Chinese government.
The latest figures reinforce a clear trend – China Moving forward into renewable energyWith record-breaking growth in solar and wind power generation, the continent is outpacing the rest of the world. It’s a transformation that analysts say may be the world’s best hope yet to avert climate disaster.
“China is ahead of all its competitors when it comes to green technology,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “China really has an edge and has established a huge green industry.”
Last year China installed a record 293GW of wind and solar power generation capacity. Last month, solar and wind power capacity overtook China’s coal-fired power generation capacity. According to Rystad’s forecasts, by 2026, solar power alone will overtake coal as China’s primary energy source, with a capacity of more than 1.38TW, or 150GW more than coal. energy,
Electric vehicle production is growing rapidly, with more than half of all new models sold in July being hybrid and fully electric cars, and the steel industry is also transforming, with no permits issued for coal-fired plants in the first half of this year.
This continued boom in clean technology has led some analysts to suggest that China’s greenhouse gas emissions Probably already reached the peakPerhaps this will happen as early as February this year. This will be very important. For China, the world’s second largest economy after the US, to change its policy Decades of nearly unbroken rapid growth A nearly threefold increase in the amount of carbon emitted – from about 3.6 billion tonnes in 2000 to 11.4 billion in 2022 – would have seismic implications for the global climate emergency.
China is responsible for nearly a quarter of global carbon production – Almost as much as all the developed countries of the world combinedWithout China, no effective global climate action is possible.
China Committed in 2020 to peaking its emissions before 2030And that’s still its official goal. But analysts have long argued that the country Capacity to reach peak by 2025If governments take enough action. For the world to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is still technically possible, global emissions must be halved by 2030, which is unlikely unless China’s emissions can peak in the first half of this decade and fall sharply in the second.
Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use and cement production, which account for more than 90% of China’s total carbon emissions, began to decline in March, according to CREA.2 According to the thinktank, output fell by nearly 1% in the second quarter of this year, mirroring the first quarterly decline after the country’s economy reopened following the zero-Covid policy lockdown.
Within this overall reduction, CREA estimates that power sector emissions have fallen by about 3%, and cement production emissions by around 7%, while oil consumption has fallen by 3%.
“If renewables continue to replace coal power generation, emissions could continue to decline until 2024, possibly making 2023 the peak year for China’s emissions,” said CREA analyst Qi Qin.
However, China’s emissions peaking may only be a temporary conclusion, as some of the factors driving this shift could reverse. Problems in the Chinese property market This has led to a slowdown in China’s construction sector, meaning less concrete poured and higher emissions, and the carbon-intensive iron and steel sectors have also faltered.
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But under the influence of government incentives, these markets could rebound and push emissions higher. This has happened before: China’s emissions fell after 2014, leading to a sharp drop in emissions. Premature hope of a peakIt rebounded in 2017, and has continued to rise during the COVID-19 crisis.
Qin said: “Energy demand growth in the first half of 2024 will increase uncertainty as more energy is expected than expected, and emissions may remain stable if these trends continue.”
Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA’s lead analyst, said: “It’s clear the economy is not in the state China’s policymakers would like, so the steps they take to boost growth will determine whether this drop in emissions peaks. If growth shifts to less energy-intensive sectors, and the current rate of clean energy use continues, then a long-term decline in emissions will begin.”
The main issue is coal. Although renewable energy generation is rising, China will still get 60% of its electricity from coal in 2023. It is still building new coal-fired power plants – more than 40GW last year, according to the Global Coal Plant Tracker. However, the rate of new construction is slowing – about 8GW were added in the first half of this year.
It is important to note that capacity is not the same as generation in China’s case – for various economic and political reasons, plants may be built even when there is no clear need to operate them at full capacity, so there may be a mismatch between the amount of electricity China expects to generate and the amount it actually produces. Yet, with coal still very much underinvested, it may peak later.
Although coal remains at the core of China’s energy sector and economy, the rapid drop in emissions that the world needs remains out of reach.
If Donald Trump wins the US election, he has said that he will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, which will cause huge losses to the US. Turmoil in global climate action. this year’s COP29 United Nations Climate Summit The meeting, which begins a few days after the election, will focus on climate finance. After this, countries will be asked to create new national emissions reduction plans under the Paris Agreement, which will be submitted early next year.
If Trump loses, China will face a lot of pressure from the US to commit to further emissions cuts in its next national plan. With China’s economy at a crossroads, with the future of clean energy battling against coal and steel interests, the outcome of the US election could be a deciding factor in what happens next with China’s peak.