Courtesy : www.cfr.org

Environment in china

How high are China’s greenhouse gas emissions?

China’s economic rise—national gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10 percent on average each year for more than a decade—has greatly accelerated its emissions. In the past ten years, China has emitted more greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, per year than any other country in the world. It surpassed the United States as the top emitter in 2005, according to Climate Watch. (Emissions per capita in the United States are still more than double those in China.)

Coal, which makes up nearly two-thirds of China’s energy consumption, is largely to blame. The country is the world’s largest coal producer and accounts for about half of coal consumed globally. The government banned the construction of new coal-fired power plants in 2016, and coal use appeared to decline. However, when the ban expired in 2018, construction of new plants ramped up again. In 2020, China built over three times more [PDF] new coal-power capacity than the rest of the world combined, according to Global Energy Monitor and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. 

China’s staggering pace of urbanization has also contributed. Urbanization increases energy demands to power new manufacturing and industrial centers, and construction of these centers relies on high energy–consuming products such as cement and steel. Another contributor is the increase in cars on the road: In 2018, people in China owned 240 million vehicles, up from about 27 million in 2004.

Internationally, China is the largest financier of fossil fuel infrastructure. Through its massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has built or is planning to build hundreds of coal-fired power plants in countries around the world. More than 60 percent of BRI-specific energy financing has gone toward nonrenewable resources. Greenhouse gas emissions in more than a dozen BRI countries have soared. Researchers found in 2019 that BRI could drive the global average temperature to increase by 2.7°C, significantly higher than the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Most of China’s Energy Project Financing in BRI Countries Goes Toward Nonrenewables

Energy projects financed by Chinese banks in BRI countries since the initiative’s launch in 2013MapTableCoalOthernonrenewable(biomass,gas/LNG, oil)Renewable (wind,solar, hydropower)$10B$50M+-

Sources: Boston University; Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies’ China Africa Research Initiative; Stimson Center; CFR research.CHINA

How is climate change expected to affect China?

Like the rest of the world, China will increasingly suffer over the next few decades from the effects of climate change, which include sea-level rise, stronger storms, and more intense heat waves. China’s average temperature and sea levels have risen faster than the global average, according to a 2020 report from China’s National Climate Center. 

Some of China’s coastal cities, such as Shanghai, could be submerged if the global average temperature continues to rise. An estimated forty-three million people in China live on land that could be underwater by the end of the century if the global average temperature rises by 2°C. 

Additionally, experts predict that China will experience more frequent extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall. Every year, natural disasters kill hundreds of Chinese people and destroy millions of acres of crops. As temperatures rise, China’s glaciers will continue to melt at an alarming rate, which will likely lead to more devastating floods. Extreme heat events and droughts will also become more common. 

What is China doing to reduce its emissions?

President Xi Jinping has recognized climate change as one of his administration’s top concerns, and Beijing has made a variety of pledges to address it. These include:

  • achieving carbon neutrality by 2060;
  • reaching peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030;
  • having renewable energy sources account for 25 percent of total energy consumption by 2030; 
  • reducing carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP, by more than 65 percent by 2030;
  • installing enough solar and wind power generators to have a combined capacity of 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030; and,
  • boosting forest coverage by around six billion cubic meters by 2030.

However, experts say many of these goals aren’t ambitious enough and point out that they don’t align with each other or with the Paris Agreement. For example, China would need to reach peak emissions by 2025 at the latest to be in line with the Paris accord’s goal.

Transitioning from coal to renewable energy is critical to China’s efforts, and the country has already made some progress. In 2019, renewables accounted for nearly 15 percent of China’s energy mix, compared to 7 percent a decade earlier. China has used hydropower for years, and it is installing more solar panels and wind power generators as the world’s leading manufacturer of those technologies. It is also boosting its nuclear power capacity, with seventeen reactors under construction as of mid-2021. Moreover, Beijing and some provinces are incentivizing electric vehicle use. In 2020, 1.37 million so-called new energy vehicles—which include battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles—were sold in China, a nearly 11 percent increase from the previous year. Still, experts point out that the vast majority of electricity for such vehicles is produced with fossil fuels. 

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