China’s housing market slump, power crisis lead to first drop in carbon emissions since Covid-19 economic recovery
- Carbon dioxide emissions fell by around 0.5 per cent year on year in the third quarter, according to a report by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
- Carbon emissions could rebound once again before peaking later this decade if Beijing injects stimulus to boost its economy in case of a slowdown, report warns
China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell for the first time in the third quarter since the economy recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic mainly because of the housing market slump and power crisis, a study shows.
Emissions of the greenhouse gas fell by around 0.5 per cent in the June to September quarter compared with a year earlier, according to a report published by the independent research group, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), on climate website Carbon Brief on Thursday.
The decline in emissions from fossil fuels and cement production was a marked turnaround from late last year and early this year, when carbon emissions rose sharply as construction and heavy industrial activity led the economic recovery from the pandemic.
“Looking ahead, the drop in emissions could mark a turning point and an early peak in China’s emissions total, years ahead of its target to peak before 2030,” wrote Lauri Myllyvirta, analyst at CREA.
As one of the first countries to recover from the initial Covid-19 lockdowns, China’s carbon dioxide emissions in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 saw the largest year-on-year increases in a decade, according to earlier reports by the Helsinki-based CREA.