China’s greenhouse gas emissions entered decline last summer, but spiralling energy demand could slow decarbonisation
- Decarbonisation targets could be hard to attain unless China achieves slower growth in energy demand, according to a new report from a climate think tank
- Investments in coal versus clean energy, as well as pace of economic growth, will determine when emissions peak, says Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
China’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil-fuel consumption have been falling since last summer, but its overall energy consumption is growing at a faster rate than expected, potentially hampering the country’s progress towards peak emissions and carbon neutrality, according to a new report.
After years of meteoric rises in carbon emissions since year 2000 due to rapid economic growth, China forced overall carbon emissions to level off in the early 2010s, and they have been falling since summer 2021, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based climate think tank.
Nevertheless, the country is the world's largest GHG emitter today and the second-largest historical emitter after the United States, CREA said in a report released on Monday.
Instead, economic measures aimed at tamping down real-estate speculation and low-value construction projects, strict Covid-19 control policies, and clean energy expansion are the primary factors, the organisation said.
Despite the “remarkable achievement” China has made, especially in clean-energy investments and rates of electrification, its total energy consumption is still growing at a much faster rate than projected in transition pathways aligned with Paris Agreement goals, the report said.