Climate change: China must lead on fossil fuel phase-out, as world struggles to limit global-warming impact, report says
- China’s actions on coal, oil and gas key to ‘keeping the 1.5 degrees target alive’, scientist says
- Report finds governments on track to produce more than twice the fossil fuels in 2030 than needed to achieve 1.5-degree warming target
China’s control of its future fossil fuel production and consumption is crucial for keeping the world under 1.5 degrees Celsius of human-induced temperature rise, and the country must phase out all fossil fuels rather than promoting the “clean” utilisation of coal, oil, and gas, scientists urged ahead of the United Nations climate summit.
But at the same time, China leads the rest of the world in greenhouse gas emissions, emitting nearly 10 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021 and nearly doubling the emissions of the US, the second biggest emitter, the report showed.
“What China does to align coal and oil and gas production and consumption will be crucial and keeping the 1.5 degrees target alive,” Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author on the report and SEI scientist, said earlier this week.
This is especially true because the report, which assesses the climate plans and policies of 20 of the world’s largest fossil-fuel-producing countries, rings alarm bells ahead of the COP28 climate summit to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, starting November 30.