China, climate change and the shared self-interest behind carbon cuts
- Even if they don’t work together, China and the US will have a common vulnerability to changes in the climate
- China is taking steps to cut emissions but it has its own reasons for doing so
The target is possible but without input from China it will not be within reach.
Under a high-emissions scenario, the world may warm by up to 5.7 degrees Celsius by the end of this century compared to pre-industrial levels.
But if countries took aggressive action to curb emissions in this decade, the increase could be limited to 1.6 degrees Celsius by mid-century and 1.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, the report said.
As the world’s largest carbon emitter China will be central to those efforts, experts say. But the big question is how much it will be in its own interest.
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China has already set a target for cutting carbon emissions growth and developing cleaner technologies.
The steel sector, which accounts for about 15 per cent of the country’s carbon emissions, is aiming to hit the marks even earlier, with a peak emissions deadline of 2025 and a goal to cut emissions by 30 per cent another five years later.
According to state-run Economic Information Daily, 237 steel-making enterprises accounting for more than 60 per cent of the country’s capacity have either completed or are implementing ultra-low emission reforms.
At a Politburo meeting last month, top leaders urged provinces to halt the “blind development of high energy consumption and emissions projects”.
Some provinces have already ordered steel mills to curb production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In a report released on Friday, the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea) and San Francisco-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said China’s success in this area would rest on investment in clean energy.
“China’s ability to curb its CO2 emissions growth and realise its emissions targets crucially depends on permanently shifting investments in the power and steel sectors away from coal power plants and coal-based steelmaking toward zero-carbon power capacity, low-carbon steel and green hydrogen production,” the report said.
But the authors found 35 million tonnes of new coal-based iron-making capacity was announced in the first half of 2021, more than last year’s total.
“This locks the sector further into coal dependency and means stranded assets when the emission reduction targets are realised,” it said.
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However, China has also ramped up input into clean energy. The country’s installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources will surpass that of coal-fired power generation for the first time in 2021, according to the China Electricity Council, a non-profit trade association.
Major power companies surveyed by the council said 91 per cent of their new generation investments went into non-fossil fuel capacity in the first quarter.
China has also encouraged renewable power generators to add energy storage to boost renewable power consumption and ensure grid stability with the National Energy Administration setting the first national target for storage in April.
Nevertheless, the Crea-GEM report questioned whether the government would welcome the cooling of emissions-intensive sectors or turn the tap back on, stimulating real estate and infrastructure projects and further driving up steel and industrial power demand.
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Crea, said it was possible to balance the competing options.
“The most important way to balance the construction-fuelled economic growth and decarbonisation would be to align short-term stimulus measures with the carbon neutrality goal, such as direct investments in zero-carbon power generation and low-carbon steelmaking,” Myllyvirta said.
Yang Fuqiang, a researcher with Peking University’s Institute of Energy, said Chinese provinces should transform the economic growth model and stop relying on the high pollution and high energy consumption projects for economic growth.
“Carbon neutrality will bring new economic growth impetus. Chinese provinces and companies should find new ways and technologies to stimulate the economy because the old ones don’t work any more,” he said.
“These factors have meant that China has started to define its climate targets and level of ambition from its own starting points rather than as concessions to other major powers, and this is a healthy development,” he said.
It is a vulnerability shared by other countries, according to Alexandra Hackbarth, a senior policy adviser at E3G, a climate change think tank.
“Neither China nor the US are immune to climate change as the recent fires in the western US and flooding in central China demonstrate,” she said.
“Should the appetite for government-to-government cooperation evaporate, the US and China will address climate change because it’s in their self-interest.”
