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https://scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3113775/xi-jinpings-pledge-cut-chinas-carbon-emissions-raises
China/ Diplomacy

Xi Jinping’s pledge to cut China’s carbon emissions raises questions over whether Beijing is moving quickly enough

  • The Chinese leader has committed to cutting greenhouse gases by 2030 but has been urged to speed up the process
  • Xi has previously pledged to make the country carbon neutral by 2060 but the country is currently building more coal plants
China’s actions will be critical in the fight against global warming. Photo: AFP

President Xi Jinping’s latest climate pledges, including a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by over 65 per cent and boosting the use of non-fossil fuels, have been greeted with caution by environmental observers who question whether they go far enough.

On Saturday, Xi told the Climate Ambition Summit that by 2030 China would cut emissions per unit of GDP by “at least” 65 per cent compared with 2005 levels, a slight increase on an earlier pledge to cut them by “up to” 65 per cent.

He also said the country would raise the amount of energy generated by non-fossil fuels from 20 per cent to 25 per cent.

Xi also committed to increasing its forest cover by 6 billion cubic square meters and increasing China’s wind and solar energy capability to at least 1.2 billion kilowatts in the next decade.

The Chinese leader had already promised to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. China is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and its commitments are considered critical in the global fight against climate change.

The official Xinhua news agency published a commentary on Saturday hailing China’s new commitments as a display of “ambition and determination from a big global power”.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted that China will “honour its commitments” and “contribute even more to tackling global climate change”.

But independent climate watchers urged China to speed-up decarbonisation in the short term to help meet its long-term goals.

Dimitri de Boer, chief China representative for European environmental law group ClientEarth, said Xi’s latest pledges are “in line with expectations”.

““I’m confident China will be able to meet these targets, and hopefully exceed them. However, these targets still imply that emissions will have to drop very quickly after 2030, so it would be more economic if the big transition would start now,” de Boer, who is based in Beijing, said.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase after signing the Paris climate agreement in 2015, but in September Xi promised to hit peak emissions in 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality 30 years later.

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De Boer said decarbonisation should start sooner as it will increase the risk of investing in coal plants as they become more uneconomical in the near future.

“There are several factors, looking at the dropping cost of renewable energy and increasing the cost of financing coal production … If the point comes that the operating costs of these coal plants are higher than using renewable energy, that it is simply cheaper to use renewable energy in 10 years, it becomes very uneconomic for these companies that expect a long cycle of use of the plants,” he said.

But survey data from the Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air this year showed that China has approved the construction of more coal power plant capacity in the period to mid-June than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined. The new plants have a capacity of almost 250 gigawatts – more than the total output from coal-fired plants in India or the United States.

China has not set an absolute limit on its carbon dioxide emissions or set targets to limit its coal use.

Assaad Razzouk, the chief executive of Singapore-based renewable energy company Sindicatum Renewable Energy, said these were “probably tactical positions to give it flexibility” while China waits to see how serious the US will be on climate. President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris agreement after Donald Trump pulled the US out.

Razzouk continued: “In reality, China is building coal plants but not necessarily using them, with utilisation rates down to record lows of less than 50 per cent, which will decline further as renewables ramp up. In addition, air pollution is a legitimacy issue for China’s government and cleaning the country’s air means shutting down coal over the next two decades at most.”

Last month Xie Zhenhua, a senior adviser to the environment ministry, said China had already restricted financing for coal-related projects and would do so further in the coming five years.

“From the 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) we will probably start to restrict and ban the further development of coal and coal-fired power plants,” he said.