Chinese Emissions: Part 2

What action this decade?

Following from last week’s post looking at the path of China’s emissions till now, we’re here looking at how the high-level commitments are being translated into action. Trying to tackle this topic in two posts is like digesting the proverbial elephant - damned tricky to maintain the advertised brevity. Below I’ve kept mostly to examining the official versions, the (snappily titled) “Mid-Century Long-term Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions Development Strategy” and “Action Plan for Carbon Dioxide Peaking Before 2030”. Both of those documents are fascinating and worth a read in full for anyone who has the time. The IEA’s Energy Sector Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality in China is more digestible and visual. As always, feedback, especially from anyone with on-the-ground insight, is greatly appreciated.

The IEA’s breakdown of sources of carbon savings through 2060, with energy efficiency and electrification doing the heavy lifting to 2030 and a greater role for CCS and hydrogen after:

China’s decarbonisation challenge is significant, but there are reasons for optimism. Firstly, the targets are actually ambitious when one considers the size and carbon intensity of the existing system. The official document points out that the 30 years from peak to carbon neutrality is more aggressive than attempted by developed countries, as indeed it needs to be. Secondly, there is a level-headed realism evident. It points out that China has abundant coal resources, but not much in the way of gas so it is important to follow a principle of “construction before destruction”, which certainly resonates for certain other countries finding themselves dependent on Russian gas supplies. Thirdly, China has demonstrated its capacity to roll out remarkable changes top-down and mobilise immense resources with its infrastructure projects, which dwarf those elsewhere. And it does actually seem to have met its previous climate targets around emission intensity and renewable’s share of energy mix (although one might argue they were low-balled). Indeed the IEA says “China has the technical capabilities, economic means and policy experience to accomplish a faster clean energy transition to 2030 than in the [announced policy scenario]”. We are all rooting for that outcome.

• Brief reminder of high-level 2030 goals:

  • Have reached peak emissions

  • Have a 65% reduction in carbon intensity of GDP vs 2005 levels

  • Have renewable electricity as 25% of the energy mix (vs 15% today) and installed capacity of 1,200 GW of wind and solar [this is DEFINITELY a low-ball - that only represents a doubling of current capacity, which grew by about 26% last year alone. The IEA sees China meeting that 1200 GW target by 2026]

• Energy efficiency: placed at the top of the list of actions on energy - “energy conservation as top priority”

• Coal: to strictly control growth during current five year plan to 2025 and begin to decline during the next FYP to 2030

• Built environment: by 2025 100% of new buildings in cities and towns to adhere to green standards, fossil fuel switching in urban buildings will reach 8% and half of new urban buildings and factories will have rooftop PV. Notes the promotion of low-carbon building materials and “vigorous promotion” of modular construction [not clear what is the difference between promotion with and without vigour]. A number of technologies are mentioned for decarbonising heating [good blog post from RMI on that topic here].

• Industry: The 2030 document has specific actions to be taken in the key areas. Remarkably it talks about capping the production capacity, clearly seeing the system is saturated - no additional steel, cement, flat glass capacity - aggressively encouraging turn over of capital equipment with more efficient and new technologies (they refer to “cut and replace” principle), encouraging consolidation. Greater circularity using scrap steel and other inputs for concrete such as coal fly ash and mine tailings. [The dual potential for decarbonisation and environmental remediation came up in this post on mineralisation.]

• Transport: by 2030 40% of new vehicles will be “new energy and clean-energy powered” vehicles, the emission intensity of commercial fleets will drop by 9.5% and energy intensity of rail fall by 10% (unclear if these latter numbers are on new stock in that year or across the system), 70% of travel in cities with >1 million people will be environmentally friendly

• Carbon sinks: by 2030 forest cover will increase to 25% (from about 23% today) and the forest stock will increase by 6 billion cubic meters over 2005 levels (equiv to around 6 GT of CO2). The development of carbon sinks in agricultural methods also gets a specific mention. [the reforestation of China is remarkable - forest cover has increased from 16.7% in 1990 to 23.3% in 2020, representing an area about the size of France - warrants a stand-alone examination at some point] 

• Governance & incentives: “China will establish and improve the legal and institutional systems, policies and standards to address climate change, enhance the role of market mechanism, and thus form endogenous driving forces to promote the green and low-carbon transformation.” - see establishment of domestic carbon market last year (prices are low but new high-emitting sectors to be included this year and next) and work with Client Earth on training judges and prosecutors in environmental cases

• Economic opportunity: China clearly sees the energy transition as a strategic opportunity. The document mentions formations of new strategic industries (biotech, new energy, electric vehicles, new materials, and… “green environmental protection”?) as well as “a number of advanced green manufacturing clusters, making the green manufacturing industry a new engine and new advantage for economic growth”

• Technology innovation: strive to make breakthroughs in areas like large-capacity wind, high-efficiency PV, large-scale energy storage and materials like carbon fibre and aerogels [super high-performing thermal insulators] as well as scaling existing technologies through scaled-up demonstration projects, e.g. CCUS and molten-salt thermal storage. Advanced nuclear and CDR also get mentions. 

• Education: the concept of “ecological civilisation” will be included in both national curriculum and training for Party cadres to “deepen their understanding of the importance, urgency, scientific essence, and systematic approaches”  [one might wish the same training extended to certain other policy makers in certain other jurisdictions…]

• Regional targets: thoughtful approach to different pathways for regions depending on their economies and local resources, and an intention to relocate energy intensive industries to regions with the best zero-carbon energy resources. Regional emission peaking / reduction plans will be published when approved by the Leading Group on carbon peaking and neutrality, which was set up in May of last year.

• Accountability: Regions will have to report to the Leading Group and will be either celebrated or censured based on their performance on hitting peak emissions [someone who is very familiar with China once raised this gap between central policy and regional implementation as one of the key challenges to successful climate action in China - it seems they are attempting to meet it head on]