Energy and Emissions Data

This post originally appeared on WRI’s Insights blog:

The Long March was a watershed moment in Chinese history—the moment Mao Zedong’s nascent Communist Party escaped disaster in 1934 en route to forming a new nation. Fast forward 80 years, and China is poised to embark on a new Long March – but this time away from climate change and environmental damage toward a sustainable future.

China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, held a press conference Friday and made statements that may preview China’s approach to the UN Climate Summit on September 23rd.

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Key Points:

China has a long term target to reduce the carbon intensity of the economy by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2020

China also has binding targets to reduce energy intensity by 16% from 2010 levels by 2015 and carbon intensity by 17% from 2010 levels by 2015

China has a target to reduce coal consumption as a percentage of primary energy to below 65% by 2017

China has ambitious targets for renewable energy in 2015, 2017, and 2020

Key Points:

• Currently, China gets about 9% of its total primary energy from non-fossil sources. Official targets aim to increase the share of primary energy from non-fossil sources to at least 11.4% in 2015 and 15% in 2020.
• Hydropower: China currently has the largest hydropower capacity in the world, with about 229 gigawatts (GW) currently, and a target of 290 GW for 2015.
• Wind Power: China ranks 1st in the world in installed wind power capacity, with about 89 GW. China is also the world’s fastest-growing installer of wind, and it aims to have 100 GW of wind installed by 2015.
• Solar: China is also attempting to dramatically scale up solar power, planning to have at least 35 GW of installed solar by 2015, and currently has around 19 GW installed.
• Investment: China was the number one investor in renewable energy in 2013, accounting for nearly a fifth of global investment.

Amidst headlines detailing off-the-charts air pollution in Beijing, it may come as a surprise that China’s latest environmental scorecard does boast bright spots. The 2014 Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI) – a biennial global ranking of how well countries perform on a range of critical environmental issues – ranks China at 118 out of 178 countries. With respect to other emerging economies with rapid growth and development, China does not fare as well overall as Brazil (77th), Russia (73rd), or South Africa (72th), but is considerably ahead of India, which ranked 155th. However, China is a leader in addressing climate change and is taking corrective action to address weaknesses.

Key Points:

A U.S.-Chinese team led by the Harvard China Project has developed a comprehensive framework for evaluating the economic and environmental costs and benefits of national policies to control air pollution and CO₂ emissions in China.

Contrary to some perceptions of Chinese inaction on air pollution, China’s SO₂ control policy of 2006-2010 may have been one of the most swiftly successful air pollution policies on record judged by key criteria: sulfur emissions fell sharply and prevented as many as 74,000 premature deaths from fine particle (PM_2.5) air pollution in 2010 alone, all at little economic cost.

Looking to the future, a modest tax on carbon dioxide, starting small and rising to about $6.50 per ton in 2020 (in 2007 dollars), could lead to a 19% reduction in China’s CO₂ emissions in 2020 compared to a scenario with no tax, with little effect on GDP growth and consumption over the long run.

Such a carbon tax would also deliver powerful ancillary benefits: reduced concentrations of an array of domestic air pollutants and prevention of as many as 89,000 premature deaths a year by 2020.

Summary of key information on China’s actions on climate and clean energy and the implications for the United States.

Key Points

Currently, China gets about 9% of its total primary energy from non-fossil sources. Official targets aim to increase that share to at least 11.4 % in 2015 and 15% in 2020.

Solar Power: China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of solar cells (PVs).

ChinaFAQs climate and energy experts and top media representatives took part in a ChinaFAQs press call on July 8th to preview the July 10th and 11th U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which for the first time will include a designated Climate Change Working Group. ChinaFAQs network experts discussed recent events and potential areas of U.S.-China cooperation, including air pollution, shale gas, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and more. The experts also offered insights into what the S&ED will mean for U.S.

China is attempting to dramatically increase the country’s renewable energy supply by 2015. Recently released data shows that China made progress towards reaching this goal in 2012. China continues to make large investments in renewable energy, with over 80% more investment than the U.S. last year. China remains the country with the world’s most installed wind capacity, and it is neck and neck with the U.S. in terms of installed solar PV capacity.

Key Points:

• Currently, China gets about 8% of its total primary energy from renewable sources. Official targets aim to increase the share of primary energy from non-fossil sources to at least 11.4% in 2015 and 15% in 2020.¹
• Hydropower: China currently has the largest hydropower capacity in the world, with about 229 gigawatts (GW) currently, and a target of 290 GW for 2015.
• Wind Power: China ranks 1st in the world in installed wind power capacity, with about 75 GW. China is also the world’s fastest-growing installer of wind, and it aims to have 100 GW of wind installed by 2015.²
• Solar: China is also attempting to dramatically scale up solar power, planning to have at least 35 GW of installed solar by 2015, and currently has around 7.5 GW installed.
• Investment: China was the number one investor in renewable energy in 2012, accounting for nearly a quarter of global investment

China’s 12th Five Year Plan includes an array of energy targets that it hopes to achieve by 2015. The targets, such as increasing the share of non-fossil energy to 11.4% of the total energy supply and cutting the economy’s carbon intensity by 17% by 2015, are part of a larger plan for China to reach a 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2020 relative to 2005 levels. ChinaFAQs expert Trevor Houser has crunched the numbers provided by China’s National Bureau of Statistics and come up with a report card on the country’s progress towards achieving its climate and energy goals.

Shenzhen, a city of 11 million people just north of Hong Kong, has announced that it will begin emission trading on June 17. Shenzhen is one of the seven Chinese cities and provinces that have been developing pilot programs for carbon emissions trading.

China’s State Council in late January approved an “energy consumption control target” to keep the country’s total energy consumption below the equivalent of 4 billion tonnes of coal per year by 2015.

The latest International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2012 re-confirms the dangerous path the world is on–a path of increasing dependence on coal, which carries serious environmental risks for people and the planet. According to the report, the world will burn 1.2 billion metric tons more coal per year by 2017 compared to today, surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source.

China submitted its “Second National Communication on Climate Change of the People’s Republic of China” to the UNFCCC in November 2012. The Communication contains a national greenhouse gas inventory of China’s emissions in 2005, and descriptions of the impacts of climate change in China and China’s policies and actions on climate change mitigation.

The Chinese Government recently announced the long-awaited provincial energy consumption data for 2011. The data shows that China’s energy intensity in 2011 was 0.793 tons coal equivalent (tce) per unit gross domestic product (GDP), 2.01% less than 2010. The data also reveals new opportunities and challenges for achieving China’s energy intensity target under the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (12FYP) (2011-2015).

ChinaFAQs expert Angel Hsu and her colleagues from the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy team up with Columbia University, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning and City University of Hong Kong for this report to help guide effective pollution control and natural resource management.

The UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa, concluded over the weekend with a consensus to negotiate an agreement that will include all major emitters of warming gases. The conference agreed to a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, extended the work of the group for Long-term Cooperative Action, and most significantly established new negotiations under the Durban Platform. Launching these negotiations was hailed as major progress around the world (Bloomberg, The Statesman, Xinhua). For the first time the world’s three major emitters (by total amount of greenhouse gases emitted), China, the United States and India, have agreed to begin negotiations for an international “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force,” indicating that there will be actions and efforts by all countries. (For the implications of this complex legal wording, see my colleague Jake Werksman’s discussion on WRI Insights).