China has set itself a modest climate target for the coming five years. The National People’s Congress, which meets once a year, aims for the new five-year plan to cut CO₂ emissions per unit of economic output by 17 percent.
This so-called CO₂ intensity is not equivalent to a reduction in the country’s CO₂ emissions. The goal instead means that the economy can grow and thus emit more CO₂ overall, but emissions per yuan of output should fall. Observers had hoped in advance that the National People’s Congress would adopt a concrete CO₂ reduction target.
For the five-year plan, which ran until 2025, the National People’s Congress had demanded an 18 percent decrease in CO₂ intensity. China missed this target by 6 percentage points. According to President Xi Jinping, the People’s Republic should reach the emissions peak by 2030 and by 2060 emit no more CO₂ than is absorbed.
“We will work vigorously and at the same time prudently toward the peak of CO₂ emissions and toward CO₂ neutrality,” said Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday before the National People’s Congress.
China expert Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air told Reuters that the new CO₂ intensity target was “alarmingly lax.” It would allow a rise in CO₂ emissions of three to six percent over the next five years if one also bases it on the growth target of 4.5 to 5 percent that was approved by the National People’s Congress. This would cause Beijing to miss its climate goal of reducing the CO₂ intensity of its economy by 65 percent by 2030 compared with 2005, a target set by the PRC under the Paris Agreement.
Has the Emissions Peak Been Reached?
“China’s approach remains to expand renewable energy and green industries and rely on falling costs and growing volumes of renewable energy to reduce CO₂ emissions,” said Myllyvirta.
According to his analyses, China’s emissions have been flat or falling for 21 months. Beijing nevertheless does not yet speak of having reached its emissions peak.
China is the world’s largest CO₂ emitter and accounts for almost a third of global emissions. A sustained decline in Chinese emissions is therefore crucial if global emissions are to fall.
The Chemical Industry Drives Emissions
In China last year, 315 gigawatts of additional capacity for generating solar power and 119 gigawatts of additional capacity for wind power were built. This is more than the rest of the world will have connected to the grid by 2025.
At the same time, CO₂ emissions from the chemical sector rose sharply. According to Myllyvirta, Chinese emissions in 2025 would have fallen by 2 percent instead of 0.3 percent if coal and oil had not been used so heavily in the country’s chemical plants.
Accordingly, the National People’s Congress also withdrew a pledge to reduce coal consumption. Instead, it calls only for stagnation of coal consumption. This leaves room for further coal use in the chemical sector if coal-fired power generation continues to decline as before. The renewable energy boom in China could, however, really help to keep CO₂ emissions falling further, hopes Myllyvirta.
