China is promoting coal-fired power as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tries to revive a sluggish economy, prompting warnings that Beijing is setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source.
Official plans call for boosting coal production capacity by 300 million tonnes this year, news reports have said.
That is equal to 7 percent of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tonnes, which was an increase of 5.7 percent from 2020.
Photo: AP
China is one of the biggest investors in wind and solar, but jittery leaders called for more coal-fired power after economic growth plunged last year and shortages caused blackouts and factory shutdowns. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine added to anxiety that foreign oil and coal supplies might be disrupted.
“This mentality of ensuring energy security has become dominant, trumping carbon neutrality,” said Li Shuo (李碩), a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace. “We are moving into a relatively unfavorable time period for climate action in China.”
Officials are facing political pressure to ensure stability as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is preparing to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as CCP leader in the autumn.
Coal is important for “energy security,” Cabinet officials said at a meeting on Wednesday, where they approved plans to expand production capacity, business news magazine Caixin reported.
The CCP is also building power plants to inject money into the economy and revive growth that sank to 4 percent in the final quarter of last year, down from the full year’s 8.1 percent expansion.
The CCP has rejected binding emissions commitments, citing its economic development needs, and Beijing has avoided joining governments that promised to phase out use of coal-fired power.
In a 2020 speech to the UN, Xi said China’s carbon emissions would peak by 2030, but he announced no target for the amount.
China aims for carbon neutrality by 2060, Xi said.
China accounts for 26.1 percent of global emissions, more than double the US’ share of 12.8 percent, the World Resources Institute has said.
China emits more than all developed economies combined, research firm Rhodium Group has said.
China’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2060 appears to be on track, but using more coal “could jeopardize this, or at least slow it down and make it more costly,” Clare Perry, ocean and climate campaign leader at the Environmental Investigations Agency said in an e-mail.
Promoting coal would make emissions “much higher than they need to be” by the 2030 peak year, Perry said. “This move runs entirely counter to the science.”
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