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BEIJING (AFP) – China’s surprise promise to cut its carbon footprint to zero by 2060 was greeted with cautious applause, but new spending on coal to accelerate a virus-hit economy threatens to undo its bold attempt to drive the world towards a low carbon economy. future.
Fossil fuel has fueled China’s economic growth for the past 30 years, and the nation burns about half of the coal used globally each year.
Between 2000 and 2018, its annual carbon emissions nearly tripled and now accounts for nearly a third of the world’s total greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
Despite promises to move the economy away from coal with the world’s most ambitious investment in renewables, China’s coal consumption rose again in June this year to near the highest levels seen in 2013.
That was partly due to a shift to coal after geopolitical uncertainty on the Saudi peninsula, China’s main oil supplier.
But the coronavirus, which saw the Chinese economy contract for the first time in 30 years, also turned on the taps of government lenders to build new coal plants to revive the failing provincial economies.
There is a “tension at the heart of China’s energy planning,” Li Shuo, director of climate and energy at Greenpeace China, told AFP.
“It pits Beijing’s strategic interests against the immediate goals of cash-strapped provincial governments, and makes it difficult to preach” about a cleaner future.
This week, Xi Jinping unveiled China’s bold speech for leadership on global warming at the United Nations, vowing that his nation will hit peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral 30 years later.
It is the first time that China has announced plans to become carbon neutral, but so far there have been no details on how the country will rebalance away from fossil fuels.
In the first half of 2020, China approved 23 gigawatts in new coal power projects, more than the previous two years combined, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a San Francisco-based environmental NGO.
“A new fleet of coal plants is in direct contradiction to China’s commitment to peak emissions by 2030,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, China analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
FACING BOTH WAYS
The world’s second-largest economy is also positioning itself as a world leader in renewable energy.
It is already the world’s leading producer and consumer of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles, and Chinese factories make two-thirds of all installed solar cells used worldwide.
“China’s energy policy is like a two-headed beast, with each head trying to run in the opposite direction,” said Li of Greenpeace.
But the new surge in coal is pushing renewables out of the market because China’s power distribution system uses Soviet-style quotas, where energy providers are assigned a monthly supply cap.
Grid quotas have pushed local governments to increase their coal-based energy allocation in recent years, leaving less space on the grid for renewable energy use, even if investment in them is increased.
“Local governments prefer to buy more coal-generated power to protect mining jobs,” Li said.
Wind and solar farms have been forced to sit idle and dozens of new renewable projects have been canceled since late last year as small private operators struggle to make money.
‘White elephants’
Experts say that China’s addiction to coal will not be easy to end.
The country already has 400 gigawatts more of coal-fired capacity than is needed to meet peak demand, according to GEM.
“China’s coal fleet is operating at about 50 percent of its capacity,” Myllyvirta said.
“Many facilities are white elephants. Adding new ones would only make them less efficient.”
Lawmakers say new plants with lower emissions standards will replace old dirty smokestacks.
But the savings are modest: The new plants emit only 11% less carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of generated power compared to the old ones.
The direction of travel for now still points to a coal-dominated energy future.
Renewables are subject to higher property taxes, lower interest rates on loans and network fees.
Subsidies for onshore wind farms will currently end in 2021 (subsidies for offshore wind farms ended in March when subsidies for solar energy were also cut in half), while investments in clean energy fell by eight percent in 2019, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Meanwhile, overseas Belt and Road investments will grace developing nations from Pakistan to Zimbabwe with new coal-fired power plants.
“Our energy policy needs a serious review, a surgery, because the growth of renewable energy has reached a glass ceiling,” Li said. “But the reforms have been stalled for almost a decade, because the coal lobby is too powerful.”
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