This is how the best polluter China wants to be greener by 2025

Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg

China’s journey towards carbon neutrality took its first major step on Friday when the country announced targets to delay emissions in the next five years.

The country plans to reduce carbon emissions per unit gross domestic product by 20% by 2025 and energy consumption per unit GDP by 13.5%, Prime Minister Li Keqiang said on Friday at the opening of the National People’s Congress. It also plans to push up non-fossil fuels by 20% of energy consumption by that time, and will draw up an action plan this year to set out how it aims to reach the highest emissions by 2030.

Rising Renewables

China extracts part of its energy from carbon-free sources

Source: National Bureau of Statistics

At the same time, China plans to continue domestic production of fossil fuels such as coal and oil to improve energy security, which is a major concern for the world’s largest importer of raw materials. And he plans to continue developing nuclear energy after failing to achieve the goals in the sector over the past five years.

Li’s speech and the country’s 14th five-year plan, covering 2021 to 2025, represent Beijing’s first strategic blueprint since September, when Xi Jinping set a net release target by 2060.

Read here how China sets a conservative growth target.

Here’s how it can affect some important energy and climate sectors:

Energy efficiency

China began to industrialize its economy more than a century after industrialization of countries such as the US and the UK, so energy consumption continues to grow strongly as others peak or peak. Beijing did not want to slow down growth by limiting energy consumption, but rather focused on using it more efficiently.

Greenhouse gas Goliath

China accounted for more than 30% of global carbon emissions last year

Source: Robbie Andrew and Global Carbon Project

The new target of reducing energy consumption per unit GDP by 13.5% is slightly lower than the 15% target set by the country in its last five-year plan. China performed better than this target, reducing energy intensity by approximately 18% in the period 2016-2020. State Grid Corp. of China, the country’s utility giant, earlier this week, the focus on energy efficiency and reforms has increased on demand over the next five years, saying it is a cheaper solution than adding new energy supply.

Carbon emissions

Like energy consumption, China’s approach to emissions was to reduce intensity rather than set an overall target. The 18% reduction target over the next five years is at the same level as it was successfully achieved in the previous plan.

Lose intensity

China wants to continue to emit less carbon per unit of GDP it produces

Source: International Energy Agency

As GDP continues to grow, emissions have also increased, with China emitting 9.8 billion tonnes of carbon in 2019, according to BP Plc data at almost 29% of world total. Climate experts believe that China should set an absolute limit, and the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research says that by 2025 it should be 8.75 billion tonnes to reach the linear path to 2060 carbon neutrality target.

Coal

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, and China mines and burns half of the world’s reserves. Beijing has managed to reduce the share of coal in its energy mix over the past few years, but this has happened because total energy consumption has risen, meaning the amount of coal burned has not changed much since the early 2010s.

Reducing coal dependence

China has exceeded its target of reducing the share of coal in its energy mix

Source: National Bureau of Statistics

This trend is likely to continue in the next five-year plan. Li said China would continue to promote the clean and efficient use of fuel while making great efforts to develop new energy sources. And the country will continue to build production systems for coal, oil and gas. The country’s coal industry group said earlier this week that it plans to increase production by 2025, and that total consumption will be slightly higher. higher at the end of the period than in 2020.

Clean energy

China’s target for 20% of its energy to be reached by non-fossil fuels by 2025 is faster than a previous target to reach that point by 2030, and it illustrates the enormous success the country has achieved solar and wind capacity installations in recent years. The country will continue to develop these resources “efficiently” over the next five years, promoting hydrogen, hydropower and energy storage.

Renewable roar

China’s solar and wind capacity is expected to increase in the coming years

Source: BloombergNEF predicts

Li also reiterated China’s support for nuclear power, after it fell short of its last 5-year plan target of having 58 gigawatts of plants by 2020, and ended up with a little less than 50 instead. For the next five years, the country plans to increase the atomic energy capacity by 40% to 70 gigawatts.

Electrification