{"id":20009220,"date":"2014-10-14T11:50:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T06:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=9220"},"modified":"2020-12-17T01:17:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T19:47:15","slug":"pushing-china-to-peak-emissions-early-could-be-bad-for-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/pushing-china-to-peak-emissions-early-could-be-bad-for-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"Pushing China to peak emissions early could be bad for climate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pushing China to peak its greenhouse-gas emissions too soon could damage global efforts to tackle climate change by driving industry to less efficient countries, a Chinese climate economist has argued.<\/p>\n

Guan Dabo of the UK\u2019s University of East Anglia told\u00a0thethirdpole.net<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/i>that China\u2019s experience serving as the factory of the world for two decades had meant \u201cmany mistakes and many gains\u201d, which would be crucial for tackling rising emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any other country, say India, becomes China the second, then it will take maybe another 20 years to learn what China has already achieved,\u201d said Guan, who has published a seven-year study of Chinese emissions patterns in the journal Nature Climate Change<\/a><\/em><\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say as long as emissions growth is slowing down, that is fine, rather than asking China to peak \u2013 because we want to end [carbon] leakage to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Guan, who is professor in climate change and international development at UEA, argued that an absolute cap on Chinese emissions would be necessary to get the country\u2019s economy onto a more sustainable footing. He said he was \u201coptimistic\u201d about progress on this front at the UN climate-change conference in Paris next year, highlighting the possibility that China\u2019s wealthiest places including Beijing and Shanghai would commit to regional caps.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s ongoing experiment in emissions trading, which involves preliminary emissions caps for seven regions, is likely to pave the way towards a system of absolute targets, he added.<\/p>\n

Guan\u2019s research indicates that China\u2019s current climate-change goals, which focus on intensity of emissions (carbon dioxide produced per unit of GDP) are failing to drive effective mitigation in the context of surging, heavy-industry led economic growth.<\/p>\n

This is because the country\u2019s boom has boosted emissions-intensive activities like mining, metal smelting and coal-fired power generation, negating even impressive carbon-efficiency gains made during the same period, he argues. Inner Mongolia, for example, achieved a 159% efficiency improvement between 2002 and 2009. But a 14-fold jump in cement production and metal smelting left it with a net efficiency gain of just 18%.<\/p>\n

On a national level, China’s carbon intensity fell by 5% in the first half of 2014, according to official figures. But Guan said China had locked itself into an emissions-intensive investment cycle and progress could prove to be temporary in the absence of more fundamental restructuring of the economy.<\/p>\n

The country has been building more airports, high-speed rail tracks and expressways than the market can absorb, he said, pointing out that China now has 90% of the world\u2019s toll roads. But despite this excess capacity, investment in heavy industry continues: \u201cIt\u2019s the wrong signal to the domestic market \u2013 we need more cement, we need more steel. So there will be more cement and steel factories built.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forcing an emissions peak in China too soon could damage global efforts to tackle climate change, says climate economist Guan Dabo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":603,"featured_media":20014417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761,757],"tags":[513,20000325,580],"hashtags":[],"country":[20000110],"class_list":["post-20009220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","category-energy","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-industry","tag-policy","country-china"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPushing China to peak emissions early could be bad for climate | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Forcing an emissions peak in China too soon could damage global efforts to tackle climate change, says climate economist Guan Dabo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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