Following the emergence of Covid-19 and its impacts, China put a strong emphasis on coal power and energy-intensive heavy industry to secure energy security and GDP growth. This has put it a long way off reaching its 2025 targets for energy and carbon intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can China ensure these decisions do not make it more difficult to achieve<\/a> peak carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060? In conversation with Dialogue Earth, experts recommend tougher controls on coal, reforms to electricity markets, and more rigorous management of energy supply and demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Energy intensity indicates the strength of the link between a country\u2019s economic development and energy consumption. That is, how much energy is needed to produce a certain amount of value. The higher it is, the more reliant the country will be on energy for growth.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n China\u2019s five-year economic plan (FYP) for 2021-2025 set 20 binding targets, including a 13.5% fall in energy intensity and an 18% fall in carbon intensity (carbon emitted per unit of GDP). Meeting these would have required annual falls of 2.8% and 3.9% respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late 2023, the chair of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zheng Zhajie, said<\/a> falls in both energy and carbon intensity had been less than expected. According to a recent bulletin<\/a> from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), energy intensity fell only 2.5% in 2023, while carbon intensity held steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Energy intensity fell by 2.7% in 2021<\/a>, and carbon intensity by 3.8%, according to Dialogue Earth\u2019s calculations. Falls in 2022<\/a>, though, were only 0.1% and 0.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMission almost-impossible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n