{"id":71374,"date":"2021-04-26T17:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadialogue.net\/uncategorized\/71348-2\/"},"modified":"2021-05-04T08:54:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T08:54:42","slug":"china-pledges-to-control-coal-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/china-pledges-to-control-coal-power\/","title":{"rendered":"China pledges to control coal power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The last two weeks has seen a flurry of climate diplomacy. China has held high level talks with the other BASIC nations (Brazil, South Africa and India), as well as with France and Germany, and with the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Chinese and US climate envoys met in Shanghai, President Xi Jinping accepted an invitation to a US-hosted Leaders\u2019 Summit on Climate, marking a post-Trump reboot of climate diplomacy between the two powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During these talks, China made further commitments on coal consumption and non-CO2 greenhouse gases, in response to calls for the country to boost its climate ambition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clamping down on coal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After four years of constant antagonism and friction, China and the US are back at the table for climate talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Earth Day, 22 April, Xi Jinping was the first foreign leader to speak at President Biden\u2019s climate summit. He used the time primarily to reiterate climate commitments made over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But he did announce strict new controls on coal power, with restrictions on growth in coal consumption for the 14th Five Year Plan period (2021\u201325) and gradual reductions for the 15th FYP (2026\u201330). He also revealed China is drafting an action plan for reaching peak carbon, to meet last year\u2019s commitments to a 2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality, with support for regions, industries and companies to peak early where feasible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding indirectly to calls for China to boost its actions<\/a> to reach peak carbon earlier, Xi said: \u201cChina has committed to move from carbon peak to carbon neutrality in a much shorter time span than [it] might take many developed countries, and that requires extraordinarily hard efforts from China.\u201d A week earlier, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Yu Lecheng was more direct, describing those calls<\/a> as akin to expecting elementary and middle school students to graduate at the same time. He added China and the developed nations are at different stages of responding to climate change and that China has already set extraordinary targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research<\/a> by Chinese and overseas academics recently published in Science magazine found that China\u2019s carbon neutrality target is broadly in line with the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming within 1.5C, but achieving that goal will require deep emissions cuts in the short-term, with emissions to fall 90% compared with a \u201cno policy\u201d scenario by 2050, and demand for coal to drop to near zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Controlling coal is crucial to these efforts, with the country accounting for one half of global coal consumption. Outside of China, coal power capacity seems to have peaked in\u00a02018<\/a>. But according to a\u00a0briefing<\/a>from Greenpeace, China has approved 144.8 gigawatts of coal power over the past five years, with one third of the approvals occurring in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, China has been working to avoid\u00a0potential coal power overcapacity<\/a>and to limit coal power generation in order to improve\u00a0air quality<\/a>. But this is the first time it has made an international commitment on the matter. Barbara Finamore, Asia senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said Xi\u2019s commitments were encouraging, and China should now \u201clay out detailed sectoral five-year plans that (1) halt the construction of new coal plants, (2) adopt a reasonable timetable for the retirement of existing plants, and (3) set absolute caps on coal consumption and CO2 emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n