China has approved a major surge in coal power so far this year, prioritizing energy supply over its pledge to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, Greenpeace said yesterday.
The world’s second-largest economy is also its biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases driving climate change, such as carbon dioxide, and China’s emissions pledges are seen as essential to keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C.
However, the jump in approvals for coal-fired power plants has fueled concerns that China could backtrack on its goals to peak emissions between 2026 and 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060.
Photo: Reuters
Local governments in energy-hungry Chinese provinces approved at least 20.45 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power in the first three months of this year, Greenpeace said.
That is more than double the 8.63GW Greenpeace reported for the same period last year, and greater than the 18.55GW that was approved for the whole of 2021.
China relied on coal for nearly 60 percent of its electricity last year.
The push for more coal plants “risks climate disasters ... and locking us into a high-carbon pathway,” Greenpeace campaigner Xie Wenwen (謝雯文) said.
“The 2022 coal boom has clearly continued into this year,” Xie said.
China last year approved the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants since 2015, a Global Energy Monitor study released in February said.
Most of the new projects approved in the first three months of this year were in provinces that have had punishing power shortages due to record heat waves over the past two years, Greenpeace said.
Several others were in southwest China, where a record drought last year slashed hydropower output and forced factories to shut down.
It was unclear how many of the coal power plants approved this year would begin construction.
Greenpeace analysts said that investing in more fossil-fuel plants to prepare for a spike in air conditioning would create a vicious cycle: increased greenhouse gas emissions from the coal plants would accelerate climate change, resulting in more frequent extreme weather such as heat waves.
“China’s power sector can still peak emissions by 2025,” Xie said, adding that emissions released today would linger in the atmosphere for decades.
China is also the world’s largest and fastest-growing producer of renewable energy.
Wind, solar, hydro and nuclear sources are expected to supply one-third of its electricity demand by 2025, up from 28.8 percent in 2020, the Chinese National Energy Administration estimates showed.
However, Greenpeace said the rise in approvals for coal power projects shows how the need for short-term economic growth is diverting investment away from renewable energy projects.
With an average lifespan of about 40 to 50 years, China’s coal plants would be operating at minimum capacity and at a loss if the country delivers on its emissions pledge, the report said.
The China Electricity Council said more than half of the country’s large coal-fired power firms made losses in the first half of last year.
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