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.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS