• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows February 7, 2023
AI Predicts World Over 1.5°C Limit by 2030, Undercuts Climate Progress Reports February 7, 2023
February Brings Record Cold, Widespread Power Outages to Much of North America February 7, 2023
Solar Geoengineering Banned in Mexico After ‘Rogue’ Stunt February 7, 2023
Lithium Mine Divides Nemaska Cree Over Impacts, Benefits February 7, 2023
Next
Prev

China Think Tank Calls for Early Emissions Cap in 2025, But Banks Continue Funding Coal

August 20, 2019
Reading time: 3 minutes

Rob Loftis/Wikipedia

Rob Loftis/Wikipedia

1
SHARES
 

China is sending out decidedly mixed signals on its climate and energy strategy, with an influential think tank calling for the country to cap its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, five years ahead of schedule, but the country’s financial institutions delivering at least US$1 billion in “green” financing to coal-related projects in the first six months of this year.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, China agreed to cap its world-leading greenhouse gas emissions “around 2030”. But last week, a report by the government-run National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) “warned the goal might not be within reach unless absolute limits on carbon emissions are included in the nation’s 2021-2025 five-year plan,” Reuters reports. “On a ‘business as usual’ trajectory, annual CO2 emissions would grow from 11 gigatonnes in 2020 to 14.3 gigatonnes in 2030, and would still be rising.”

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

But in another scenario put forward by the NCSC, emissions would stabilize at 10.6 Gt in 2025 and be held at that level in the five years that followed. “Tougher measures could also keep per capita emissions at 7.2 tonnes by 2030, lower than the ‘business as usual’ level of 8.3 tonnes,” the news agency states.

The think tank sees “room for big improvements” in a set of climate policies that have focused heavily on the energy, construction, and transportation sectors, to the detriment of consumer-related emissions, Reuters adds. The report calls for deeper cuts in energy use per unit of GDP, a faster phaseout of coal-fired electricity production, and “even tougher efficiency, waste heat and fuel economy standards”.

But days later, a separate report suggested China’s financial institutions aren’t getting the memo. “According to Shanghai-based financial data provider Wind, ¥7.4 billion (US$1.1 billion) in green corporate and financial bonds were issued by 13 coal projects in the first half of the year,” Reuters notes. “They involved power plants fueled by coal or coalbed methane, as well as coal-to-chemical projects.”

China has cut coal from 68.5% of its electricity mix in 2012 to 59% today, with a target of 50% by 2030. “But overall capacity is still set to grow even as it falls as a share of the total, and China also needs to upgrade existing mines and plants,” Reuters explains. “Thus, while many global financial institutions have said they will no longer fund coal projects, their Chinese counterparts have not followed suit.” That helps explain why one-quarter of the country’s green bonds failed to meet international criteria last year, according to the non-profit Climate Bonds Initiative.

“Coal is obviously never green,” Liu Junyan, senior climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia, told Reuters. “The alleged purpose for ‘clean coal tech’ is to address the environment risk posed by the coal industry, but for some of these methods, the ‘clean coal’ risk is even greater than the original problem.”

China’s greenhouse gas reductions to date have been motivated in large part by local health concerns—and the public outcry those problems have generated. But a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says the country’s efforts to curb air pollution “will likely become increasingly difficult as the planet warms,” InsideClimate News reports. 

“Increased heat waves and more periods of stagnant air resulting from global warming will worsen existing air pollution across much of China, the scientists concluded,” InsideClimate states. “This presents a heightened challenge for a country already choking on airborne pollutants that cause more than one million premature deaths there each year.”

“For Chinese policy-makers working to improve current air quality and protect public health, our finding is a daunting conclusion, and one that underscores the need to tackle the challenges of both climate change mitigation and air quality at the same time,” the study stated.

“Stagnant air masses are in a way the worst conditions for air pollution to really bite,” explained study author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “It is a bit like the 19th century when the London smog happened, because it was a combination of the pollution from the chimneys and the factories and the other thing was the atmospheric conditions.”



in China, Coal, Community Climate Finance, COP Conferences, Ending Emissions

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Peoplepoweredbyenergy/Wikimedia Commons
Ending Emissions

Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows

February 7, 2023
496
The hottest summer days in a typical New York City year are now about 11 times more frequent than in the 19th century. Image: Andreas Komodromos via Flickr
Carbon Levels & Measurement

AI Predicts World Over 1.5°C Limit by 2030, Undercuts Climate Progress Reports

February 7, 2023
98
Peter Broster/wikimedia commons
Transit

Ottawa Mulls Higher-Speed Trains on Busy Toronto-Quebec City Corridor

February 7, 2023
117

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Peoplepoweredbyenergy/Wikimedia Commons

Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows

February 7, 2023
496
Government of Alberta/flickr

University of Calgary Suspends Admissions for Oil and Gas Engineering Program

July 12, 2021
389
Beckyq6937/Wikimedia Commons

Solar Geoengineering Banned in Mexico After ‘Rogue’ Stunt

February 7, 2023
158
Peter Broster/wikimedia commons

Ottawa Mulls Higher-Speed Trains on Busy Toronto-Quebec City Corridor

February 7, 2023
117
Brian Robert Marshall/Geograph

Canada’s Solid Renewables Growth Falls Short of Net-Zero Ambitions

February 7, 2023
97
Michael E. Brunk/flickr

Green Building ‘Heroes’, Climate Contrarian ‘Zombies’, Shell Lawsuits, and ‘Sponge Cities’ to Solve Flooding

February 7, 2023
124

Recent Posts

The hottest summer days in a typical New York City year are now about 11 times more frequent than in the 19th century. Image: Andreas Komodromos via Flickr

AI Predicts World Over 1.5°C Limit by 2030, Undercuts Climate Progress Reports

February 7, 2023
98
Andre Carrotflower/wikimedia commons

February Brings Record Cold, Widespread Power Outages to Much of North America

February 7, 2023
56
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Lithium Mine Divides Nemaska Cree Over Impacts, Benefits

February 7, 2023
38
Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
371
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
217
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
84
Next Post
kpgolfpro / Pixabay

Corporate Renewable Energy Buys Could Set All-Time Record in 2019

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}