Annliya George
Following the COP26 Conference, China has put forth bold objectives as a part of President Xi Jinping’s vision of an ‘ecological civilisation‘.
As the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel is coal, which is receiving a lot of backlash from several climate campaigners that have been affected by the emissions, China will be doubling down on carbon by reaching peak emissions by 2030 and achieving neutrality by 2060.
The country’s newly formulated CO2 emissions trading system, will aid in achieving this goal. The trading system is one that will harness markets to work towards making significant reductions in terms of CO2 emissions.
China follows a system called the tradable performance standard (TPS); it was officially launched in July 2021. It is a nationwide programme that is an improved version of the earlier regional pilot programme. This programme can help China cut down its emissions by approximately half, by the year 2060. As of now, the TPS only covers the power sector of China, but after it is implemented fully it will harbour eight carbon-intensive sectors.
China’s Emissions
Although all countries find it challenging to bring down emissions, it is even harder for China. China’s emissions exceed the emissions of all the developed countries combined, according to research by Rhodium Group. The Asian Giant with the world’s largest population and zeal for economic growth has resulted in making China the largest producer of greenhouse gases.
In the Paris Agreement in 2015, China along with the other signatories had agreed to make sure global warming remains at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and “well below” 2C. The Climate Action Tracker – an international group of scientists and policy experts have said the current measure taken by China is “highly insufficient”.
Fortunately, however, many experts have suggested that reducing the emissions is achievable, but a radical shift will be required as coal has been the main source of energy for the country for decades. President Xi has assured that China will “phase down” the use of coal from 2026 and that they will not be building any new coal-fired projects abroad.
According to the researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China will have to stop using coal for electricity by the year 2050 and replace it with nuclear and renewable energy production.
Green Technology
In attempts to move towards the goal set by the Tsinghua University researchers, China is making significant contributions in manufacturing green technology, like solar panels and large-scale batteries. Even though China embraced green technologies as means to battle air pollution – a serious problem for many cities – the government also soon realised the enormous economic potential, job opportunities and income for several Chinese and also helped reduce China’s dependence on imported oil and gas.
“China is already leading the global energy transition,” says Yue Cao of the Overseas Development Institute.
“One of the reasons we are able to deploy cheaper and cheaper green technology is China.”
It is also notable that China generated more solar power than any country– it may not look impressive given China’s huge population. The wind installations in China were over triple that of any other country as of 2020. China has promised that it will decrease the proportion of energy generated with fossil fuels to 25% by 2030.
Electric Cars
In the whole world, China ranks seventh for the percentage of electric car sales however due to its huge size the numbers are marginal. One in 20 cars that are purchased in China is electric-powered.
By 2035 the Chinese officials anticipate that all vehicles bought in China would be electric-powered. Figuring out how much the emission would reduce by following the shift to electric-powered vehicles is still hard, given the manufacturing sources of these cars.
But studies so far, suggest that the emissions from manufacturing and using electric-powered vehicles is definitely lower than those that use petrol or diesel. Moreover, since transportation alone contributes to around a quarter of the emissions due to fuel combustion the shift to electric-powered vehicles would be a significant one.
“Does politics have anything to do with emissions?”
Does politics have anything to do with emissions? Although it might not look like they are directly related, democracy is one of the ways the situation can be improved. Even when it comes to dealing with Covid-19 democracies have fared better than autocratic governments.
The Freedom House Think Tank has classified countries across the globe based on their democratic characteristics, using several parameters such as: the existence of freedom of speech, free and fair elections, the right for citizens to participate in politics, and government respect for the rule of law. All the countries were classified into three major categories: authoritarian, partially authoritarian and democratic.
While considering the percentage of change in tons of CO2 emissions per capita across the globe between 1990 and 2018, on the whole, emissions have risen by 70% but there is a notable difference between democracies and authoritarian governments.
In countries like Russia and China, with authoritarian regimes, emissions rose by 112%, in partially authoritarian regimes like Indonesia for instance, emissions rose by 110%. Surprisingly, in democracies, there was just around a 29% of increase. It is true that there are several other factors that explain this but a democratic regime has definitely influenced this.
Mainly because democratic governments are more receptive to people’s opinions. This becomes a serious issue especially in rapidly growing countries with authoritarian regimes wherein people’s voices tend to get overlooked in pursuit of economic growth. The Freedom House data implies that if democracies resurface around the globe, it could help in fighting the war against climate change.
Professor David Tyfield of the Lancaster Environment Centre said: “unless China de-carbonises, we’re not going to beat climate change.”
China has the potential to achieve its goals especially because of its ability to stick to long-term goals and deploy large-scale investments. This is encouraging news for the whole world because the world needs China to succeed. Experts have agreed that without big reductions in emissions by China, the world cannot win the war against climate change.
Featured image courtesy of Chris LeBoutillier via Unsplash. Image licence can be found here. No changes or alterations have been made to this image.
