Clean energy rollout means China’s emissions may have peaked

A massive rollout of wind and solar power across China may mean the country’s emissions peaked in 2023, in what would be a historic turning point in the fight against climate change.

China’s CO2 emissions hit an all-time high in 2023 as its economy rebounded from the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic. But since then, huge amounts of wind and solar power have been added to the nation’s electricity grid, while emissions from the construction industry have fallen.

A new analysis indicates that China’s carbon emissions remained flat from July to September 2024 after falling 1 per cent in the second quarter of the year. It means 2024 emissions may remain flat on 2023 levels overall, or even fall slightly.

This would be hugely significant for global climate efforts, says Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a think tank in Finland. “China’s emissions growth has been the dominant factor pushing global emissions up for the past eight years since the signing of the Paris climate agreement,” he says.

In its climate change plan submitted to the United Nations, China promised to peak its greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, and to reach net-zero emissions by 2060. But experts warn this plan is not nearly ambitious enough given the outsize impact China has on global climate change, as the world’s largest emitter.

Peaking emissions as early as possible in China is crucial, says Myllyvirta. “That would open up the door to the country beginning to reduce emissions much faster than its current commitments require,” he says. “This would have enormous significance for the global effort to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

China is racing to ramp up electricity supply across the country and meet rapidly increasing demand for power. This demand jumped by 7.2 per cent between July and September compared with a year earlier, driven by rising living standards, as well as strong heatwaves during August and September, which increased demand for cooling.

New renewables capacity has been deployed across China at breakneck speed to help bridge the power demand gap. Solar generation rose by a phenomenal 44 per cent and wind by 24 per cent during July to September, compared with the same period in 2023. Based on current trajectories, the growth in solar power in China this year will equal the total annual power generation of Australia in 2023.

But coal-fired power use still rose by 2 per cent, and gas generation by 13 per cent, during July to September in response to rising demand. This led to an overall rise in CO2 emissions from the Chinese power sector of 3 per cent during this period. But these were offset by a slowdown in construction across China, as investment in real estate contracted.

Demand for oil also fell by 2 per cent in the third quarter of the year, as electric vehicles make up an ever-increasing share of China’s vehicle fleet. By 2030, almost 1 in 3 cars on the road in China is expected to be electric.

Myllyvirta conducted the analysis for the website Carbon Brief using official figures and commercial data. “The rapid clean energy growth, if maintained, paves the way for a sustained emissions decline,” he says.

However, he warns that a plateau or drop in emissions in 2024 is not guaranteed, as government stimulus measures to revive the economy could push up emissions in the final three months of 2024. Carbon emissions must fall by at least 2 per cent in the last three months of the year to dip below 2023 levels, he said.

Yet signals from the Chinese government suggests it expects emissions to keep rising in the country to the end of the decade, an approach that would blow through the remaining global carbon budget for 1.5°C.