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Opinion | At COP27, China must clear up confusion over its decarbonisation plans
- The recent rise in China’s coal consumption has overshadowed its more long-term efforts to boost renewables and switch to a low-carbon economy
- To assuage fears among the international community, China must deliver a clear message about the future of coal in the country
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With about 40,000 people gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh for this year’s UN climate talks (COP27), participants are once again scrutinising how much of a chance is left for human beings to avoid runaway climate change. As usual, China’s climate action progress has come under the spotlight.
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This has been a year of record-breaking climate disasters. China, like many other parts of the world, has suffered from unprecedented heatwaves, droughts, wild fires, floods and power outages. More than ever, the world needs assurance from China, the current largest emitter, on its commitment to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (the dual targets that President Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 UN General Assembly).
Yet for a good part of the year, messages from China have been ambiguous and hard to grasp. COP27 is China’s moment to offer some clarity.
There are two crucial points on which clarification is particularly needed. Firstly, China needs to explain the rationale behind its recent coal power expansion, and articulate how it plans to strictly control coal consumption going forward. China’s coal dependency is the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to global emissions control.
During the first half of 2022, China approved 15 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity, combined with a ballooning domestic coal output. By the end of August, China’s coal-fired power capacity had increased to 1,110GW, just above the 1,100GW cap mandated in the country’s 13th five year plan for 2015 to 2020.
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This has raised concerns that China has chosen energy security over decarbonisation, although a closer look suggests that this is a short-term measure to ensure energy supplies.
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