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Climate change diplomacy
ChinaPolitics

China must curb energy demand, create clean supply to hit its Paris climate goal: researchers

  • Chinese and foreign researchers look at how aiming to keep the global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius affects China
  • Most models analysed reported China’s coal demand would shrink to near zero around 2050

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Researchers published in Science journal found carbon capture and storage technology played an important role in cutting carbon emissions in China but would not be the main tool in emissions reduction. Photo: Reuters
Echo Xie
Strictly controlling energy demand and developing substantial clean energy sources will be crucial to China hitting its Paris Agreement target to limit global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, say Chinese and foreign researchers who looked at how China might reach the goal.
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The Paris Agreement aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise of the global temperature this century to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, preferably keeping the increase to 1.5 degrees (2.7 Fahrenheit).

Chinese and foreign researchers recently assessed what the 1.5 degree goal means for China’s emissions pathway, energy restructuring and decarbonisation, publishing a study in Science journal on April 23.

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The authors used nine integrated assessment models – models used to assess pathways and effects of climate change – aimed to understand what were consistent findings among all models and which results were most uncertain.

“Different organisations have different models based on their structures and mechanisms so sometimes – even if they research the same subject – the results can be very different,” said Duan Hongbo, lead author of the study and a professor with the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

“So we want to combine some representative models and analyse the results,” he said.

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“For the consistent findings, the results of the multi-model study are more scientific than the single-model study and they are more suitable to be used for climate negotiations or to support the country’s long-term planning,” he added. “For the results with big differences, we need to analyse the reason and be cautious when making policies.”

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