In China, too, cars cause high CO2 emissions.
An end to the sale of new combustion engines is now being debated there too.
There is still no end date - because the matter has a sticking point.
A panel of experts in China recommends the People's Republic to phase out the internal combustion engine.
44 percent of the world's electric cars were produced in China in the past ten years.
China has been promoting electromobility for years and has strict rules for traditional cars.
This article is available to
IPPEN.MEDIA
as part of a cooperation with the
China.Table Professional Briefing
-
China.Table
first published it
on October 11, 2021.
Beijing / Berlin - China is one of the largest markets for cars with alternative drives.
Vehicles with electric, hydrogen or hybrid drives (New Energy Vehicles - NEV) now account for 18 percent of all car sales in the People's Republic.
The switch to e-cars is going faster than planned.
Beijing's target of a 20 percent share of NEV sales by 2025 has almost been achieved today.
At the same time, CO2 emissions from the transport sector are growing massively.
After all, a good 80 percent of all cars sold are climate-damaging combustion engines.
What measures is Beijing taking to further reduce this proportion?
China: Advisory body recommends phasing out combustion engines
So far, China * has not announced a date for phasing out the internal combustion engine. However, a high-level advisory body to the Chinese government recently proposed “clear milestones” for the “gradual elimination of vehicles with internal combustion engines”. The China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) has set out in a report how China should contribute to climate protection. The analysts from Trivium China call the study “groundbreaking”. The CCICED is directly linked to the State Council. Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng chairs the meeting.
As early as 2017, the government had discussed a possible schedule for phasing out combustion cars - but at that time it had not come to a decision.
Official government documents, however, stipulate that battery-powered e-cars will account for the majority of cars sold by 2035, without setting any clear targets, according to Barbara Finamore, energy expert and author of the book Will China Save the Planet? ?) towards
China.Table
.
Public fleet vehicles such as buses, taxis and delivery vehicles are to be completely electric from 2035.
China: phase out of combustion engines makes sense in terms of industrial policy?
At first glance, there are a number of industrial policy arguments in favor of China's early phase out of combustion engines.
44 percent of the world's electric cars were produced in China in the past ten years.
The People's Republic dominates the production of e-car batteries and the supply chains for important battery raw materials.
The company's own auto industry is more competitive in the NEV area than in the manufacture of combustion engines.
With an end to the combustion engine, the People's Republic of Western competitors, who are still selling a large number of them in China, would cut off access to one of their most important markets - or force them to only offer e-cars.
But that would also affect the domestic joint venture partners of Western car manufacturers and destroy jobs in China.
When it comes to the infrastructure for electric cars, China is also very well positioned in an international comparison.
The People's Republic has set up two out of three charging points built worldwide in recent years.
In China, the equivalent of six cars share one charging point, while in Germany there are currently 17 cars per public charging point.
China: Risks of a quick exit from the traditional combustion engine
But numerous and stronger arguments speak against China's quick exit from combustion engines. Finamore said China's current economic concerns are grave. She therefore doubts that "the Chinese leadership would be willing to take the economic risk of stopping the sale of cars with internal combustion engines as soon as possible." The auto industry is much too important an economic factor. Therefore, the government will hardly take any risks.
When it comes to charging points for e-cars, the principle of “quantity instead of quality” applies in China. In rural areas in particular, some charging points are often defective or difficult to use. Finamore says: "E-cars will in any case be difficult to establish outside of the big cities." She writes that the government must "provide strong support and further expand the country's public charging network."
Ilaria Mazzocco, China energy expert from the US Center for Strategic & International Studies, considers an exit from combustion engines to be unlikely. China is the largest car market in the world, so an exit would not be easy to achieve. Mazzocco also emphasizes: "In China there are many poorer rural regions with limited NEV penetration, which makes an exit a great challenge." Richer provinces and especially the booming cities could take measures such as a ban on combustion engines to decarbonise the transport sector However, consider so Mazzocco told the China.Table.
The exit from the internal combustion engine is also currently being discussed in the EU *.
In July of this year, the EU Commission * proposed reducing CO2 emissions from new vehicles by 100 percent by 2035.
De facto that would be an exit from the internal combustion engine from 2035. An exit from combustion engines in China would therefore no longer be an advantage in terms of industrial policy, since the international car companies would have to adapt anyway.
China is considering new measures to reduce emissions
To curb the increase in CO2 emissions in the transport sector, China is considering other instruments. At ministry level there is discussion about including the transport sector in trading in CO2 certificates. The news
agency Reuters
speculates that this could also replace the “Green Car Credit System”. Under this scheme, automakers are currently receiving credits for the sale of electric vehicles or fuel-efficient vehicles - which they can use to offset fines for their more carbon-intensive models. The credit system will be in effect until at least 2023.
In recent years, China had also tightened the emission standards for combustion engines.
From 2025, the average fleet consumption must be four liters per 100 kilometers.
By 2020, the target for an average of new cars from one provider was five liters per 100 kilometers.
China's e-car manufacturers would have benefited greatly from these measures, said Mazzocco.
"From a purely industrial-political point of view, it is unclear whether a ban on the sale of combustion engines is even necessary."
China: Electric cars are not climate-friendly in the short term because of coal-fired electricity
In addition, there would be little gain in terms of climate policy if China soon banned internal combustion engines. China's transport sector is very energy-hungry. It is already responsible for ten percent of the country's CO2 emissions and is the second largest energy consumer behind industry. Emissions from the transport sector rose by 23 percent between 2013 and 2018. Internal combustion cars account for the largest share of CO2 emissions in the transport sector. A switch to e-cars will be all the more urgent if China wants to achieve its climate targets.
But there is a hurdle in the way of emission-free transport: China's dependence on coal. The most climate-damaging of all energy sources still accounts for almost two thirds of the Chinese electricity mix *. In very simplified terms, this means that two out of three kilometers that an electric car currently drives in China causes CO2 emissions. Even if China succeeded in charging the growing fleet of e-cars exclusively with renewable energies, the climate targets would not be served if this meant that other sectors would consume fossil fuels for longer because not enough electricity is being generated from renewable energies. This shows the immense challenges China is facing in developing renewable energies. An exit from combustion engines would have to be accompanied by far-reaching measures in order not to be just symbolic politics when it comes to the climate.
From Nico Beckert
Nico Beckert
has been editor for the
Table.Media Professional Briefings
since January 2021
.
His main topics are German-Chinese relations, economics and finance, the New Silk Road and Chinese climate policy.
Beckert previously wrote as a freelance author for
Tagesspiegel
and
Friday.
This article appeared on October 11, 2021 in the China.Table Professional Briefing newsletter - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals. * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA. * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA