As of: March 27, 2024, 7:40 p.m
By: Christiane Kühl
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China is caught between dirty coal-fired power and clean renewables: the conflict of objectives between the two sectors is coming to a head, with consequences for the world.
© M. Litzka/Midjourney (AI generated)
China is rapidly driving forward the green transition - and at the same time burning mountains of coal.
The conflict of interests surrounding the energy transition is also raging in the People's Republic.
Its outcome is crucial for all of us.
“But the Chinese...”: These are the words that begin many a speech in this country against ambitious climate protection.
As long as the number one greenhouse gas emitter does nothing, our efforts will be in vain, goes the argument.
The myth persists that China is making no effort to reduce its CO2 emissions and is simply burning mountains of coal.
Reality is more complicated.
The People's Republic does both: it has installed more renewable energy capacity than any other country in the world.
And it burns more coal than all other countries combined.
Is China now a climate savior or a climate devil?
Both, in a way.
According to a new study by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), China's emissions rose by a whopping twelve percent between 2020 and 2023 due to growing coal consumption.
It has been three years in which China, after widespread power outages in many provinces, placed the main focus on energy security - and pulled coal power, which was already on the decline, out of the sleazy corner.
In 2023, the People's Republic deviated from its own CO2 emissions targets for the first time in years - because coal consumption rose by 4.4 percent.
47 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power plants started operations in 2023, with authorities approving an average of two new coal-fired power plants per week.
After all, the share of coal in electricity generation has been falling for years, from 70 percent in 2011 to just over half today.
The utilization of existing coal-fired power plants is also falling, meaning that some of the planned plants may never be used.
According to China's plans, coal consumption should finally decline in absolute numbers from 2025 onwards.
CO2 emissions are expected to fall from 2030 and China wants to be climate neutral by 2060.
China: Lots of coal but also record expansion of renewable energies
In addition, China has increased electricity generation from renewables tenfold over the past ten years.
According to the National Energy Agency (NEA), more systems came online in 2023 than ever before: 216.9 GW of new solar capacity - more than the EU's entire installed capacity at the end of 2022 - and 75.9 GW of new wind turbines.
By 2030, China wants to generate 25 percent of its total energy consumption - not just electricity - from renewable energies.
The proportion is currently twelve to 13 percent, and slightly higher for electricity.
In the second half of 2023, stricter and more specific targets were set in a number of key environmental and energy policy areas, a new study from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) found.
Beijing is urging more haste when it comes to existing goals.
In his work report to delegates to the National People's Congress in early March, Prime Minister Li Qiang said the words "green" and "ecology" significantly more often than any of his predecessors.
According to experts, both climate and energy security are very high on the list of priorities of state and party leader Xi Jinping.
Beijing only wants to shut down the coal-fired power plants once the new system of renewable energy and electricity storage is fully functional.
“We want everything to be so competitive that the exit from fossil fuels takes place through the market.
Not through command and control,” said government advisor Pan Jiahua from the National Climate Council in a recently published interview with the
Carbon
Brief specialist service.
China's conflicts of interest over the climate are increasing
In this situation, the conflict of interests surrounding the energy transition between old and new industries will worsen in the coming years, expects Nis Grünberg, climate policy expert at the China think tank Merics in Berlin.
On the one hand, there is heavy industry fueled by fossil fuels with its state-owned companies, a mainstay in socialist systems like China's.
But “the cleantech sector – i.e. renewable energies or electric cars – has now become a very large industry, with a share of around ten percent of industrial production,” explains Grünberg in an interview with
IPPEN.MED
IA.
“This sector is a growth engine and is now systemically important – for China’s economic growth and for China as a location.” So his voice is given more weight.
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The state-owned companies in traditional industries also know that they are facing a comprehensive transformation; there are enough official announcements about this.
Nevertheless, they still invested a lot of money in fossil electricity, says Grünberg.
“The large energy companies like PetroChina or CNOOC are huge socio-economic systems with one to two million employees.” Such raw material companies are also systemically relevant – still.
The big five Chinese power producers have a dual interest in all this.
“They operate practically all coal-fired power plants and don’t want to lose their investments here,” says Grünberg.
“At the same time, they also invest in huge solar and wind farms – and are beneficiaries of subsidies and the rapid development of this sector.
These companies are doing a clear cost-benefit analysis: As soon as state subsidies for coal stop, they will change even faster.” Measures by the party leadership therefore play a central role in the pace of transformation – and whether China can become a climate savior.