China’s emissions peak in sharper focus as solar and electric cars boom

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Experts are split on whether China’s carbon dioxide emissions will have peaked by next year, even as cautious optimism builds about Beijing’s environmental progress.

A survey of 33 domestic and 11 international experts found 44 per cent expected the emissions from the world’s biggest polluter had either peaked already or will peak by 2025, more than double the 21 per cent in 2023 who responded positively, and up from just 15 per cent in 2022.

The report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea) reflects just how far China’s boom in green energy and electric vehicles this year has exceeded expectations, even after “explosive” growth in 2023. More than half of new cars sold were electric for three months in a row in 2024. At the same time, the heavily polluting building industry has gone into decline.

Since February this year, a slight decline in emissions had relied partly on the recovery of hydropower generation following droughts, the report said, noting that emissions had “stabilised” but were not in structural decline.

The focus on China’s decarbonisation comes in the context of the second Donald Trump presidency. The president-elect has described global warming as a hoax and his campaign team has said he would again withdraw the US from the 2015 Paris Agreement, as he did in 2017.

At the UN climate summit in Baku, which closed last week, China’s delegation led by special envoy for climate Liu Zhenmin was courted by countries seeking support for climate action in the absence of any progress expected under Trump.

Liu Zhenmin, China climate envoy, at the COP29 UN climate summit, where the delegation was courted by other nations © AP

At a COP29 side event led by the outgoing Democratic representatives of the US delegation and China to mark a methane-tracking agreement struck under Joe Biden’s White House, Liu received resounding applause.

Liu told the assembled dignitaries that climate change was “now a pressing global challenge that demands a collective response from the international community.”

Despite the positive steps by China, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Crea, said more clarity was needed from Beijing on China’s emissions and economic path, noting the possibility of emissions increases until 2030 as its economy once again picked up pace, and slow reductions after that.

“This scenario would make meeting global climate targets all but impossible,” Myllyvirta said. China would need to either speed up its renewable energy rollout even further or guide economic development in a less carbon-intensive direction.

Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2020 set dual targets for China: to hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality, or net zero, by 2060.

Under the Paris Agreement, China is expected to set out a new emissions trajectory for 2030 to 2035 by February, along with the other nearly 200 signatories to the global accord.

This is viewed as important by climate change experts in demonstrating Beijing’s level of ambition beyond Xi’s first target.

While China’s CO₂ emissions for 2024 are expected to be flat or only slightly higher, the Crea report also highlights that the country is expected to miss its carbon intensity goal of an 18 per cent reduction from 2020 to 2025.

Beijing had pledged to lower its carbon intensity — a measure of carbon per unit of GDP — from 2005 levels by more than 65 per cent in 2030.

But this has become problematic for the world’s second-biggest economy as growth has increasingly been driven by high-tech manufacturing, rather than household consumption and services, which are less energy intensive.

Myllyvirta said that even if this year’s emissions were flat and the GDP grew by 5 per cent — in line with Beijing’s target — China would still need an “unprecedented” 9.7 per cent cut in emissions in 2025 to meet its goal.

“Right now the most important thing would be for the country to make a firm commitment to get back on track to the 2030 carbon intensity target,” he said.