The Fort Worth Press - China backpedals on climate promises as economy slows

USD -
AED 3.67298
AFN 73.973024
ALL 94.435692
AMD 398.985484
ANG 1.792566
AOA 914.497529
ARS 1046.276101
AUD 1.593875
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.689851
BAM 1.878924
BBD 2.008339
BDT 121.095382
BGN 1.877865
BHD 0.376917
BIF 2942.798136
BMD 1
BND 1.352769
BOB 6.872964
BRL 6.036199
BSD 0.994596
BTN 86.08704
BWP 13.843656
BYN 3.255036
BYR 19600
BZD 1.997963
CAD 1.43289
CDF 2835.000125
CHF 0.905785
CLF 0.036378
CLP 1003.779945
CNY 7.27145
CNH 7.277815
COP 4310.45
CRC 499.654152
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 105.933384
CZK 24.128009
DJF 177.12131
DKK 7.15836
DOP 61.022941
DZD 134.691133
EGP 50.314602
ERN 15
ETB 124.70473
EUR 0.959385
FJD 2.31275
FKP 0.823587
GBP 0.810075
GEL 2.850194
GGP 0.823587
GHS 15.0503
GIP 0.823587
GMD 72.498351
GNF 8597.089477
GTQ 7.676123
GYD 208.10076
HKD 7.788555
HNL 25.317866
HRK 7.379548
HTG 129.838315
HUF 395.805032
IDR 16202.6
ILS 3.543915
IMP 0.823587
INR 86.420499
IQD 1303.007013
IRR 42087.505244
ISK 139.960209
JEP 0.823587
JMD 156.766675
JOD 0.709301
JPY 155.791505
KES 129.25021
KGS 87.449873
KHR 4007.070736
KMF 479.150008
KPW 900.000111
KRW 1434.634977
KWD 0.30822
KYD 0.828898
KZT 521.173984
LAK 21711.01931
LBP 89070.620899
LKR 295.80171
LRD 195.945816
LSL 18.54339
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.898528
MAD 9.985109
MDL 18.629853
MGA 4662.266671
MKD 59.037174
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3398.000107
MOP 7.977616
MRU 39.407447
MUR 46.470116
MVR 15.405041
MWK 1724.740852
MXN 20.580298
MYR 4.440502
MZN 63.89843
NAD 18.543568
NGN 1550.389965
NIO 36.597666
NOK 11.27638
NPR 137.736148
NZD 1.76347
OMR 0.384936
PAB 0.99463
PEN 3.715577
PGK 4.050263
PHP 58.402011
PKR 277.304788
PLN 4.077145
PYG 7884.333646
QAR 3.625935
RON 4.773898
RSD 112.351044
RUB 98.518888
RWF 1394.452931
SAR 3.751679
SBD 8.468008
SCR 14.615119
SDG 600.999994
SEK 10.983501
SGD 1.353365
SHP 0.823587
SLE 22.74977
SLL 20969.49992
SOS 568.444918
SRD 35.105012
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.703045
SYP 13001.999985
SZL 18.539369
THB 33.819867
TJS 10.841772
TMT 3.5
TND 3.180067
TOP 2.342105
TRY 35.653401
TTD 6.754731
TWD 32.740503
TZS 2507.501708
UAH 41.911885
UGX 3675.20996
UYU 43.731386
UZS 12914.909356
VES 55.230623
VND 25175
VUV 118.722008
WST 2.800827
XAF 630.17648
XAG 0.032389
XAU 0.000363
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.766349
XOF 630.167399
XPF 114.575027
YER 248.999928
ZAR 18.49189
ZMK 9001.207555
ZMW 27.675784
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSC

    0.3000

    23.55

    +1.27%

  • CMSD

    0.4100

    24

    +1.71%

  • GSK

    0.3500

    33.78

    +1.04%

  • SCS

    0.1000

    11.8

    +0.85%

  • RIO

    0.6300

    61.73

    +1.02%

  • BTI

    0.4300

    36.73

    +1.17%

  • RBGPF

    0.1600

    62.36

    +0.26%

  • BP

    -0.1700

    31.52

    -0.54%

  • AZN

    1.3600

    67.96

    +2%

  • NGG

    2.0600

    61.59

    +3.34%

  • BCC

    1.1500

    129.12

    +0.89%

  • RYCEF

    0.0300

    7.3

    +0.41%

  • JRI

    0.1900

    12.57

    +1.51%

  • RELX

    1.3800

    49.55

    +2.79%

  • VOD

    0.0700

    8.55

    +0.82%

  • BCE

    0.2400

    23.39

    +1.03%

China backpedals on climate promises as economy slows
China backpedals on climate promises as economy slows

China backpedals on climate promises as economy slows

When China's President Xi Jinping issued his traditional Lunar New Year wishes from the country's coal heartland in January, the subtext was clear: Beijing is not ready to kick its coal addiction, despite promises to slash emissions.

Text size:

The ink had barely dried on the hard-fought deal struck at last year's United Nations climate conference in Glasgow when Beijing's backslide on pledges began.

The country's central economic planner has watered down a roadmap to slash emissions, greenlighted giant coal-fired power plants, and told mines to produce "as much coal as possible" after power shortages paralysed swathes of the economy last year.

Environmentalists are concerned this would mean China would continue to pollute beyond the 2030 deadline by which it has promised to have reached peak emissions.

Xi's trip to mining towns in Shanxi –- China's biggest coal producing province -- saw him making crispy noodle snacks with families "recently lifted out of poverty".

"We are not pursuing carbon neutrality because others are forcing us, it's something we must do. But it can't be rushed," he said later, while inspecting a thermal power plant.

"We can't delay action, but we must find the right rhythm."

Days earlier, Xi told Communist Party officials in Beijing that low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of "normal life" -- a major change in rhetoric from his 2020 announcement at a UN assembly that China would be carbon neutral by 2060.

- Dependent on coal -

The Glasgow pact encourages countries to slash their emissions targets, with the aim of limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) ideally to 1.5 degrees.

Experts have warned that global emissions must be halved within a decade to have a chance of achieving that goal.

A report issued by the UN's climate science advisors on Monday said that warming beyond 1.5C would wreak permanent damage to the planet and that nearly half the world's population is already "highly vulnerable" to the accelerating impacts of climate change.

"The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in response to this most compelling scientific overview of climate change impacts to date.

China generates an estimated 29 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions -- double the US share and three times that of the European Union.

Environmentalists had hoped that post-Glasgow, Beijing might announce a maximum carbon cap for the whole country but Li Shuo, a campaigner for Greenpeace China, told AFP that is now "off the table".

Policymakers in Beijing have long walked a tightrope balancing climate objectives with domestic growth.

Beijing has pledged to curb coal consumption after 2025 -- but last year, half of China's economy was fuelled by it.

Now as growth slows, authorities are resorting to an old formula of propping up smokestack industries to juice the economy.

In late 2021 China began construction on 33 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants -- the most since 2016 -- that will emit as much carbon dioxide annually as Florida, according to data from Global Energy Monitor.

Even more new plants are being built in the first few months of 2022 as well, all of which can operate for 40 years on average.

- 'Ambition in jeopardy' -

During the Glasgow talks the Chinese delegation -- like many others -- promised a detailed roadmap to peak emissions for different industries and regions over the next decade.

Existing guidelines issued just before the talks only include vague targets for increasing energy efficiency and say renewables will supply a quarter of China's electricity by 2030.

They have not yet been updated.

This "suggests that the politics are tough, ambition is in jeopardy, and the regulators are reserving as much wiggle room (to pollute) as possible for the next few years," Greenpeace's Li said.

Earlier last month, Beijing pushed back the deadline for slashing emissions from the steel sector -- China's biggest carbon emitter -- five years to 2030.

"Steel and cement need to peak earlier than the country as a whole to ensure China's targets are on track," said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Meanwhile, China's investments in overseas oil and gas projects tripled to $10.9 billion last year, according to a Fudan University report in January.

- Renewable bottlenecks -

Another of China's key pledges -- to increase wind and solar capacity to three times the current level over the next decade -- has been blown off-course as well by supply chain disruptions and soaring raw material costs.

The price of polysilicon, used to make solar panels, jumped 174 percent in December from the previous year.

Analysts fear more fossil fuels will be burnt to meet China's growing energy needs as the rollout of renewables slows.

"The political signals are much more cautious (than before), saying the transition will be slow, and coal would remain a mainstay of China's energy supply for a long time," said Myllyvirta.

M.Cunningham--TFWP