Dot Earth Blog: A Fresh Look at China's Long March on Energy and CO2

The Rhodium Group consulting firm has released a ?report card? on China?s energy trends and policies that describes the country?s intensifying efforts to increase the proportion of renewable sources like wind and hydroelectric dams and boost the efficiency of coal use (essentially the metric called ?greenhouse gas intensity? by President George W. Bush). The blunting upward trajectory in the graph above reflects progress, but a long path ahead.

The report is directly related to yesterday?s post laying out the view of the country?s leadership, as articulated by climate strategist Zou Ji, on the need to balance China?s response to global warming with its need to sustain economic advancement. The author of the report card, Trevor Houser, a former senior State Department adviser on international energy issues, told me he sees reasonable alignment between China?s goals for the economy and emissions:

Zou Ji mentions the challenges an industrializing economy faces in reducing emissions. Yet investment and industrial production are running out of steam as an engine of Chinese economic growth. The economic rebalancing Beijing is trying to engineer is capable by itself of achieving the country?s energy-intensity and carbon-intensity reducing goals.

Here are the main points from his report:

China?s 12th Five Year Plan includes a bevy of energy targets Beijing hopes to achieve between 2011 and 2015. Late last week the country?s National Bureau of Statistics released full-year energy supply and demand data for 2012, providing an early indicator on how China is doing two years into the plan. We?ve combed through the numbers, done the math, and offer a report card on Beijing?s progress to date in achieving its big three energy ambitions.

Target 1: Reduce the Energy-Intensity of the Economy by 16%: A slow-down in overall economic growth and, more importantly, a slow-down in energy-intensive industrial production, took its toll on energy demand in China in 2012. Coal and power consumption grew by only 2.5% and 5.5% respectively, down from 9.7% and 11.9% in 2011. That dragged overall energy demand growth down to 3.9% ? the lowest level China?s seen in more than a decade. While bad news for bulk commodity markets, it?s good news for Chinese energy policymakers as the country is getting back on track after a year in which energy-intensity only declined by 1.9%.

Target 2: Increase Non-Fossil Energy to 11.4% of Total Supply: Though overall power demand growth fell in 2012, the share of Chinese electricity generated from renewables increased from 15.7% to 19.4% thanks to a recovery in hydro and increased wind generation. Renewable and nuclear power combined accounted for 94% of all electricity generation growth in China in 2012. And preliminary estimates suggest the share of total energy supply from non-fossil sources increase from 8% to 9.9%. That puts Beijing in striking range of achieving its 11.4% target by 2015, though the big gains in 2012 will be tough to replicate this year.

Target 3: Cut the Carbon-Intensity of GDP by 17%: Slower energy demand growth combined with increased non-fossil energy supply curbed Chinese emissions growth in 2012. We estimate CO2 emissions rose by 3.2%, down from 9.3% year-on-year growth in 2011. That means the carbon-intensity of the Chinese economy declined by 4.3% ? a welcome improvement over 2011 when it remained unchanged. But the carbon-intensity of Chinese GDP will need to fall even faster ? by 4.6% a year between now and 2015 ? to meet Beijing?s 12th Five Year Plan commitment.

Read the rest here.

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/a-fresh-look-at-chinas-long-march-on-energy-and-emissions/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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