Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Podcast

Have China’s Emissions Already Peaked?

Rob and Jesse talk all things solar, steel, and cement with CREA’s Lauri Myllyvirta.

Solar panels in China.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

China’s greenhouse gas emissions were essentially flat this year — or they recorded a tiny increase, according to a recent report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, or CREA. A third of experts surveyed by the report believe that its coal emissions have peaked. Has the world’s No. 1 emitter of carbon pollution now turned a corner on climate change?

Lauri Myllyvirta is the co-founder and lead analyst at CREA, an independent research organization focused on air pollution and headquartered in Finland. Myllyvirta has worked on climate policy, pollution, and energy issues in Asia for the past decade, and he lived in Beijing from 2015 to 2019.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with Lauri about whether China’s emissions have peaked, why the country is still building so much coal power (along with gobs of solar and wind), and the energy-intensive shift that its economy has taken in the past five years. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Jesse Jenkins: So there’s sort of two key variables here. And we hit both those: the growth rate in new clean energy supplies, particularly in the electricity sector, and then the pace of demand growth. And this has been the story globally, the argument that we actually haven’t really seen any energy transition, only energy addition, right? We’re adding enough new clean energy, maybe, to meet growth, but not actually to drive down emissions, which would require us to exceed the growth rate and demand, right? So we can eat into the market share of existing fossil generation.

And that’s sort of the fundamental equation in China as well, right? Is if demand is growing rapidly, more rapidly than, clean electricity additions, emissions go up. And if the opposite is true, emissions go down. There’s also, it seems like, some evidence that the economy itself is slowing, or at least going through a bit of a structural change, right? So still growing, but not growing, perhaps, at the target rates that government has set. I think the expectations for this year, if I’m not mistaken, are under 5% growth, maybe 4.5% to 4.7% — so, you know, in U.S. terms, that’s still quite rapid, but in Chinese terms, a bit slower than the goal. And part of that is a slowdown in the construction industry — is that right? — which is another major driver of emissions due to cement consumption and steel consumption.

Lauri Myllyvirta: Yeah, so I’m a bit allergic to talking about the economy as a whole — you know, “the economy” is slowing down, or “the economy” is speeding up. Because the economy is, of course, made up of a lot of different sectors, and in order to understand energy demand, those sectors are not created equal. So if you have a 5% GDP growth that comes from service industries, from consumer-facing industries, that can mean much less than 5% growth in energy demand. And that’s what China was seeing until the Covid period.

China was actually making a pretty big deal out of improving the energy, or reducing the energy-intensity of the economy. And that’s what stopped in 2020. So since 2020, there has been essentially no reduction in the energy intensity, energy consumption, and GDP has grown at the same rate. And when you consider the fact that there is a lot of technical improvement still going on, different processes are getting more energy efficient, then that means that the structure of the economy has, in fact, gotten more energy-intensive. And that’s the key concern. The less than 5% growth now is driving faster growth in total energy demand than the 6%, even 7% growth was during the previous decade.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Intersolar & Energy Storage North America is the premier U.S.-based conference and trade show focused on solar, energy storage, and EV charging infrastructure. To learn more, visit intersolar.us.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Climate 101

Welcome to Climate 101

Your guide to the key technologies of the energy transition.

Welcome to Climate 101
Heatmap illustration/Getty images

Here at Heatmap, we write a lot about decarbonization — that is, the process of transitioning the global economy away from fossil fuels and toward long-term sustainable technologies for generating energy. What we don’t usually write about is what those technologies actually do. Sure, solar panels convert energy from the sun into electricity — but how, exactly? Why do wind turbines have to be that tall? What’s the difference between carbon capture, carbon offsets, and carbon removal, and why does it matter?

So today, we’re bringing you Climate 101, a primer on some of the key technologies of the energy transition. In this series, we’ll cover everything from what makes silicon a perfect material for solar panels (and computer chips), to what’s going on inside a lithium-ion battery, to the difference between advanced and enhanced geothermal.

There’s something here for everyone, whether you’re already an industry expert or merely climate curious. For instance, did you know that contemporary 17th century readers might have understood Don Quixote’s famous “tilting at windmills” to be an expression of NIMYBism? I sure didn’t! But I do now that I’ve read Jeva Lange’s 101 guide to wind energy.

That said, I’d like to extend an especial welcome to those who’ve come here feeling lost in the climate conversation and looking for a way to make sense of it. All of us at Heatmap have been there at some point or another, and we know how confusing — even scary — it can be. The constant drumbeat of news about heatwaves and floods and net-zero this and parts per million that is a lot to take in. We hope this information will help you start to see the bigger picture — because the sooner you do, the sooner you can join the transition, yourself.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Climate 101

What Goes on Inside a Solar Panel?

The basics on the world’s fastest-growing source of renewable energy.

What Goes on Inside a Solar Panel?
Heatmap illustration/Getty Images

Solar power is already the backbone of the energy transition. But while the basic technology has been around for decades, in more recent years, installations have proceeded at a record pace. In the United States, solar capacity has grown at an average annual rate of 28% over the past decade. Over a longer timeline, the growth is even more extraordinary — from an stalled capacity base of under 1 gigawatt with virtually no utility-scale solar in 2010, to over 60 gigawatts of utility-scale solar in 2020, and almost 175 gigawatts today. Solar is the fastest-growing source of renewable energy in both the U.S. and the world.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Climate 101

The Ins and Outs of Wind Energy

The country’s largest source of renewable energy has a long history.

The Ins and Outs of Wind Energy
Heatmap illustration/Getty Images

Was Don Quixote a NIMBY?

Keep reading...Show less
Green