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
Electric Vehicles

The EV Tax Credit Has a Looming Paperwork Crisis

Dozens of people are reporting problems claiming the subsidy — and it’s not even Trump’s fault.

A car dealership.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Eric Walker, of Zanesville, Ohio, bought a Ford F-150 Lightning in March of last year. Ironically, Walker designs and manufactures bearings for internal combustion engines for a living. But he drives 70 miles to and from his job, and he was thrilled not to have to pay for gas anymore. “I love it so much. I honestly don’t think I could ever go back to a non-EV,” he told me. “It’s just more fun, more punchy.”

But although he’s saving on gas, Walker recently learned he’d made a major, expensive mistake at the dealership when he bought the truck. The F-150 Lightning qualified for a federal tax credit of $7,500 in 2024. Walker was income-eligible and planned to claim it when he filed his taxes. But his dealership never reported the sale to the Internal Revenue Service, and at the time, Walker had no idea this was required. When he went to submit his tax return recently, it was rejected. Now, it may be too late.

Keep reading...Show less
Electric Vehicles

The Tide Is Turning Against Giant EVs

For now, at least, the math simply doesn’t work. Enter the EREV.

A Ford F-150 Lightning.
Heatmap Illustration/Ford, Getty Images

American EVs are caught in a size conundrum.

Over the past three decades, U.S. drivers decided they want tall, roomy crossovers and pickup trucks rather than coupes and sedans. These popular big vehicles looked like the obvious place to electrify as the car companies made their uneasy first moves away from combustion. But hefty vehicles and batteries don’t mix: It takes much, much larger batteries to push long, heavy, aerodynamically unfriendly SUVs and trucks down the road, which can make the prices of the EV versions spiral out of control.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Climate

AM Briefing: What Deadline?

On climate plans, Super Bowl ads, and hydrogen planes

It’s NDC Deadline Day. Almost Nobody Is Prepared.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: People in Sydney, Australia, were told to stay inside after an intense rainstorm caused major flooding • Temperatures today will be between 25 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit below average across the northern Rockies and High Plains • It’s drizzly in Paris, where world leaders are gathering to discuss artificial intelligence policy.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Most countries miss deadline to submit new climate plans

Well, today was supposed to be the deadline for new and improved climate plans to be submitted by countries committed to the Paris Agreement. These plans – known as nationally determined contributions – outline emissions targets through 2030 and explain how countries plan to reach those targets. Everyone has known about the looming deadline for two years, yet Carbon Briefreports that just 10 of the 195 members of the Paris Agreement have submitted their NDCs. “Countries missing the deadline represent 83% of global emissions and nearly 80% of the world’s economy,” according to Carbon Brief. Last week UN climate chief Simon Stiell struck a lenient tone, saying the plans need to be in by September “at the latest,” which would be ahead of COP30 in November. The U.S. submitted its new NDC well ahead of the deadline, but this was before President Trump took office, and has more or less been disregarded.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow