Will China’s changing energy and environmental policies save the planet?
- In her new book, Barbara Finamore takes an optimistic view of China’s energy transition and its potential for the world
- However, she downplays the environmental costs of the Belt and Road Initiative and the role of ordinary citizens in change
Will China Save the Planet?, by Barbara Finamore. Published by Polity
As oceans warm and ice caps melt, it is hard to be optimistic about slowing, let alone stopping, global warming. Barbara Finamore nonetheless finds reason for optimism in her authoritative look at China’s unfolding energy transition.
China burns half the world’s coal. It is the world’s largest carbon emitter, overtaking the US despite a smaller economy. China is an energy hog, partly because of its continuing reliance on heavy industry and party because low prices encourage waste. So it is possible for China to do much better just by improving efficiency – relatively low-hanging fruit.
The beginning of a remarkable change in China’s energy and environmental policy has been evident for five years. Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama signed a landmark climate partnership in 2014. China stepped out of the shadows to take a leadership role at the 2015 Paris climate talks that led to a path-breaking global agreement.
China’s internal plans call for increased renewable energy, part of a pledge to source 20 per cent of energy from non-fossil sources by 2030. China has said that carbon emissions will peak around 2030, hopefully earlier, and that carbon intensity – carbon emissions divided by GDP – will be reduced by 60 per cent to 65 per cent below 2005 levels by that date.
Already, coal use seems to have levelled off. Coal is the largest source of air pollution in China, killing more than 700,000 people prematurely each year. China’s coal burning is the world’s largest source of CO2 emissions. So China has plenty of reason to want to clean up: both to stop killing its own people with air pollution and to forestall the worst effects of the increasingly severe floods and droughts that come with climate change