As China makes strides on climate change, new potent emissions emerge

Perfluorocarbons, which have global warming potential 'thousands of times that of CO2', rise even as Beijing pours money into renewables

Smoke rises from a coal-fired power plant on the Yangtze river in Nantong in eastern China's Jiangsu province. AP

China is the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter, accounting for 31 per cent of the amount generated globally last year.

The country's CO2 emissions from energy and cement production rose about 4 per cent in 2023, helping total worldwide emissions increase by 1.1 per cent to a high of 36.8 billion tonnes of CO2, the Global Carbon Budget initiative reported.

So steps taken by China, which until recently was the world’s most populous nation, are key to long-term efforts to combat climate change.

When it comes to containing emission levels, as China goes, so goes the world.

"What China’s emissions do is responsible for global emissions," said Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

"When China peaks in emissions, that completely influences the peak of global emissions, as it is the highest-emitting country."

Mr Minns said "absolutely much more" needs to be done to limit global emissions if the world is to meet its climate targets and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Have China’s CO2 emissions already peaked?

The signs so far are that China’s CO2 emissions this year could be lower than those of 2023, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Numerous factors are at play, notably China’s investments in renewable energy technology such as solar and wind, which have caused the share of China’s energy-generating capacity from fossil fuels to fall.

Analysis published by Carbon Brief indicated that coal generated a record low of 53 per cent of China’s electricity in May, down seven percentage points on a year earlier. The same month, clean energy generated 44 per cent of China’s electricity, the highest-ever figure.

"It's highly likely that China's emissions will fall this year because of the huge amount of clean-energy capacity that has been installed last year and this year," Mr Myllyvirta said.

"We'll continue to see big increases in power generation from clean sources, which will displace the growth in coal-fired power generation.

"There's also the ongoing fall in consumption of oil products aided by the shift to electric vehicles, and the construction sector continues to contract, so the production of steel and cement, the two most highly emitting commodities or industrial products in China, is falling."

In March, China’s monthly year-on-year CO2 emissions fell for the first time since an increase lasting more than a year began after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

Just as China’s emissions from power generation and industry may have peaked last year, so may those of the world as a whole.

Will China’s CO2 drop continue?

When it comes to China’s carbon emissions, not all forces are pushing in the same direction, Mr Myllyvirta indicated.

Local governments and many state-owned enterprises in the country were, he said, "very enthusiastically and aggressively" pursuing clean energy projects, even if some regulators were less ambitious.

China’s State Council, the country’s key executive body, is giving "renewed attention" to reducing CO2 emissions, so current trends are likely to continue for at least the next couple of years.

One caveat relates to China’s heavy investment in coal-fired power stations.

The Global Energy Monitor reported in April that China was responsible for 95 per cent of new coal power construction last year, having begun work on 70 gigawatts of capacity.

"China's been building a lot of coal-fired power plants as a back up ... to make sure there's enough generating capacity at times when demand is peaking and output from wind and solar is slow," Mr Myllyvirta said.

"The owners of those power plants of course have an interest in preserving the role of coal in the power system and that's likely to result in pushback against the clean energy growth."

Another key issue is how China’s economy evolves. The country’s economic growth has involved the expansion of energy-intensive industries, causing total energy consumption to increase significantly.

If the economy pivots towards "higher value-added sectors and services" and household consumption, Mr Myllyvirta said, growth in energy consumption may moderate, making it easier to meet increases in demand with clean energy.

Could other greenhouse gases derail China's progress?

Recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research sparked headlines by indicating that China was releasing larger quantities of gases much more powerful than CO2 at causing climate change.

In two studies, scientists found big increases in the release during the 2010s of perfluorocarbons, which have global warming potential that, MIT stated, is "thousands of times that of CO2".

They are also very persistent, remaining in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years, unlike methane, for example, which lasts only about 10 years.

Emissions of tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane, which are generated during aluminium smelting, jumped 78 per cent, while those of perfluorocyclobutane, created as a by-product in factories that generate a chemical used in non-stick cookware coatings, went up by 70 per cent.

China accounted for the majority of the global increase in the release of these gases, according to MIT.

Mr Myllyvirta said it was "really important" for China to include gases other than CO2 in its future climate targets.

Beijing should also, he said, confirm that the country’s commitment to reach net zero by 2060 covers all greenhouse gases, not only CO2.

"There’s a lot of potential for reducing these emissions in the short term. China can make a lot more progress over the next decade if all of these different gases are covered," Mr Myllyvirta said.

Nonetheless, he said the global warming effect of tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane, while "significant", was relatively modest when compared to China’s other emissions.

"The emissions of those two gases are about 0.5 per cent of China's total," he said.

Even if China’s and the world’s emissions from energy generation and industry have peaked, the planet remains far off achieving a 45 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, said to be needed if global temperature increases are to be kept within 1.5°C of pre-industrial levels.

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