China Becoming a Climate Change Leader
scientists there have also said weather patterns from climate change are exacerbating the smog.
“China is cutting back on coal because of its lethal costs to human health as well as its high carbon emissions, and plans to transition to the energy sources of tomorrow, rather than yesterday,” said Isabel Hilton, founder of Chinadialogue, a prominent website that reports on environmental issues and policy. “President Trump seems intent on reviving a 19th- century energy source rather than pursuing the promise of the 21st century.”
Mr. Trump’s pro- coal talk might mean that pro- coal interests in China will try harder to push back against coal limits. But in recent years, coal consumption in China has declined slightly, surprising many analysts and researchers.
China’s economic slowdown — from decades of double- digit annual growth to 6.7 percent last year — has been a major factor. Analysts say there appeared to be an increase in coal use during part of 2016 because of stimulus policies, but statistics released in February indicate that overall coal consumption declined last year compared with 2015.
Given such numbers, researchers say China may reach a carbon emissions peak in 2025 — five years ahead of its stated goal of 2030.
China has also made pledges on the percentage of total energy that will be generated by non-fossil-fuel sources, which include hydropower, nuclear power, wind and solar. Mr. Xi has said that by 2030, 20 percent of China’s energy will come from such sources. Chinese officials are now grappling with the complex problem of getting energy generated by wind and solar sources onto the grid.
“Trump’s rejection of regulatory action on climate change creates a vacuum in global climate leadership that China can now seize,” said Alex L. Wang, a China environmental expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.
China has said that by the end of the year it will put in place a national market for greenhouse gas quotas, commonly known as cap-and-trade. It has experimented with seven such regional markets, and there have been problems, but Beijing is determined to set up a national program to impose a cost on companies that generate large amounts of carbon dioxide.
A report released in January by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, based in Ohio, said China was the world leader in domestic investment in renewable energy and associated low- emissions- energy sectors, with $103 billion invested in 2015. And China is going global with that strategy — last year, it invested $32 billion in large overseas deals involving renewable energy.
Ms. Hilton said, “While Trump’s administration seems to believe that action on climate change is a waste of money and threatens jobs in the U. S., China sees investment in climate-related action as essential to secure a safe and prosperous future for Chinese citizens, as well as a strategic opportunity to develop and supply the technologies of the future.”