Carbon dioxide emissions in China may have already peaked, according to a report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. The report casts a shadow on the country’s intended nationally determined contribution to the Paris climate agreement, committing the country to peak emissions by 2030.
“China’s international commitment to peak emissions ‘around 2030’ should be seen as a highly conservative upper limit from a government that prefers to under-promise and over-deliver,” the paper says.
Citing data from the Unites State Energy Information Agency, the researchers note that “there was no growth in coal consumption when measured on an energy content basis and, when measured in terms of physical tonnage, coal consumption fell by 2 [percent].”
According to their analysis, “the trajectory of China’s CO2 emissions over the next decade is likely to be radically different from that during 2000–2013. It is quite possible that emissions will fall modestly from now on, implying that 2014 was the peak. If emissions do grow above 2014 levels … that growth trajectory is likely to be relatively flat, and a peak would still be highly likely by 2025. More likely it will occur at some point between 2014 and 2025, depending on how the above factors play out.”
