China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024 in the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from its “zero-Covid” lockdowns in December 2022.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows China remains on track for a decline in annual emissions this year.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
China’s energy demand grew by 4.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024. This is slower than the growth seen in 2023 and in the first quarter of this year, but is still much higher than the pre-Covid trend.
CO2 emissions from energy use and cement production fell by 1% in the second quarter. When combined with a sharp 6.5% increase in January-February and a monthly decline in March, there was a 1.3% rise in CO2 emissions across the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2023.
Electricity generation from wind and solar grew by 171 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of the year, more than the total power output of the UK in the same period of 2023.
China’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – only improved by 5.5%, well short of the 7% needed to meet the country’s intensity target for 2025.
This was despite a one-off boost from China’s hydropower fleet recovering from drought.
Compared with a year earlier, the increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on China’s roads cut demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
Manufacturing solar panels, EVs and batteries was only responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024.
The fact that this sounds impossible gives you a hint about the state that the world is in right now. Hopefully China’s efforts are for naught.
The impressive part imo is not the decline itself, it’s the fact that they are managing to do this while also maintaining impressive economic growth.
Usually emissions and growth are strongly correlated and it’s natural to see a reduction when your economy is shrinking as happened during Covid. But as these graphs show, China has been working very hard to decouple these two things, to stabilize or even lower emissions while also continuing to develop their country, steadily increasing the prosperity of their people.
Looks like you haven’t watched the news lately. China’s economy is about to collapse because they were only able to grow by 6%.
Ah yes. Of course. I must have missed the imminent collapse of China because i’m so busy enjoying the completely healthy and perfect German economy right now.
It is also very impressive that their increase in green energy generation this month now covers the average monthly increase in total generation for the first time, which means we have serious hope for China’s emissions to peak in the coming months
I’m 99 percent sure that almost directly because of China, that the world will be saved from the absolute worst of the worst of climate change/pollution/anthropogenic mass extinction.
Not to say that it’s going to be easy, or that countless wildlife and humans won’t suffer and die, but that I’m pretty sure things will eventually be okay in the long run, while we can focus on dismantling capitalism.
I’ve also read that even many officials from the Global North begrudgingly admit that if it wasn’t for China and it’s policies, humanity would be facing the absolute worst projected pathways of global warming, which are still possible but less likely.
And despise the comparatively token efforts at mitigating climate change/pollution of the global north, another climate website used data to point out that there is now more than enough forward momentum that governments around the world are now devoting enough resources/money to begin chipping away at harmful emissions, that the world is now on a pathway to start cutting emissions every year from now on and add more and more renewable green energy power sources, that the worst might possibly be behind us.
But I wouldn’t let my guard down.