For years, the government of China was focused on creating industries
that would provide employment for millions of people. Those industries
needed electricity, and plenty of it. The quickest and cheapest way to
get that electricity was to build coal-fired generating stations
everywhere. Renewable energy, especially from solar panels, was another
possibility, but it was new, untested technology. China was afraid to
put too much faith in it until it had passed the test of time.
Many readers will recognize this reticence to adopt new technologies as a well known phenomenon. We see it today with regard to electric cars
and heat pumps. Industries like steel, aluminum, and cement know how to
make their products with much lower emissions, but doing so means
upending decades if not centuries of past practices. The utility
industry, for the most part, is loathe to change how it makes
electricity, which has not changed much in the past 100 years.
But, eventually, those new technologies filter down and begin to
displace the old way of doing things. What seems like a sudden shift may
actually have been years in the making. China this week announced a
host of new policies that suggest it has now lost its fear of renewable
energy and is ready to embrace it in a way it has not done so
previously.
China Adjusts Its Climate Targets
Bloomberg
reports that in less than a week, China overturned years of dragging
its feet to begin setting hard targets for carbon emissions, announced
ambitious goals for provincial renewable energy consumption, and
established a multi-year plan to strengthen its electricity grid. Its
top planning agency has also laid out measures to beef up how industries
measure their carbon footprints.
Taken together, the moves signal a change in priorities taking place
in Beijing. Concerns over the state’s ability to guarantee an
uninterrupted power supply, which has driven the nation’s reliance on
dirty coal, have started to recede. China’s rapid adoption of renewables
means clean energy is already meeting most additional power demand, and
beginning to trim that nation’s appetite for fossil fuels. With
cleantech manufacturing now viewed as a critical driver of economic
growth, the climate is set to be a key beneficiary.
“It’s a significant shift in attitude that climate and the economy
are not seen as mutually exclusive anymore,” said Cosimo Ries, an
analyst at consulting firm Trivium China. “The government is now
confident that you can drive economic growth with green industry and
help the climate at the same time.”
That shift is already paying dividends on the ground. Emissions in
China fell 1% in the second quarter, the first quarterly drop since the
end of the pandemic, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at the Asia Society
Policy Institute, said in a report for Carbon Brief.
China’s carbon output could be on track to begin a structural decline
this year, so long as renewables installations continue apace and growth
in power demand cools, he said. That means Beijing may have already
succeeded in peaking emissions, more than half a decade in advance of
its 2030 target.
Emissions Intensity vs. Total Emissions
Perhaps the most important long-term policy change in China is the adjustment in emissions targets
from how they compare with economic growth to total levels. For years,
China’s primary climate metric was energy use or emissions per unit of
gross domestic product. That approach allowed the government to tout
environmental successes by reducing the carbon intensity of its economy,
even as total emissions soared. The new system announced earlier this
month establishes overall emissions as an official measurement starting
in 2026, although at first it will remain secondary to intensity
targets. After 2030, the total volume will become the main target, and
intensity will be de-emphasized as a priority.
The effectiveness of the policy switch will depend on how aggressive the government is with its targets, Bloomberg
says, but it is clearly a move in the right direction for battling
climate change. “It’s a positive signal for the transformation of
China’s energy system,” said Yuhe Gao, a senior campaigner with
Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing.
Last year, China added new wind turbines and solar panels in record
numbers and is on pace to install a staggering 300 GW of renewable
energy in 2024. Beijing tells regional governments every year to ensure
that a certain percentage of power comes from renewable sources. Those
goals have typically grown by increments of 1 to 2 percentage points.
But this year’s targets have jumped by a nationwide average of 4 points,
according to Daiwa Capital Markets. In some areas, such as the windy
northern enclave of Heilongjiang or the sunny island of Hainan, the
requirements have risen by more than 7 percentage points.
Those are aggressive targets and in some cases could be unattainable,
said Daiwa analyst Dennis Ip. That in itself could signal a shift in
the government’s attitude. In climate circles, China has a reputation
for setting easily attainable goals and then over-performing. Beijing
may now be more willing to risk failure in the pursuit of a bigger payoff.
A More Robust Energy Grid
Increasing the amount of electricity generated only when the sun
shines or wind blows has caused headaches for China’s power networks,
which were designed around coal-fired plants that can be switched on and
off as needed. “The key barrier for China’s power system today is it’s
not flexible enough to support renewable energy,” said Greenpeace’s Gao.
The government’s solution is to transform the grid. It aims to raise
the proportion of clean energy carried on long-distance power lines, cut
emissions from the coal plants needed to back up renewables, use the
nation’s growing fleet of electric vehicles for energy storage in times
of need, and set up groups of customers that can quickly reduce demand
when shortages are forecast.
Utilities are already busy trying to upgrade their systems. The State
Grid Corporation of China, which covers more than 80% of the country,
will increase spending to a record 600 billion yuan ($84 billion) this
year, while China Southern Power Grid plans to lift capital expenditure
by more than half by 2027.
The Takeaway
The moral of this story is that new technologies take a long time to
gain acceptance (with certain exceptions, like the iPhone). China has
placed less emphasis on reducing emissions than it has on keeping its
citizens employed, but now that renewable energy has proven to be
reliable and dispatchable, China seems to think it can have its cake and
eat it too. Is there a chance its newfound faith in renewables will get
transferred to other parts of the world? That’s a definite maybe.
Technology transfer does take place even between nations that are
potential enemies.
The mantra in the tech world since the very beginning has been to
move fast and break things, but we all learned in elementary school that
slow and steady wins the race. It’s the tortoise and the hare story
writ large. The real question is whether the tortoise will get to the
finish line before it bursts into flames. For that, we will have to wait
a few more decades before we know the answer.
China’s goal remains a net zero economy by 2060. What happens to its
greenhouse gas emissions between now and then will impact virtually
every person on Earth as average global temperatures continue to climb.
Mother Nature really doesn’t give a damn about policies and goals. The
road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. In the end, all
those flowery pronouncements may be little more than an epitaph for the
Earth. We really need China, and every other nation, to get this right.
