Politics of Power: China's Emissions

In my last article, I focused on China’s plan to convert a number of coal-fired power plants to power stations running on synthetic natural gas. The premise of the article was the huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions this shift would create and the apparent indifference of Chinese leadership to climate change and carbon emissions targets. I would therefore be remiss if in this week’s piece I did not dissect the recent, and monumental, U.S-China climate announcement.

As the world’s largest and second largest carbon emitters, China and the United States, respectively, had to come to an agreement on cutting carbon emissions in order to ensure other countries would agree to mandatory cuts in emissions. What this pact ultimately means for emissions, of course, will be determined over many years and is subject to wild variations. However, there are a few major points to take away from the agreement as a whole.

From a big picture standpoint, China’s plan calls for emissions to peak “around” 2030, with a stated intent to attempt to beat this deadline. It also expresses a goal of boosting non-fossil energy to 20 percent of Chinese fuel by 2030. The real question might not be when emissions from China peak but at what level do emissions actually crest. Do they peak at 50 percent above current levels, 25 percent, 5 percent? Due to the sheer size of China’s carbon emissions, that single number makes an enormous difference for global emissions.

On the other hand, the United States promised to set emission levels at 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The proposal includes language that specifies a planned attempt to get to a 28 percent cut by 2030. If the United States hits its current target laid out in previous emissions plans — 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 – on the head, it will need to cut emissions by 2.3-2.8 percent annually between 2020 and 2025. This will require a much faster pace of emissions decreases than what is being targeted through 2020. This is an incredibly demanding goal, barring some unforeseen technological breakthroughs. Given that the Obama administration claims that the targets can be met using existing laws, realistically, the goals may not fail legally but politically.

The most interesting takeaway from China’s numbers is that they are original. By this, I mean that in the past China’s emissions targets have been nothing but “business as usual” economic and environment practices. These new numbers signal a concerted shift towards active emissions management and will require China to depart significantly from the path that most analysts have expected Beijing to take. In addition, just the fact that China is announcing climate related goals with the United States is a dramatic shift away from the norm. In the past China has gone out of its way to unilaterally announce these kinds of plans and establish autonomy from the international community. This newfound approach will hopefully lead to a closer and more productive relationship between the world’s two largest economies — a relationship that is imperative if there is to be any meaningful global change.