Chastened by Energy Crunch China Reembraces Coal

Just last month Xi said China would no longer finance coal projects abroad

Related: China Will No Longer Help Poor Countries With Their Coal Projects

China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, in a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions for securing a global agreement on phasing out coal at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

In a statement after a meeting of Beijing’s National Energy Commission, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, stressed the importance of regular energy supply, after swathes of the country were plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts that hit factories and homes.

While China has published plans to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, the statement hinted that the energy crisis had led the Communist party to rethink the timing of this ambition, with a new “phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions”.

China has previously set out plans to be carbon neutral by 2060, with emissions peaking by 2030, a goal analysts say would involve shutting 600 coal-fired power plants. President Xi Jinping has also pledged to stop building coal plants abroad.

“Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” the statement said.

“Given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.”

Beijing’s ambitions for carbon dioxide output are seen as critical in the push to achieve global net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and fulfil the 2015 Paris agreement to limit average temperature rises to 1.5C. But Li said Beijing wanted to gather new evidence on when its peak emissions would be reached.

The statement said he had commissioned “in-depth studies and calculations in light of the recent handling of electricity and coal supply strains, to put forward a phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions”.

Li’s rhetoric follows reports that China has ordered its two top coal-producing regions, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, to combat the country’s power supply crisis.

Beijing’s renewed embrace of coal – apparently at odds with Xi’s state climate ambitions – are likely to cause alarm in the run-up to Cop26.

Source: The Guardian

13 Comments
  1. William White says

    China does what has to be done, sets it’s own agenda and really doesn’t care what others think about it. Winter is coming, heat is required, we fix! Makes the EU look just pitiful.

  2. ken says

    The Greta’s of this world will not stop until people start dying due to lack of power. Even then, who knows, they might not stop,,, look at the clotshot.

    1. goyim 1 says

      The Greta’s of this world are owned and puppets of racist supremacist Jews like George Soros’s and the racist supremacist global Jewish satanic slave empire dictatorship.

  3. drb says

    As if this was a real fix. The coal they are getting now is lower quality, costs more in energy. China’s economy has not really grown since 2017, and will not ever resume its 5%+/year growth. They will soften the blow on the masses by redistributing some of the wealth, but it is not a problem with a solution.

    1. yuri says

      are u stupid or do u lie intentionally? China growth +6% each year—since 2017, except 2020 –2.3% growth related to Covid international hysteria—in 2021 growth 18%

      1. drb says

        Sadly, that came from a housing bubble now being deflated. Look at consumption, things like concrete, new cars, new cell phones. No growth since. And I say all this with great regret…

        1. yuri says

          no; you lie with no regret

          1. drb says

            we will see soon enough. I am leery of arguing with a probable russian transplanted in the west, when I have done and am precisely the opposite..

  4. GMC says

    In other news, how many months did the US and EU cost Northstream ll from delivering Gaz to Germany? Now look at the price of Gaz – lol. This all Just a planned Show.!

    1. Mr Reynard says

      As rumour goes ?? Northstream II pipeline before delivering any Russian gas, has be be certified by Ukraine, Poland,US, UK that it’s safe to operate & don’t expect the certification before 2030 …

  5. yuri says

    India now faces low stockpiles of coal—China diversified —they import Russian gas/oil, gas from Khazakstan, oil from Iran also…so far in 2021, China economy 18% increase from 2020….Russian 3.5%, most European economies in decline…US worse except for emperor gates and queen Bezos

  6. jerry wayne carver says

    https://medium.com/@ghornerhb/heres-a-better-graph-of-co2-and-temperature-for-the-last-600-million-years-f83169a68046

    During the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today.
    https://miro.medium.com/freeze/max/60/0*mjOPG_0O8pdIPLIN.gif?q=20
    https://miro.medium.com/max/14/0*mjOPG_0O8pdIPLIN.gif
    The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 18 times higher than today.

    1. Per says

      That’s right, and while the “West” remove co2, China put more of it into the atmosphere, which is good for the planet and good for us. Everything living is in need of o2, the carbon been “eaten” by plants, leaving the o2 to us to breath. Thank you China.

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