Category: China News Brief and Action Alert

China—partial estimate 15.42 billion; complete estimate is not available The amount of subsidies that China provides to its fossil fuel industry has long remained a mystery. However, in September 2016, the US and China agreed upon a fossil fuel peer review process. The review was intended to stimulate a reform of such subsidies, which both...

71% of people interviewed gave their support to their government curbing greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to the Paris Agreement. Concern about climate change among people in China—the world’s biggest carbon polluter—has plummeted in the past five years, according to new research. The Chinese were the least concerned among 40 nations surveyed. A recent US...

China: (1) Strengthen Country’s Paris Agreement pledge (2) Greater use by the business sector of non-fossil fuel electricity; (3) Greater reductions in the use of coal-fired power by the business sector China’s INDC targets include: A commitment to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, at the latest; Lower the carbon intensity of GDP by 60%...

China—No 100% 2050 Commitment Benchmark: 29% of electricity from renewables by 2030 China has not made a commitment to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050; however, its renewable energy target is to produce 20% of its electricity from clean sources by 2030. China has planned to invest 2.5 trillion Yuan (292 billion pounds) into renewable...

China—National Cap and Trade Program President Xi Jinping announced last week that China will push ahead with an ambitious plan to build the world’s largest market for carbon emission permits. This national cap-and-trade program will expand from the seven regional pilot emissions trading systems established in the country’s 12th Five Year Plan (in 2011). The...

China—Moving Forward Ecofys Consultancy, an energy and climate consulting group, has determined China to be in good stead to achieve, and even surpass, its pledge for the Paris Climate Agreement. Earlier this year, China demonstrated positive developments in coal use as it canceled the construction of over 100 coal power stations. This effort is recognized...

2015-2020 Action Plan for the Efficient Use of Coal and 2016-2020 13th Five-Year Plan In February 2015, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Finance Ministry released the 2015 – 2020 action plan for the efficient use of coal: aiming to decrease coal use by 160 million tonnes in the determined period....

Typhoon Nepartak—A Category 5 Super Typhoon From mid-June through July of 2016, China endured a series of extreme precipitation events, including the tail-end of Typhoon Nepartak—a Category 5 super typhoon—that triggered deadly floods across twenty-six of the nation’s provinces. Official reports published on July 26, 2016 claim that the series of disasters led to a...

Historical Overview Chinese media coverage of global climate change has become increasingly prominent; its growth described in three distinct phases: before and after the release of the February 2007 IPCC report, and later in the discussion and analysis of the Paris Agreement (particularly focusing on China’s role in curbing emissions, and its relation to the...

Regions/Provinces/States Hebei Province Clean Heating Project—In 2003, district heating represented about 5.3 to 6.1 of total coal consumption in China and in 2008, the heating sector consumed a total of 145.4 million tons of raw coal. With continued urbanization and rising levels of quality of life in China, the effort to minimize the carbon intensity...