Clean Energy Just Put China's CO2 Emissions Into Reverse For First Time (carbonbrief.org) 74
For the first time, the growth in China's clean power generation has caused the nation's carbon dioxide emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth. From a report:The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that China's emissions were down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% in the latest 12 months. Electricity supply from new wind, solar and nuclear capacity was enough to cut coal-power output even as demand surged, whereas previous falls were due to weak growth.
The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China's CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year. However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China's CO2 emissions to rise to a new record.
The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China's CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year. However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China's CO2 emissions to rise to a new record.
And it's cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait, somehow China managed to
a. Get electricity cheaper than here
b. Develop a gigantic new industry
and
c. Actually reverse course on carbon intensity while still being far-and-away the world's manufacturer of traditionally dirty products like steel?
Boy am I sure glad we went all in on drill-baby-drill. That sure worked out for us.
Re:And it's cheap? (Score:5, Informative)
Did you miss the part where their emissions are *falling*?
I mean, it's right there in the story title. You didn't even have to read the summary, which we know you didn't:
Electricity supply from new wind, solar and nuclear capacity was enough to cut coal-power output even as demand surged, whereas previous falls were due to weak growth.
For fucks sake.
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Moving the Goal Posts
Nope. The summary suggests, but does not clearly show that less coal was burned. Renewables may have displaced the more expensive oil and natural gas, not the less costly but more polluting coal, to lower overall CO2.
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The article does say "However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China’s CO2 emissions to rise to a new record." But at the same time, they also show, in a graph, this is absolute amounts of CO2 emissions, not just in comparison. That would answer your question. :)
The total amount of CO2 emission doesn't tell us if less coal is being burned. Renewables may have displaced the more expensive oil and natural gas, not the less costly but more polluting coal.
Re:And it's cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing that they are closing hundreds of coal plants too. New coal plants being built are virtually all replacement plants for existing facilities that have no infrastructure for alternate fuels. The net result is that when you build a new plant and close the old one, emissions go down because the new one is far more efficient to run than the thing you built 40 years ago.
The actual energy production *growth* is lead by green energy.
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Look, something else in the summary not read:
The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data
Stop making knee-jerk excuses and assumptions.
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If the government of Venezuela or Iran or North Korea makes press-release-type grandiose positive claims, everyone just assumes they are lying. But none of those regimes blatantly lie anywhere near as often as the CCP, and yet lots of morons ("peo
Re:And it's cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing what you can accomplish with a tyranical governement, no human rights, and slave labor, isn't it ?
Not only that (Score:3)
The more important is not whether it is a democracy or a dictatorial regime, the more important factor was : they are not rejecting basic science.
If both side of the aisle accepted global warming and had the will to fight, you would see the same effort in the US. Unfortunately you have the GOP which is anti science. So i
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I'm not saying that the Chinese government is all lovely, but dismissing them as only winning because they are like that is why we keep losing.
If you go to China you will find that most people enjoy a fairly modern lifestyle, a great deal of freedom in most respects (but not some key ones, e.g. LGBTQ people, political opposition), and the government does try to protect them and improve their lives. It succeeds too. The vast majority of stuff they made does not involve any forced labour, and even those peopl
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But solar power is gay!
Re:And it's cheap? (Score:5, Informative)
These days the Chinese government isn't any less trusty than that of the USA.
Nevermind that, the research in TFA is from a Finland-based organization that looks fairly independent and not taking political sides. What are your specific reasons to distrust them or their reports?
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Being a "fairly independent" research organization does not protect such organization from lies told by the Chicoms. Also lol at you being an objective voice when it comes tho the "trusty"ness of the CCP.
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You could have just said "I got nothing", you know :)
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Yeah, it was very funny seeing trump grovel before China after the tariff bluff failed.
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Cheap is how they made their mess ... (Score:2)
So wait, somehow China managed to
a. Get electricity cheaper than here
It's no secret. They have had a cheapest energy source first policy. No consideration of pollution. That is why coal has been used so heavily through 2024. We'll see if this reported good news is a blip or a real turnaround when the complete 2025 numbers are in. In China renewables have been displacing the more expensive energy sources, not the most polluting. Other countries are displacing the most polluting first sources first. This led China to becoming the #1 global polluter, primarily through the ever
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China is still building coal power plants at a near record pace: https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com] But, solar is being built at a much higher pace, such that renewable (solar, hydro, and wind combined) will be their number one energy source by next year.
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Yeah, but if you look into the details of those plants, they're high-intensity-low-particulate plants designed to deprecate older coal plants already in operation. I can't say they're a fundamentally good thing, but the results of China's solar focus are undeniable here.
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So wait, somehow China managed to...
On paper. That is according to CCP, China is greatest place on earth.
China is to be congratulated (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter what your politics is.
Re: China is to be congratulated (Score:3, Insightful)
Not sure that's true so much as most of the rest of the world deserves condemnation. It's not like they have crossed net zero, they have only (hopefully) passed their peak... Way too late.
But those of us whose emissions are still increasing ought to check ourselves and fix it. Drill baby drill doesn't let us have a future, and impacts our present as well.
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China's peak is way lower than all the developed nations (per capita of course), and they hit it 5 years ahead of their agreed Paris target... But it's still too little. Fortunately they are accelerating, but unless we all make a similar effort it's going to be bad.
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Maybe tariffs [cnn.com] are helping them do their part this time around!
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That's stupid. China new about climate change and then proceeded to expand in the most ecologically destructive manner.
Praising them for merely reducing their emissions would be like praising someone who decided not merely to up smoking but to take up chain-smoking and then deciding to reduce how much they smoke.
Proper metric is per GDP, not per capita (Score:2)
And they did it while never once for any year not being much cleaner per capita than America.
Per capita is misleading. China's pollution is overwhelming industrial based, the behavior of individual Chinese citizens makes no difference. Given this industrial nature the correct measurement would be per GDP. China generates more pollution on a GDP basis. Matter of fact, pollution has been increasing in China while decreasing in the US.
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For what? Being dishonest?
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Sounds like a similar administration if you want to go that route.
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We have social media to document everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Doubt it includes rural solid fuel burning for heat, which is 44% of rural energy consumption in China.
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-1 Insightful? The wumao are busy with their alt accounts, tsk.
Not reverse: slowing down (Score:5, Informative)
If emissions were in reverse then they would be removing CO2 faster than they were emitting it which is not happening. Instead what is happening is the rate of emission has decreased since the prior year. There is a significant difference between these two things.
It's not even pedantry because if you were to described to someone as person slowing down their car as "driving reverse" then they would be very confused.
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But when writing science and technical news, they need to think about what their words mean.
And they fully deserve to be called out when they write nonsense, as here.
Just as "Editors" deserve to be called out when they parrot nonsense, as here.
Re:Not reverse: slowing down (Score:5, Insightful)
Right but this is still a laudable accomplishment. They have achieved net-negative emissions growth while increasing energy production.
That is a big deal. The questions are how far can it take them. Shuttering some of your dirtiest coal plants and swapping them for solar works might net you some quick wins; but you continue before you hit base load and reliability problems?
A 1.6% YOY decrease in emissions is a big deal if you are a big emitter like China, but it only changes the math in a meaningful way if you can continue such decreases for 25, 26, 27 and on...
Right now all this amounts to is, Chinese emissions peaked, and it might even be a local event in time, nothing says they don't decide to become the AI compute capital of the world and spin up a bunch more old coal because its quick and cheap.
Re:Not reverse: slowing down (Score:4, Informative)
They're not shutting down their coal plants, they're reducing the duty cycle of their coal plants. They have more coal capacity in 2025 than they did in 2024; they're just using them less. So they're not going to have base load and reliability problems.
They can continue on this path forever. One can certainly imagine a scenario where they maintain a coal plant for emergency purposes but never hit the emergency situation that needs the plant. They can have 0% coal usage yet still have significant coal capacity and no base load / reliability problems.
Right now the coal plants run at night. They're adding batteries that will take over those duties, so the coal plants will eventually just run when they have N days without sun & wind, with that N increasing over time until N hits a number that is highly statistically unlikely.
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See this is exactly why I don't but it fully. You can't have significant coal capacity and 0% usage. That is not now large industrial scale machinery works.
You don't just not run something like a coal plant. You can mothball it and then restart it sure but that isn't an instantaneous process. So it does not work as peaker or back up.
You have run have to hot-idle it. Those turbines can't just sit there not running for months and then just fire up the like hair dryer you pulled out of the drawer and plugg
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Actually you do. There's no special mothballing requirements for a coal plant. You can have then running recirculation on the waterloop forever in the day from grid power to prevent deadleg corrosion, but you don't need to do any special chemical cleaning, no passivation, no nitrogen blanketing, none of that. You can't use them as peaker plants because they take a few hours to fire up, but you definitely can have them as a baseload contingency.
Even now coal doesn't run full tilt in most of the world, the du
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Here's a good look [sustainabi...umbers.com] at what's happening. More plants are being built, but it's expensive so less coal is being burned. Renewables, mostly solar, are in the ascendant there.
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Is deceleration anything but reverse acceleration when you really think about it? It's like in rocketry, if you want to slow down, you flip and burn in the opposite direction.
No matter how you parse it, it's still good that they may have hit their emissions-per-year peak. That's something the US is trying to undo for ourselves.
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Progress isn't hard (Score:1)
China lies
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Meanwhile ... (Score:2)
Clean Energy Just Put China's CO2 Emissions Into Reverse For First Time
Meanwhile in Magastan: Back to the past !!! Trump Digs Coal !!! DRILL BABY !!! DRILL!!!
World is stupid (Score:2)
We should be all in on putting solar panels in the world's deserts.
But but but but China... (Score:2)
Damn. Oh wait. But India! Yes that's what I'll use now. I *would* reduce my own carbon footprint but it is pointless because India! Phew, almost thought I may not have an excuse anymore.
Coal powers China (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:2)
Ya, but ... (Score:2)
Just wait until the U.S. kicks in all our "Beautiful Clean Coal" !! /s
Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry [whitehouse.gov]