China: Energy Use and Climate Show-and-Tell

The closing meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 11, 2021. Leaders of the Communist Party of China and the state Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the meeting, and Li Zhanshu presided over the closing meeting and delivered a speech. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

 

"One of the main constraining factors in China’s quest to raise living standards, modernize, and become a major world power has been a persistent shortage of energy."

"Energy shortages have greatly hindered the industrial, agricultural and social development of China."

Elspeth Thomson, economic historian

 

"The discovery and development of the supergiant Daqing and Shengli oilfields in the 1960s briefly promised to end the country’s heavy reliance on coal, and even turn China into a major oil exporter."

"By the late 1980s, however, production from Daqing and Shengli was peaking, and no further readily exploitable major discoveries had been made, forcing a renewed focus on coal."

"In 1993, China turned into a net oil importer as domestic consumption outstripped domestic production, and the gap has grown steadily since."

"China had become the largest importer in the world by 2019, importing more than 10 million barrels per day, and relying on imports to meet almost 75% of its consumption".

"For similar reasons, China has also become one of the world’s largest natural gas importers, relying on imports to meet more than 40% of its domestic needs."

"The problems with relying on coal as the primary source of energy have been well understood by Chinese and international policymakers since at least the 1980s".

"Moving huge volumes of unwashed and unprocessed coal from mines to power plants has put immense pressure on the country’s rail network and periodically contributed to congestion."

"Coal’s contribution to urban air pollution, acid rain, and climate change was extensively analyzed in a landmark report on 'China: Long-Term Development Issues and Options' published by the World Bank in 1985."

John Kemp, Reuters market analyst

"China’s coal activities remain a large concern and are inconsistent with the Paris Agreement. It would need to phase out coal before 2040 under 1.5˚C compatible pathways, but it appears to be going in the opposite direction. After lifting a previous construction ban on new coal plants in 2018, China has rolled back policies restricting new coal plant permitting in each of the last three years. By mid-2020 China had permitted more new coal plant capacity than in 2018 and 2019 combined, bringing its total coal capacity in the pipeline to 250 GW, and brought 10 GW of new plants online. China is going against the global shift away from coal and now possesses roughly half of the world’s coal power capacity as well as coal-fired power plants in development."

Climate Action Tracker

photovoltaic panels lined up in the rising sun in Shangzhang township, Xianju county, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, China.- Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images) 

The West, fully invested in Climate Change and the need by governments worldwide to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions in aid of fostering a healthier environment and off-setting rising emissions leading to weather patterns that threaten world stability, looks to China, the world's largest emitter by far of carbon dioxide emissions to make good on its pledges in a collaborative effort to firm up commitments in the greater interests of saving the planet.

 

China has made promises and been happy to make some strides in public relations moves to demonstrate its sincerity in pledging its commitment to effecting a reversal of its colossal emissions in a common strategy to fight climate change. What it has also cagily offered is negotiations of a sort whereby the West will put a rein on its human rights charges in exchange for good news from Beijing on its climate/energy intentions.

 

Prepared to make firmer commitments as long as trade sanctions targeting Xinjiang Province and the slanderous charges of genocide against the Turkic Muslim Uyghurs commences to its satisfaction because after all, Beijing is as committed to battling climate change, cleaning up the environment, as it is to upholding human rights as a highly principled government. So, thus the choice, pull back on sanctions for the compliance so urgently needed with China buying in to climate pledges.

 

That does create a bit of a dilemma for Beijing, one that it prefers to keep close to its vest. Since China has strategic objectives to meet, and it cannot reach those goals by decreasing its C02 emissions, simple as that. The gargantuan consumer production behemoth that has cornered the world market in inexpensive and wide-ranging product manufacturing cannot continue to uphold its commitment to remaining the world's premier factory-linked shipper without vast stores of energy.

 

It is hugely dependent on foreign oil and gas sources and its National Development and Reform Commission is tasked with ensuring that those energy supplies continue unobstructed by do-good environmental pledges. The National People's Congress heard from the National Development and
Reform Commission in its 2020 annual report pledging to "ensure energy security" to "improve our contingency plans in response to major changes in supply and demand at home and abroad".

 

Xi Jinping,  Congress, Great Hall of the People,  Japan Times

 

March 5 saw the current year's report delivered to the People's Congress giving short shrift to climate change and promising weak commitments to decarbonization. The priority was securing energy supplies, and to "boost oil and gas exploration and development" while "systematically increas[ing] our ability to ensure the supply of coal". The huge smoke stacks adjacent every manufacturing plant throughout China are going nowhere.

The international community of sport enthusiasts may or may not recall the Beijing Olympics where it was necessary to order production facilities to shut down for days in hopes of clearing the air of effluent and making for some reasonable visibility in view of the constant yellow 'fog' that obscures normal sightlines in the metropolis and entirely reflective of the dismal air quality in China's many megalopolises, home to much of its 1.4 billion population.

China's foreign oil dependence reached 50 percent for the first time, in 2008, and by last year it had reached 73 percent dependence. China's oil imports increased by 7.3 percent in 2020 while its domestic production rose merely 1.6 percent; self-sufficiency its goal but hardly achievable as its energy need continues to rise exponentially in lock-step with the Chinese Communist Party's drive for world domination in production, communication, technology and AI inventiveness. 

What really concerns China is that its oil and gas imports mostly must make it through the South China Sea, the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Pacific to transit China's imported oil. Sea lanes in the control of other states vexes China. The prospect of potential conflicts with Taiwan, Japan, India, even the United States cause for concern. The Suez Canal blockage served as a urgent reminder to China to guarantee its energy-derived security.

Militarization of the South China Seas where the world's largest navy patrols, to protect oil and gas tanker routes into China. Claims of its ownership of disputed areas with its neighbours encompassing, land, sea and air all play in to China's concern over its undisputed future destiny as a world giant in influence and control of the global community. 

From Turkmenistan to Xinjiang, overland oil and gas routes from Russia and Burma, China aggressively develops assurances of energy provision. Oh, and from Iran too, of course, helping it through its own sanctions. And its most secure and dependable energy source? Why, coal, of course, dredging coal out of its very own mines and financing and installing new coal mines abroad. Coal which still accounts for a massive share of China's energy consumption.

China's gigawatt power of new coal-fired installations represents over three times the new capacity built in the entire rest of the world, with another 247 gigawatts planned or in development. The proposed additional coal plants represent 73.5 gigawatts of power, fully five times what the rest of the world combined proposes. But then, a superpower not quite oblivious to the concerns of its critics for the most part, expertly plays the game of 'we're with you' on climate change.