China pledged to cut emissions. It went on a coal spree instead.
By Michael Standaert | April 9, 2021
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Yale E360. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
China’s National People’s Congress meetings, which ended earlier last month, were shrouded in both a real and figurative haze about how strong its climate ambitions really are, and how quickly the country can wean itself from its main source of energy: coal.
During the Congress, air pollution returned to Beijing with a vengeance, hitting the highest levels since January 2019, as the economy hummed out of the pandemic. Steel, cement, and heavy manufacturing, predominantly backed by coal power, boosted China’s carbon dioxide emissions 4 percent in the second half of 2020 compared to the same pre-pandemic period the year before. At the same time, the goals in the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan on energy intensity, carbon intensity, and renewables were hazy as well, little more than vague commitments to tackle carbon dioxide emissions.
https://thebulletin.org/2021/04/china-pledged-to-cut-emissions-it-went-on-a-coal-spree-instead/
