Since the end of the 1980s, when climate change was brought to the global political agenda, China has gone from generating a surplus of energy to becoming an importer of oil. The change is a symptom of a rapidly industrialising nation and comes hand-in-hand with many of the signs of a nation already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Recent figures show that China is the second most important emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, after the United States. Research shows that its population and environment are likely to suffer the effects of extreme weather events made more frequent by climate change, that rising temperatures and changing rainfall will affect food production, and that energy consumption — a major source of emissions — will continue to rise over the coming decades.
Yet China, as a developing nation, is not bound to limit its emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, and will not do so at the expense of its development. The government says developed nations must bear the responsibility for historical rises in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Despite this, the Chinese government is aware of the complexities and effects of climate change. Although its primary motivation is not to align itself with international climate change policy, it is adopting measures to diversify its sources of energy and to increase energy efficiency, which could slow the steep rise of its emissions.
Effects of Climate Change in China
Early in 2005, a comprehensive assessment of environmental and climate change in China showed that the effects of climate change in China are similar to those in the rest of the world (Qin et al, 2005). During the past century, the average temperature in China increased by 0.6-0.8 degrees Celsius. In the past 50 years, sea levels rose by between 1-2.5 millimetres each year.
Climate change will make China more vulnerable to damage caused by rising sea levels, drought, flooding, tropical cyclones, sand storms, and heat waves. Although a warmer climate will increase the amount of land available for farming, extreme weather could reduce agricultural yield by ten per cent. Already, in 2004 alone, drought and floods damaged more than 37 million hectares of arable crops, leaving more than four million of them barren.
China has several climatic zones and a varied physical environment. North-west China is a largely arid and semi-arid, fragile environment that is highly vulnerable to climate change. In north-east China, a warmer climate might increase agricultural production, but extreme weather events, such as storms and flooding, would probably cause serious damage.
In central and eastern China, winters are cold and summers are hot. The building industry in these regions is using more and more energy. Coastal areas in the south and east are densely populated, and a rise in sea levels could greatly damage the economically dynamic and prosperous Zhujiang and Yangtze deltas.
The Challenges for China to Reduce Emissions
China is the largest emitter in the world of greenhouse gases after the United States. It accounts for just over one-seventh of the world’s emissions (14.7 per cent in 2000; in comparison, the United States emitted 20.6 per cent of global emissions in the same year). According to researchers at the US-based Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, China is likely to be the number one emitter in twenty years (Baumert and Pershing, 2004).
Patterns of Energy Consumption
China’s booming industry and its corresponding burst in energy consumption and rapid urbanisation — and the fact that it generates most of its energy by burning coal — are largely responsible for its rapidly climbing greenhouse gas emissions. After all, in only half a century, China has moved from being a society based on farming, to one where half of its output comes from industry.
In 1960, China’s commercial sector consumed 302 million tonnes of coal equivalent (1 tce corresponds to 7,500 kilowatt hours). By 1980, this figure had doubled. By 2000, it had reached 1.3 billion tce. In 2004, the figure rocketed to 1.97 billion tce, surpassing the country’s energy production of 1.85 billion. The same year, China consumed 290 million tonnes of oil, but produced only 175 million.
In just 11 years, from 1993-2004, China has gone from being one of the world’s largest exporters of coal to having to import oil in order to meet its energy needs.
Economic development is pushing China’s greenhouse gas emissions into realms more often associated with developed nations. Now a ‘developing giant’ with a surging economy, China is finding that energy security and pollution problems dominate its choices in how to take that development forward.
Energy Demand Will Continue to Rise
Between 1980 and 2000, the Chinese economy more than quadrupled and energy consumption doubled. In 2000, the government set a target to quadruple its gross domestic product (GDP) again by 2020.
The Chinese Energy Research Institute projected that this target, combined with advances in technology and renewable energies, would take energy demand to 1.9 billion tce by 2010, and to about 2.8 billion tce by 2020 (Zhou et al, 2003). In reality, energy consumption passed the 2010 target in 2004 — a whole six years early.
Firmly in Support of ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities’
China has consistently emphasised that industrialised nations must be held responsible for past greenhouse gas emissions. It also emphasises that developing countries need to increase their own emissions, to meet the needs of development. Developed countries, China maintains, should take the lead in reducing emissions, and help developing countries limit theirs by transferring technology and funds to them.
When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, China officially stated that it would not consider limiting green house gas emissions until it reached a “medium level of development”. It implied that this meant an annual income of about US$5,000 per person, which would be reached around the middle of the twenty-first century.
Eight years on, the government remains unlikely to make any commitments to limit its emissions, although it has been more flexible in participating in international efforts to mitigate climate change. These include cooperating on the technological development of renewable energies, as well as on carbon capture and storage.
In addition, China has participated in the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, which helps developing countries run projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions using investments from developed nations.
