Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.

Key developments

New ‘guidelines’ issued for ‘green transition’

NEW GUIDELINES: A “set of guidelines to ramp up green transition in all areas of economic and social development” was jointly issued by the Communist party’s Central Committee and the State Council – the highest leadership groups in China – on 11 August, state news agency Xinhua reported. The guidelines aim to “achieve ‘remarkable results’ in the green transition” by 2030, as well as establish a “green, low-carbon and circular development economic system” with “the goal of Beautiful China” being “basically achieved” by 2035, added the outlet. 

TARGETS: Breaking down the details of the guidelines, Xinhua said: “By 2030, the scale of the energy conservation and environmental protection industry…will reach about 15tn yuan ($2.1tn), the proportion of non-fossil energy will increase to about 25% of energy consumption and the installed capacity of pumped storage hydropower will exceed 120 gigawatt. By 2030, the carbon emission intensity of commercial transport per unit of turnover will drop by about 9.5% compared with 2020.”

‘GREAT IMPORTANCE’: The Global Times, a state-run newspaper, called the guidelines “groundbreaking”, saying it is the “first systematic deployment” of Beijing’s “green and low-carbon goals”. Its editorial described it “of great importance”, with the “green transformation” being “set to drive high-quality economic development”. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on what China’s “new quality productive forces” means for climate action.) The editorial also said China’s investments in renewable energy will build “a system that is less prone to global geopolitical crises and market shocks, while improv[ing] China’s economic resilience and energy security”.  

REACTIONS IN CHINA: Beijing’s call for a “green transition” was widely supported by other leaders in China. The frontpage of Study Times – a newspaper edited by the Communist party’s Central Party School – published an article written by Zhang Jianhua, the head of National Energy Administration. He wrote that the “high-quality development” of “new energy” is a “crucial guarantee” for achieving “dual carbon” goals. Another Communist party-managed media outlet Qiushi published an article signed by president Xi Jinping, who called for providing tax, financial and economic support for constructing a “green and low-carbon development mechanism”. Other ministries, such as the Ministry of Natural Resources, sent out a “proposal” to “everywhere” (namely, local governments) to study “Xi Jinping thought and experience” in the “ecological protection and restoration”, state-run Economic Daily reported. Bloomberg noted that China’s “spate of policy announcements” highlighted the country’s “rising confidence in accelerating climate action, as fears over energy security wane and the government steps up support for struggling green industries”.  

‘Natural disasters’ continue

EXTREME WEATHER: Extreme weather events continued across China over the past fortnight. A “once-in-a-century flood” was recorded by the Zhimenda hydrological station along the Yangtze River in south China, reported state-run China Daily. The Paper, a Shanghai-based outlet, said about 47 “torrential rain warnings” became “effective” in the most populated Guangdong province, where more than 70,000 people were evacuated and 45 flights were delayed for more than one hour on 21 August. In the north, “the worst downpour in over half a century” has driven the price of a “basket of 28 vegetables” to surge 30% since July, according to Bloomberg. The index of agricultural product prices rose consistently every day from 25 June to 21 Aug, except for a “slight dip” on 19 July, said Reuters, citing data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The newswire added that the “sharp” rise was due to “extreme weather conditions”. A total of 6m acres (2.4m hectares) of crops have been damaged and the Chinese central bank pledged to “provide an additional 100bn yuan ($14bn)” to aid these “disaster-stricken farm regions”, said another Reuters report. The “natural disasters” cost China nearly 77bn yuan ($10.7bn) last month – “the biggest amount of losses for the month of July since 2021” – according to a further Reuters report.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Scientists told China Science Daily that “for every 1C increase in temperature, the environmental adaptability of selected wheat varieties decreases by 8.7%”, which means “climate change may limit the range of improved varieties available to farmers in developing countries”. According to state-run China Daily, the average temperature of the Yangtze River “under moderate emission scenarios” could rise by 2-4C, with rainfall potentially increasing by 10-30%, by the end of this century. The outlet added that “extreme precipitation events in the upper reaches of the Yangtze have been increasing in frequency and intensity”.

EU tariffs on Chinese EVs 

FINAL CONCLUSION: After a lengthy investigation into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs), the European Commission was expected to release its “final conclusions” by the end of the month, financial media Caixin reported. The outlet quoted the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products saying: “The conclusion…means that when Chinese EV makers set up factories in Europe, they may also be subject to investigation…and Europe may lose Chinese investments.”

WTO APPEAL: The Chinese Ministry of Commerce filed an appeal with the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 9 August over the EU’s imposition of additional tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). The ministry said the EU’s “preliminary ruling lacks a factual and legal basis, seriously violates WTO rules and undermines the overall situation of global cooperation in addressing climate change”, adding that “we urge the EU to immediately correct its wrong practices”. The Financial Times reported that the European Commission responded that it “was ‘carefully studying’ the details of the Chinese complaint” and would react “in due course, according to the WTO procedures”. The “escalated” trade dispute led China to launch an “anti-dumping” investigation into European dairy products, said the Financial Times. It is China’s third such probe, after brandy and pork, since the EU announced the tariffs. 

CHINA’S EV GROWTH: Reuters reported that, “thanks to China’s strongest growth this year and despite dropping demand in Europe”, the global EV market saw a 21% year-on-year increase in sales in July. The newswire added that 1.35m EVs were sold worldwide in July, of which 0.88m were in China. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that more than 10m EV charging stations had been installed in China, as of July, a year-on-year increase of 53%. A “large-scale upgrade” of the distribution grid was “urgently needed” to meet the growing electricity demand for EVs, reported energy news outlet BJX News. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continued to stimulate the purchase of EVs by doubling the purchasing subsidies to 20,000 yuan ($2,800), said another BJX News.

Coal plant approvals down

LESS APPROVAL: Approvals for new coal-fired power plants in China “dropped sharply” in the first half of this year, according to new analysis by Greenpeace East Asia covered by the Associated Press. Only 10.3 gigawatts (GW) of new coal (14 plants) were approved, down 80% from 50.4GW in the first half of last year, added the newswire. The reduction came “after a flurry of permits in the previous two years raised concern about the government’s commitment to limiting climate change”, it explained. Meanwhile, Reuters said, based on new project approval data, China’s combined wind and solar capacity exceeded coal capacity for the first time in the first half of a year, making up 84% of “all new grid-connected capacity”. The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top planner, issued a notice calling for a 25% increase in investments to upgrade China’s energy equipment from 2023 to 2027 with an aim of “help[ing] support the energy transition”, said another Reuters report.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: However, the Guardian, citing a joint report from Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said China still “led the world in the construction of new coal-fired power plants” in the first half of 2024. With 41GW under construction, China accounted for 90% of the world’s newly built coal plants so far this year, added the newspaper. 

Spotlight 

Managing methane emissions from China’s abandoned coal mines 

China is the world’s largest emitter of methane and has published several policy documents tackling coal mine methane emissions in recent months. The country has a large number of coal mines, of which nearly 9,500 have been abandoned. 

Analysts think methane emissions from the abandoned mines have been “underestimated”, which may mean that they are contributing more to rising global temperatures than currently believed. 

In this issue, Carbon Brief examines the difficulties in monitoring and incentivising methane capture in disused mines.

Why is abandoned mine methane important? 

Methane is the second largest contributor to human-caused global warming, responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution.

Global Energy Monitor estimates China’s annual coal-mine methane emissions (excluding small operations) to be 38.4m tonnes. According to the International Energy Agency, coal-related methane emissions from China are roughly “equivalent to the total CO2 emissions from international shipping”. 

While up to 15,000 coal mines could be closed down by 2030 and the demand for coal in China is – or soon will be – facing a “structural decline”, methane emissions from abandoned mines will not disappear. Instead, these mines are a significant source of “hidden” methane emissions. 

Although the exact quantity of emissions from abandoned coal mines is unknown, scientists believe they could become the dominant source of all coal-mine methane emissions by 2035 in China.

A study in Nature Climate Change estimates that abandoned mine methane emissions stood at 5.1m tonnes in 2019, “10 times higher than the official inventory China reported to UNFCCC and at least twice as high as other latest independent studies”. 

Independent policy consultant Liu Hongqiao told Carbon Brief that abandoned mine methane emissions might have peaked around the late-2010s. 

However, she added the Natural Climate Change study “indicates that abandoned coal mine methane emissions have surged in the past 10 years and will overtake emissions from active coal mines to become the prime source of methane emissions in the coal sector”.

She said that “the wave is coming”, with a ramping up of coal mine closures expected, but there are very few policy drivers or viable mitigation technologies in effect.

How is China approaching the problem?

In 2020, China proposed mapping out the methane mitigation and utilisation potentials for abandoned coal mines, as well as implementing pilot projects.

However, last month the country revised standards for coal-mine methane emissions and issued a draft methodology for measuring these emissions for its voluntary carbon market. Neither of these documents included abandoned mine emissions in their scope. 

In her Shuang Tan newsletter, Liu called this a “policy blindspot”. She added that “there are no emission standards or utilisation incentives [for abandoned mine methane], nor have coal mine closure guidelines incorporated technical details for abatement”.

However, the country is planning to improve accounting for greenhouse gases (GHG) in general. In its latest policy for “‘dual control’ of carbon emissions”, the country pledged to establish a “completed” statistics and accounting system for CO2 emissions by 2025. The system includes building a national database of GHG emission factors and developing other measurement and monitoring capabilities.

What are the challenges?

Making use of these methane emissions faces some practical limitations. “At present, coal mining companies are not incentivised to utilise abandoned coal mine methane,” Chen Mei’an, senior analyst with Beijing-based thinktank, iGDP, told Carbon Brief. 

Recent US-China cooperation on developing methane “capture and use” projects could create a path forward for addressing abandoned mine methane. But most coal mines in China are deep underground, which makes it harder to deploy this new technology. 

Measuring these emissions accurately is also challenging, Dorothy Mei, project manager at Global Energy Monitor, told Carbon Brief. She said that emissions are largely “based on estimates” using modelling rather than monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems. 

Last year, former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said at a COP28 event attended by Carbon Brief that China has a “poor foundation” for regulating methane and that developing MRV systems is a key priority. 

Nevertheless, developing MRV is only a first step. Scot Miller, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Carbon Brief that companies found it easier to extract methane from larger coal mines, whereas it was a “challenge to control methane emissions from…abandoned small mines”.

He added that the lack of infrastructure to transport methane from mines – particularly those in remote, mountainous locations – to nearby neighbourhoods for heating or cooking affected the profitability of potential projects. 

This Spotlight is written by freelance climate journalist Alok Gupta and Carbon Brief’s China analyst Anika Patel.

Watch, read, listen

‘GREEN CERTIFICATE’: China Energy Media Study (Zhongneng Chuanmei Yanjiuyan) proposed “suggestions” for “green electricity certificate” development in China.

STEEL ‘CRISIS’: Bloomberg published a report warning that an “industry crisis” in the Chinese steel sector carries the “potential to ripple around the globe and plunge the sector into a deeper downturn”.

THE GREAT WALL: State broadcaster CGTN produced a radio programme on China’s efforts “to address threats of climate change on [the] Great Wall”.

‘DE-RISK’ FROM CHINA: ​​The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published an article by Belinda Schäpe, China policy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, exploring ways to “de-risk green technology supply chains from China without risking climate catastrophe”.

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120GW

How much “pumped hydro capacity” China aims to reach by 2030, according to Bloomberg’s report citing an announcement from the National Energy Administration (NEA). The NEA said China had 55 gigawatt (GW) of installed hydro power capacity, as of June, added the outlet. 

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New science 

Drivers of long-term changes in summer compound hot extremes in China: Climate change, urbanisation, and vegetation greening

Atmospheric research

High building densities and wilting plants are among the main factors leading to intensifying “compound heat extremes” in China, according to new research. The analysis found that heat extremes in summer have been caused by 24 factors over the longer term. One factor, vegetation greening, reduced the regional frequency of compound heat extremes by 20-40% in northern China, the authors wrote, adding that “reducing building volume density and promoting vegetation greening” can reduce the risk of such extremes.

Environmental impacts of lithium supply chains from Australia to China

Environmental research letters 

A new study investigated the “environmental impacts and emission reduction pathways” of lithium’s supply chain. Focusing on Australia and China, where most lithium ore is mined and produced, the findings showed that nearly 30% of the total lithium extracted “is lost during the concentrate ore processing stage”, which is primarily due to inefficient technologies and low-grade ore, the authors said. They concluded that “enhancing energy and chemical efficiency through technology optimisation, equipment improvement and strategic production planning is crucial”.

China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected]