How the world’s biggest emitter could be carbon neutral by 2050 (excerpts): Vox

 "China’s road to net-zero emissions

The new study contains many significant recommendations; key among them is the timeline for China’s decarbonization.

When Xi Jinping announced the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, it was broadly interpreted to refer to carbon dioxide, the main gas driving global warming, and not other greenhouse gases, like methane or nitrous oxide. But the researchers suggest otherwise, saying China should reach net-zero for all greenhouse gases by 2060, and net-zero for carbon dioxide by 2050.

In his presentation of the results on Monday, He Jiankun, a Tsinghua professor and climate expert who co-led the study, said his understanding is that Xi’s goal of “carbon neutrality” by 2060 was referring to all greenhouse gases. An expert source told China Dialogue that this interpretation shouldn’t be understood as the official government stance until it is further clarified. But if official, it would mean China would have to cut emissions more rapidly over the coming decades.

The research also shows what net-zero emissions might look like for the world’s top emitter. Under their net-zero emissions scenario, the researchers propose almost entirely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy in the electricity sector, leaving coal power at less than 5 percent of power generation — a massive drop from the almost 70 percent coal supplied in 2019." .....

.................

.... "What to watch for in the coming year

Although this new study has strong backing from people with connections to the highest levels of government, its place in China’s official plans will be clearer when China submits its “mid-century strategy,” a document that all signatories of the Paris Agreement are requested to complete by the end of 2020 to chart out long-term decarbonization. (China is expected to release this document sometime in the next few months.)

As for more immediate decision-making, the study authors also recommend that China upgrade its climate and energy targets under the Paris Agreement and in its five-year plan. China’s carbon emissions are still growing — last year saw a 2 percent increase — so the authors advise that the next five-year plan set a hard cap on carbon emissions at 10.5 billion tons. As for setting new Paris Agreement targets this year, one key recommendation is to up the 2030 target from 20 percent non-fossil fuel energy generation to 25 percent to speed China’s renewable energy build-out.

Whether China adopts these upgraded targets in the coming months will be a first real indication of how and when the country plans to get to net zero."

Go to Vox article

Related: A nine-point plan for the UK to achieve net zero carbon emissions (excerpts): Guardian

 

China,methane gas,carbon capture,trees,coal,Paris Agreement,#climate crisis,#climatechange, #wewantclimateactionnow

China's zero emissions target puts Australia on notice (excerpts): The Age

 

Flag: Peoples Republic of China

"Australia's former top climate diplomat has warned China's net-zero emissions target will leave Australia behind, threatening future trade deals and its influence in the Pacific as the Morrison government becomes wedged between the US and China on climate action.

Howard Bamsey, who was Australia's special envoy on climate change during the Rudd government, said the announcement from President Xi Jinping last week had turned the politics of emissions reduction into a sharp economic and diplomatic issue.

Renewables consumption by region

Exajoules

*Commonwealth of Independent States

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020

 

Professor Bamsey, who was also Australia's ambassador for the environment under the Howard government, said the new policy "pulls the rug out from under the argument" that Australia's domestic climate goals do not need to accelerate because China was yet to increase its ambitions.

"It's clear now China is accepting a leadership role," he said. "Xi made the announcement. That carries all the weight of the state and party.".."

..............

".. Professor Bamsey said the UK, European Union and a potential Biden presidency will pressure Australia to match their climate goals ahead of Glasgow.

"We are an internationally connected economy and we will have to adopt the policies of our trading partners, including our main partner in China," he said. "We won't be able to continue to provide goods and services and ignore the climate dimension.".."

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".. The director of the European Union's Centre of Excellence at RMIT, Bruce Wilson, said China's pledge would increase pressure on Australia as it attempts to negotiate free trade deals with the EU and Britain.

"If anyone is trying to do a trade deal with the EU, the Paris deal is non-negotiable," he said.

Professor Wilson said it was still not clear if the EU would accept Australia's use of Kyoto carryover credits to meet its obligations and said a "carbon border tax" was on the agenda for countries not compliant with the EU's environmental standards.

"If you are exporting an emissions heavy product into Europe there will be a tax on that," he said.

"Chief negotiators from the EU and Australia were expected to brief stakeholders about progress on the trade deal on Wednesday afternoon. ..."

Go to The Age article  

 

 Related: Class action to stop planned coal mine extension filed by climate action-focused Australian teenagers (excerpt): ABC

 

carbon tariffs,European Union,China,impose trade tariffs on carbon offenders,coal,#renewables,#Australia,#climatechange,

 

 

Australian PM says China must step up on climate change as 'newly developed' nation: The Guardian

"Scott Morrison uses keynote speech of US visit to say China should be doing more to combat the climate crisis"

 
"Scott Morrison has challenged China to do more heavy lifting on climate change, saying Australia welcomes its economic growth, but that prosperity and power also come with responsibility.
The Australian prime minister used the keynote speech of his US visit, at the Chicago Institute for Global Affairs on Monday, to praise China’s “economic maturity”. Morrison characterised China as a “newly developed” rather than a developing economy, and argued that status conferred developed-world obligations on the Chinese leadership."

BUT
 

"Guardian Australia revealed earlier this month Morrison was not attending the New York summit, despite the fact he will arrive at the UN later on Monday. Australia is deploying the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the Australian ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, instead. Only countries with new concrete commitments to announce were allocated speaking spots at the event."

...and Australia was not allocated a speaking spot!!!!!!

Read the complete story

Greta Thunberg condemns world leaders in emotional speech at UN : The Guardian

• Thunberg, 16, says governments have betrayed young people
• ‘You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us’

“The summit was designed to accelerate countries’ ambition to address the climate crisis amid increasingly urgent warnings by scientists. A new UN analysis has found that commitments to cut planet-warming gases must be at least tripled and increased by up to fivefold if the world is to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement of holding the temperature rise to at least 2C above the pre-industrial era.“

Read complete The Guardian story

Climate change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help: BBC

Average Warming projected by 2100

"The UN has warned that the goal of limiting global warming to "well below 2C above pre-industrial levels" is in danger because major economies, including the US and the EU, are falling short of their pledges.


But scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the leading international body on global warming - argue the 2C pledge in the 2015 Paris accord didn't go far enough. The global average temperature rise actually needs to be kept below 1.5C, they say.


So how warm has the world got and what can we do about it?"

Read the article

China’s Climate Progress May Have Faltered in 2018, But It Seems to Be on the Right Path: DESMOG

 "In short, despite recent fluctuations, I remain optimistic that China remains on the path toward meeting its Paris target of capping carbon emissions by 2030 and deriving 20 percent of its energy from sources other than oil, gas and coal.

Despite the recent setbacks, the most likely scenario is that China’s emissions will peak before 2030. How quickly they might decline after 2030 is not yet clear.

This is not to say China is doing everything it can to combat climate change.

Like the U.S. and all other countries, China must make its climate policies more ambitious if the world is to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, as the Paris climate accord is intended to do. For example, global emissions will be lower in the long run if China phases out its fossil fuel subsidies and stops building coal-fired power plants in other countries.

But given the pace of its economic growth, China’s accomplishments to date are notable. As the Center for American Progress, a think tank, found, if regulatory trends continue, by 2020 no American coal plants would meet China’s carbon emission standards.

That is a good reminder that the whole world, and not just China, needs to do more if we are to be spared from the worst impacts of climate change.


Phillip Stalley is Associate Professor and Fulbright Scholarship Program Advisor at DePaul University.


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


Main image: A woman in Beijing wearing a mask to avoid inhaling smog passes an anti-pollution mural. Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong"

Will China Save the Planet? A Medium article

"As climate studies grow more urgent and the Trump administration continues to undermine climate action, all eyes are on the world’s biggest country — and currently its biggest polluter — to model the way forward."


"As a U.S.–based environmental advocate whose focus is on China, I’m in a unique position to compare and contrast the trajectories of both countries — the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon — as they grapple with the enormous threat of climate change and take steps to combat it. In my new book, Will China Save The Planet?, I explore one key difference in how the governments of the two nations are addressing the issue. While the United States under President Trump has shamefully stalled on the very real climate progress that was made during the Obama administration, China has owned up to its oversize role in putting greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere. Accordingly, it has committed itself to play an oversize role in slowing the CO2 juggernaut and establishing the groundwork for a 21st-century clean-energy economy."


#china #greenhousegaspollution #climate crisis #trumpadministration #climatecrisis

Will China Save the Planet?

As climate studies grow more urgent and the Trump administration continues to undermine climate action, all…

Barbara Finamore in Natural Resources Defense Council6 min read

Rolling Stone: The Truth About These Climate Change Numbers

"A new report shows carbon emissions are moving in the wrong direction, and we’re running out of time."

"A new report issued this week by the Global Carbon Project shows that, far from making progress, we’re going in exactly the opposite direction. After several years when global carbon emissions flatlined, giving hope to some that the turning point had come, the new report shows that carbon emissions are projected to increase by 2.7 percent in 2018. That may not sound like a lot, but given what’s at stake with our rapidly changing climate, it’s the equivalent of an alcoholic who had sworn to go cold turkey taking a couple of shots of Jack Daniels at lunch."

 #carbon #china #usa #coalmining #globalwarming #climateaction #carbondioxide #1.5 degrees

Read the Rolling Stone Article

Nature Communications: Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges

"Tightening the warming goal of each country’s effort-sharing approach to aspirational levels of 1.1 °C and 1.3 °C could achieve the 1.5 °C and well-below 2 °C-thresholds, respectively. 

This new hybrid allocation reconciles the bottom-up nature of the Paris Agreement with its top-down warming thresholds and provides a temperature metric to assess NDCs. When taken as benchmark by other countries, the NDCs of India, the EU, the USA and China lead to 2.6 °C, 3.2 °C, 4 °C and over 5.1 °C warmings, respectively."

Read the full Nature Communications article

The Guardian: Policies of China, Russia and Canada threaten 5C climate change, study finds

"Ranking of countries’ goals shows even EU on course for more than double safe level of warming."

"China, Russia and Canada’s current climate policies would drive the world above a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study that ranks the climate goals of different countries.
The US and Australia are only slightly behind with both pushing the global temperature rise dangerously over 4C above pre-industrial levels says the paper, while even the EU, which is usually seen as a climate leader, is on course to more than double the 1.5C that scientists say is a moderately safe level of heating.

The study, published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications, assesses the relationship between each nation’s ambition to cut emissions and the temperature rise that would result if the world followed their example."

Read the full the Guardian article