China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024 in the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from its “zero-Covid” lockdowns in December 2022.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows China remains on track for a decline in annual emissions this year.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
China’s energy demand grew by 4.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024. This is slower than the growth seen in 2023 and in the first quarter of this year, but is still much higher than the pre-Covid trend.
CO2 emissions from energy use and cement production fell by 1% in the second quarter. When combined with a sharp 6.5% increase in January-February and a monthly decline in March, there was a 1.3% rise in CO2 emissions across the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2023.
Electricity generation from wind and solar grew by 171 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of the year, more than the total power output of the UK in the same period of 2023.
China’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – only improved by 5.5%, well short of the 7% needed to meet the country’s intensity target for 2025.
This was despite a one-off boost from China’s hydropower fleet recovering from drought.
Compared with a year earlier, the increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on China’s roads cut demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
Manufacturing solar panels, EVs and batteries was only responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024.
The fact that this sounds impossible gives you a hint about the state that the world is in right now. Hopefully China's efforts are not for naught.
The impressive part imo is not the decline itself, it's the fact that they are managing to do this while also maintaining very good economic growth.
Usually emissions and growth are strongly correlated and it's natural to see a reduction when your economy is shrinking as happened during Covid. But as these graphs show, China has been working very hard to decouple these two things, to stabilize or even lower emissions while also continuing to develop their country, steadily increasing the prosperity of their people.
It is also very impressive that their increase in green energy generation this month now covers the average monthly increase in total generation for the first time, which means we have serious hope for China's emissions to peak in the coming months