The EconomistSeptember 21st 2019 671A
fterdonaldtrumpbecameAmeri-
ca’spresidentin 2017 andthumbedhis
noseatinternationaleffortstocurbglobal
warming,Chinaemergedasa herointhe
campaign.OtherWesternleaderswerere-
lievedthatitdidnottaketheopportunity
tobackawayaswell—afterall,ithadonce
condemnedclimate-changetalkasWest-
ernfearmongeringaimedatundermining
China’seconomic growth.The country’s
president,XiJinping,wonwidespreadap-
plauseforinsistingthatemissionsgoals
agreedattheun’s climatemeetinginParis
in 2015 mustbeupheld.
Nowenvironmentalistswonderwheth-
erChinawillleadthechargeina newround
ofclimatediplomacy.Oneaimofthecli-
matesummitattheun’sheadquarterson
September23rdistoremindcountriesthat
theywillneedmoreambitioustargetsif
the world is to keep global warming below
2°C.Workisgettingunderway on drawing
upChina’snextfive-yeareconomic plan,
whichwilltakeeffectin2021. It will be a
testofChina’swillingnessto raise its game.
Earlysignsarenotpromising.
Chinacertainlylookswell on track to
fulfilthepledgesitmadeat the Paris con-
ference: that carbon-dioxide emissions
wouldreachafinalpeak“around 2030”,
and thatbythenone-fifth of its energy
wouldcomefromnon-fossil sources, up
fromone-sixthcurrently.In2015 its carbon
emissions,havingsurgedin many of the
precedingyears,fellslightly for the first
timethiscentury(see chart, next page).
This wasbecause Chinawas no longerflooding its economy with money in order
to combat the effects of the global financial
crisis of 2008. It was also the result of vast
green projects launched by the govern-
ment to assuage public anger over toxic air
and other environmental damage. The
smog choking China’s cities was being
caused, not least, by the burning of coal
which was also responsible for much of the
country’s greenhouse-gas emissions. The
air in Beijing (pictured), though still often
awful, appears cleaner than it was a few
years ago.
The proportion of China’s energy that is
produced from coal, the most polluting of
fossil fuels, is still high. But it has de-
creased by more than ten percentage
points over the past decade, to below 60%.
A third of the world’s electricity-generating
capacity from wind is now in China, as are a
quarter of the world’s solar panels in use.
The country is building 11 more nuclear re-
actors, to add to its existing 47. From next
year China will start requiring fossil-fu-
elled power firms to buy and sell credits in
a national carbon-trading scheme—
though it may be years before the system
results in big cuts in emissions.
But the pledges made in Paris by China
and the world’s other main emitters of glo-
bal-warming gasses are far from enough.
Fulfilling them may still allow tempera-
tures to rise by 3-3.5°C, which would be cat-Climate-changetargets
Fromsmogtoslog
BEIJING
Chinahasuphelditspledgesongreenhouse-gasemissions.Itmustdo a lot more
China
68 Scienceanddissent
69 Chaguan: Atheist officials show
respect for a goddessAlso in this section