Nature Climate Change: China's Coal Data Way Too Squishy To Justify "Decoupling" Celebration

[hatrack]

Last edited Tue Mar 29, 2016, 09:15 AM - Edit history (1)

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) has been among those saying that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions by China, the biggest emitter, fell in 2015 and 2014 in what it hailed as a shift to cleaner energy after years of fast growth. "Headlines about falling emissions may be misinterpreting the numbers," the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, (CICERO) said in a statement of a report published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

China has promised to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by around 2030 as part of a 195-nation plan agreed in Paris in December to combat climate change, blamed for stoking more downpours, heatwaves and rising sea levels. But CICERO pointed to uncertainties in China's coal data, and frequent revisions.

It said Beijing has reported that coal consumption, measured by weight, fell 3.7 percent last year as economic growth slowed. But China is also using higher quality coal, which releases more energy and carbon dioxide per ton when burnt. By that yardstick, China's coal energy consumption fell by just 1.5 percent last year, it said.

Overall, CICERO estimated China's carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, including oil and gas, dipped by just 0.1 percent in 2015 after a gain of 0.5 percent in 2014. "Given uncertainties in the statistics, it is not possible to conclude whether Chinese carbon dioxide emissions went up or down in 2015," said Glen Peters, an author at CICERO. China's climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said on March 7 that carbon emissions were still rising.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-china-idUSKCN0WU1CU

[NickB79]

1. And if their coal consumption drops this year, a sizeable portion is due to their economy slowing

Which would also undermine the economic decoupling hypothesis.