Official: China mining more coal but increasing wind, solar

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (BNA) – China plans to increase coal production until 2025 to avoid a repeat of last year’s energy shortage, adding to the setbacks in efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the world’s largest exporter.

China is a big investor in wind and solar power, but nervous Communist Party leaders have called for more coal-fired power after economic growth slumped last year and shortages caused blackouts. That has sparked warnings that carbon emissions will rise faster until 2030, when the government says they should peak, according to the Associated Press.

The ruling party aims to increase annual coal production to 4.6 billion tons in 2025. That will be a 12% increase from last year’s 4.1 billion tons, Deputy Director of the Cabinet’s National Energy Administration Ren Jingdong said at a press conference.

Ensuring an adequate power supply is available is particularly sensitive after economic growth eased to 2.2% during the first six months of this year to 2.2% during the first six months of this year, less than half the official target of 5.5%. The ruling party had earlier called for an increase in this year’s production by 300 million tons, or about 7% of last year’s production.

The challenges of relying on renewable sources have been highlighted by the dry summer that has left reservoirs in southwest China too low for hydropower.

Ren said officials are trying to ensure that China achieves targets in the ruling party’s latest five-year development plan for non-fossil fuel sources to supply 20% of energy by 2025 and 25% by 2030. This includes wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and thermal, he said. subterranean.

Beijing has spent tens of billions of dollars on solar and wind farms to reduce dependence on imported oil and gas and clean up its smog-ridden cities. China accounted for about half of the global investment in wind and solar energy in 2020. However, coal is expected to provide 60% of its energy in the near future.

The authorities say it is reducing carbon emissions per unit of economic output. The government reported a 3.8% drop last year, an improvement over the 1% 2020 gain but down from a 5.1% cut in 2017.

Total energy use last year rose 5.2% compared to 2020 after the recovery in global demand for Chinese exports led to a manufacturing boom, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

FAE