|
|
|
|
|
|---|
|
Energy intensity
|
16 per cent improvement
|
15 per cent
improvement
|
13.5 per cent
Improvement
|
|
|
Non-fossil fuels
|
11.4 per cent of energy
|
15 per cent of energy
|
20 per cent of energy
|
20 per cent of energy
|
|
Carbon intensity
|
17 per cent
improvement
|
18 per cent
improvement
|
18 per cent
improvement
|
60–65 per cent below 2005 levels
|
|
CO₂ emissions
|
|
|
|
Peaking of emissions around 2030
|
Source: Lewis, J. (2011), ‘Energy and Climate Goals of China’s 12th Five Year Plan’, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/Energy_climate_goals_china_twelfth_five_year_plan_Pew.pdf; Bloomberg (2021), ‘This Is How Top Polluter China Plans to Be Greener by 2025’, 5 March 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/this-is-how-top-polluter-china-plans-to-be-greener-by-2025.
In contradiction to its push towards greater use of renewables, 40.8 GW of new coal plants were in the proposal process in China as of June 2020, the equivalent of the entire coal fleet of South Africa, while 11 GW of new plants were in operation. Despite this, China has continually exceeded its targets for energy intensity and renewable energy. Furthermore, slower growth in power demand combined with the rapid deployment of renewables has led to a reduction in the utilization of its existing coal fleet.
China’s NDC submission to the UNFCCC for the first time indicated that it would aim to achieve peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and make best efforts to peak early. China has also said that it aims to increase forest cover by around 4.5 billion cubic metres, relative to 2005 levels. In September 2020, to the surprise of many, President Xi said China would increase its NDC, ‘We aim to have CO₂ emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. We call on all countries to pursue innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all’. Then, at the UN Climate Ambition Summit in December, it was announced that China would lower its CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP by 65 per cent from 2005 levels and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 per cent by 2030. However, as of early 2021, China has still to submit a revised NDC.
China’s NDC submission to the UNFCCC for the first time indicated that it would aim to achieve peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and make best efforts to peak early.
President Xi’s announcement gives the impression of support for multilateralism, in contrast to the US approach under President Donald Trump. It was also made at a time when Joe Biden, who is more progressive than Trump on climate ambition, looked to be the favourite to win the US presidential election. One can wonder if President Xi’s announcement was timed to ensure that China retains its global status as leading the world in a new phase of more ambitious climate action.
Negotiations are currently underway for China’s 14th five-year plan for 2021–25, which will be approved early in 2021. While it is possible that its current intensity targets will remain in place there are calls for energy consumption caps to be replaced with a carbon emissions cap, more in line with the NDC.
The European Union
The EU has developed a framework to combine climate and energy objectives, and it has aligned these with the reporting framework of the UNFCCC. Its first draft climate and energy package was adopted in 2009, with 2020 targets designed to comply with the Copenhagen Accord. In 2014, the 2030 framework was adopted before COP21. The cornerstones of both packages were energy efficiency targets, the use of renewable energy and cuts in GHG emissions (see Table 2).
|
|
|
|
|---|
|
Energy efficiency
|
16.7 per cent
|
20 per centª
|
32.5 per cent
|
|
Renewable energy (per cent of energy consumption)
|
17.5 per cent
|
20 per cent
|
32 per cent
|
|
Emissions reductions (1990 baseline)
|
21.7 per cent
|
20 per cent
|
at least 55 per cent
|
Source: European Commission (2020), ‘Statistics Explained – Energy’, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy.
ª The envisaged 20 per cent saving amounts to an absolute reduction of 370 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), resulting in a target primary energy consumption of no more than 1,483 mtoe for 2020. Compared with the actual primary energy consumption in 2005, this is equivalent to a reduction of 13.4 per cent. The EU had already reached its 2020 target for final energy consumption in 2014, but the increased consumption in subsequent years means an additional 3.3 per cent reduction was required between 2017 and 2020. In absolute terms this means that by 2020 EU energy consumption should not exceed 1,483 mtoe of primary energy or 1,086 mtoe of final energy.
The new European Commission, elected in 2019, has put climate change front and centre of its objectives. During her first State of the Union speech, President Ursula von der Leyen proposed to increase the EU climate-mitigation target to reduce emissions by ‘at least 55 per cent’ compared to 1990 by 2030.
However, given the relatively ambitious nature of the EU’s approach, there is no unanimity among member states and the EU institutions as to the importance of climate change, and therefore on the details of the target. In October 2020, the European Parliament voted for stronger action, with a target of 60 per cent by 2030. In the run up to EU Council meetings that month, member states let their position be known. Germany supported a target of at least 55 per cent – which was more ambitious than that proposed by the European Commission with support from the likes of Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Some of the members from Central Europe pushed back. The target was adopted by the European Council in December 2020, but loopholes might well be included, such as carbon offsetting, which continues to be poorly regulated.
In addition to its domestic action and its engagement within the UNFCCC, the EU undertakes bilateral cooperation programmes. These have included the 2005 EU–China Partnership on Climate, in which cooperation goals for 2020 included to ‘develop and demonstrate, in China and the EU, advanced “zero emissions” coal technology’ and to ‘significantly reduce the cost of key energy technologies and promote their deployment and dissemination’ (namely energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean coal, methane recovery, carbon capture, hydrogen, and power generation and transmission). However, the development of zero emissions coal technology has not moved forward, either in the EU or China.
Significant cost improvements have been achieved in energy efficiency and renewable energy. How much this is due to EU–Chinese cooperation is impossible to determine. However, it is clear that setting ambitious targets creates market signals and increases the investment certainty for manufacturers, particularly in China.
At the 2018 summit, the EU and China reaffirmed the importance of combatting climate change and their commitment to cooperation on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. In 2020, a postponed autumn summit was expected to prioritize climate change and build momentum towards COP26. A read-out from the ‘virtual summit’, held instead in September, stated that ‘the EU encouraged China to strengthen its climate commitments in terms of peaking carbon dioxide emissions and setting the goal of climate neutrality domestically’.
The partisan nature of the climate change debate in America impacts the EU’s ability to cooperate with the US to progress climate ambition. An EU official once said the polarized nature of the climate debate in the US provided European countries with ‘cycles of hope and despair’. Relations with the administration of President Obama were more productive from the European perspective. A 2014 White House factsheet stated, ‘Recognizing the need for a common approach to these global challenges, the United States and the European Union continue to build our cooperation on issues from energy and climate change’. However, it is clear that, while the US is important regardless of changes in administrations, the EU has continued to invest more in developing climate cooperation and joint programmes with China.
Last July, the European Council agreed the EU’s COVID-19 recovery plan and its 2021–27 Multiannual Financial Framework. These promote the mainstreaming of climate action so that ‘all EU expenditure should be consistent with Paris Agreement objectives’ and that all its programmes should ‘comply with the objective of EU climate neutrality by 2050 and contribute to achieving the Union’s new 2030 climate targets’. Furthermore, the European Council called for ‘at least 30 per cent of the total amount of Union budget and NGEU (a specific recovery effort under Next Generation EU) expenditures supporting climate objectives’. In order to enforce this, the European Commission is to report annually on climate expenditure.
Having left the EU, the UK now has an independent climate and energy policy, although these areas are included in the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Importantly, the UK must submit its own NDC to the UNFCCC and has left the EU’s Emissions Trading System. In December 2020, the UK government announced its 2030 emissions target of a 68 per cent reduction relative to 1990 levels, which is seen by many as an ambitious target. However, at least in the short term, the UK and EU will likely retain close cooperation on climate issues. For instance, COP26 will be jointly hosted by Italy and the UK, which will also hold the G20 and G7 presidencies, respectively, this year. This should enable increased emphasis and cooperation on key climate-mitigation policies, as well as political coordination in the build-up to COP26.
The United States
By some distance the US has contributed more to historical global GHG emissions than any other country, having emitted 457 billion tonnes of CO₂ or 29 per cent of the global total (followed by the EU at 22 per cent and China at 13 per cent). This is a result of its geographical size and population density (which has caused high passenger-vehicle emissions), wealth and consumer spending, large fossil-fuel resources, as well as the structure of its economy. As mentioned above, the last decade has seen a significant shift in the exploitation of shale oil and gas in the US. The ‘shale revolution’ has seen annual production of oil increase from 333 mtoe to 747 mtoe between 2010 and 2019, while the production of gas grew from 575 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 920 bcm over the same period. This has had a profound impact not only on declining energy imports, but also on the domestic production and consumption of other energy sources.
Despite pledges of support for the industry from President Trump, the use of coal has continued to decline. In 2014, coal produced 38.6 per cent of the country’s electricity, but this had fallen to 23.4 per cent by 2019, and the US Energy Information Agency predicted that the figure would drop to 19 per cent in 2020 and be surpassed by renewable energy. The use of renewable energy (particularly wind) has increased and it is the fastest-growing energy source in the US, doubling between 2000 and 2018. Renewables made up more than 17 per cent of US electricity generation in 2018, with the bulk coming from hydropower (7 per cent) and wind power (6.6 per cent).
Climate change and environmental protection are more partisan political issues in the US than in the EU. Historically, Republican leaders have been less ambitious than Democratic ones in this regard. During the presidency of Barack Obama, the US took an active and, to some degree leading, role in the Copenhagen and Paris COPs, which helped to raise global ambition. Prior to the Paris COP, the US proposed to reduce its emissions by 26–28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. To meet domestic targets, higher federally mandated emission reductions were enacted or proposed. For example, the Clean Power Plan – which was repealed by the Trump administration – could have led to a 32 per cent reduction in power-sector emissions by 2030. The Trump administration also rolled back or weakened legislation relating to emission standards for cars and trucks as well as to energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. However, states and cities in the US have a high degree of autonomy in their energy and climate policies, and the Trump administration’s reticence to take ambitious action on environmental issues often resulted in strong action at the subnational level.
The Biden administration can start rebuilding multilateral relations and showing the way for progressive leadership that, while not directly about climate, reinforces international rules-based governance.
The election of President Biden will lead to significant changes in US climate change policy domestically and internationally. His campaign platform included ‘setting a net zero 2050 target’ and demanding that Congress enacts legislation in his first year in office to establish ‘an enforcement mechanism to achieve the 2050 goal, including a target no later than the end of his first term in 2025’.
The Biden administration could offer a clear opportunity for the US to return to the heart of international climate institutions and processes. It can also start rebuilding multilateral relations and showing the way for progressive leadership that, while not directly about climate, reinforces international rules-based governance. As well as agreeing a 2050 net zero target, the US will have to submit an NDC for 2030, as it has now re-joined the Paris Agreement. This is likely to be in the range of a 45–50 per cent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels. For this to be influential in relation to COP26, the US NDC is likely to be published before the summer of 2021. The Democrats having narrowly taken control of the Senate as well as the House in recent elections leaves the administration marginally more able to secure congressional approval for implementing the more ambitious aspects of Biden’s campaign pledges. Like Obama and Trump before, Biden could bypass Congress by using executive orders, but the ease with which these can be overturned by his successor means this is not a long-term solution.
The international community takes note of the potentially short-lived nature of US climate policy and therefore the Biden administration will have to go the extra mile to demonstrate that there has been an impactful change in policy. The administration not only has an opportunity to signal that it will re-enter the processes of the UNFCCC, it also has to set a far-reaching domestic carbon-reduction plan – exceeding that of the Obama administration – that further acts as a global catalyst for ambitious pledges by others. However, international climate leaders will be looking for domestic policies and measures that can bridge the political divide in the US and offer long-term stability in the government’s position.
