By Jeff Logan
Carbon dioxide emissions from China might pass those from the United States as early as 2009, according to the World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2006, released on November 7th by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. The recent forecast moves up by over a decade the agency’s previous forecast of China’s emergence as the nation with the greatest emissions, a position currently held by the U.S. The revision is based on the 13-percent-a-year average expansion in Chinese coal use since 2003.
China’s robust economic growth is largely responsible for the surge in coal use. China now burns over 2 billion tons per year, nearly twice the level of the U.S. Nonetheless, total Chinese energy use is currently one-third less than in the U.S. because of greater U.S. dependence on oil, gas, and nuclear.
Statistical uncertainties have now called into question the reliability of Chinese data. Energy use appeared to decline dramatically in the late 1990s, while the more recent surge appears to “conveniently” correct it [1] (see second paragraph below). To craft effective policy addressing global climate change, energy security, and environmental pollution, policymakers need a better understanding of the long-term relationship between energy use and economic growth, especially in China, so they can make better projections and thus better decisions.
Between 1980 and 2000, China quadrupled its gross domestic product but only doubled its energy demand, which saved China hundreds of millions of tons of coal combustion.
But since 2002, coal use has risen much faster than GDP. In response to the surge in energy growth, China has set the extremely ambitious target of reducing energy intensity (energy use per unit of GDP) by 20 percent over the next 5 years. Initial results for 2006 are not promising, although Chinese efforts to
Jeff Logan, Senior Associate IIJeff Logan is a Senior Associate who heads WRI’s project on carbon capture and sequestration. He has a dozen years of experience managing energy proejcts to promote sustainable energy use in Asia and the Americas, with a heavy focus on China.
