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Analysis: Decline in China’s coal consumption accelerates

China’s coal use declined 3.7% in 2015, according to official statistics released by the Chinese government today.

This is the second year running that the consumption of China’s most polluting fuel has declined. What’s more, the reduction took place while the economy grew.

The data will raise hopes that coal use in the country has finally peaked.

The statistics reveal that the decline in coal is accelerating. In 2014, China’s coal use declined by 2.9%. The year before that, it increased by 3.7%, illustrating the country’s marked energy turnaround.

Meanwhile, renewables continued to grow, with solar capacity increasing by 74% in 2015, and wind by 34%.

According to Greenpeace analysis of the figures, this means that China’s CO₂ emissions declined by 1-2% in 2015.

The role of coal

The significance of China’s coal use extends beyond its national borders. In particular, it is one of the major factors globally that determines progress in tackling climate change.

Responsible for 30% of total emissions, China is the world’s largest emitter. In 2014, it emitted about as much CO₂ as the US, EU and India combined.

The majority of this pollution is tied to coal.

According to EU data, the fuel constitutes 73% of China’s fossil fuel consumption, and is responsible for 83% of the CO₂ emissions that result from burning fossil fuels. This reflects its higher carbon intensity compared to oil and gas, where consumption continues to rise.

The data released today shows that coal is now responsible for 64% of China’s total energy consumption.

The Chinese government does not regularly release official estimates of domestic emissions. However, using other official data as a proxy, including coal and electricity consumption, other analysts have tried to calculate a figure on its behalf.

In 2014, as China’s coal use fell by 2.9%, studies variously found that Chinese emissions declined by 0.7%, or saw a small growth of 1.2% or 0.9%, depending on how analysts made the calculation. Recent revisions to China’s fuel consumption and pollution are testament to how notoriously difficult this undertaking can be.

Regardless of the precise figure, it should be obvious that this represents a dramatic slowdown from the first decade of the 2000s, when China’s emissions were increasing at a rate of around 10% per year.

As the largest emitter, trends in Chinese emissions visibly influence the global picture.

Alongside declining coal use and (arguably) declining Chinese emissions, 2014 was also a landmark year for global emissions.

At the same time as the global economy expanded, emissions almost stalled, rising by only 0.6%, according to a Nature paper, which Carbon Brief covered at the time. Estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA) went even further, stating that global emissions actually did stall in 2014.

This contrasts to annual growth of around 4% for the past decade.

The decline across coal, Chinese emissions and global emissions appears to have not only repeated, but also accelerated, in 2015.

An early estimate published in Nature, based upon low Chinese coal consumption for the first eight months of the year, found that China’s emissions declined by 3.9% in 2015, with global emissions correspondingly shrinking by 0.6%.

This happened at the same time as Chinese and global economies grew by 6.9% and2.4%, respectively, showing that it is possible to decouple economic growth from emissions.

Analysis by Glen Peters, a senior researcher at CICERO, of the statistics found that China’s CO2 emissions dropped by 1.9% in 2015, albeit with large uncertainties.