New coal plants in China soar despite President Xi’s pledge to ‘strictly control’ dirtiest fuel
China ramped up coal power capacity last year, according to new analysis, despite a pledge to “strictly control” the dirtiest fossil fuel.
The country added 47.4 Gigawatts (GW) of new coal power in 2023, more than double the amount added by the rest of the world combined.
It raises concerns that gains in clean power, including by China, are being undermined by the persistent use of coal, the worst energy form for climate change and air pollution.
Analysts say China may not use all the capacity it has built.
Beijing has promised to reduce coal consumption from 2026, and said its polices align with the international Paris Agreement on climate.
But the surge drove an increase in global coal by 2% last year, the first uptick since 2019, though other countries were responsible too, Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said.
The global rise comes two years after countries promised at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow to “transition away” from coal.
GEM said it could just be a “blip”.
But Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, which are battling rising sea levels, said fossil fuel support is “unacceptable”.
Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the UK government’s Climate Change Committee, called it “worrying”.
While extra capacity may not end up being used, “without strong regulation and polices that prevent it from being used, 2023 will not be seen as just a blip and future emissions rise will be inevitable”, Prof Forster said.
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China’s coal spree is “very out of line” with a promise made by President Xi in 2021 to “strictly control” new coal power, said Flora Champenois, GEM coal programme director.
It also threatens a Chinese Communist Party target to shut down 30GW of coal power by 2025 – with only 9GW retired in the last few years.
“This coal boom – in terms of new coal plants coming online, new permits being awarded, new construction starting, no signs of a slowdown, no signs of retirement on the horizon – does not align with the commitment to strictly control coal,” Ms Champenois told Sky News.
But the new coal plants do “not necessarily mean that China is going to increase an equivalent scale of CO2 emissions,” said Qi Qin, China analyst for Research on Energy and Clean Air, who also wrote the report.
That’s because China is “increasing its renewable power capacities by [the same] scale too”, she said.
China has recently built more solar power than the rest of the world combined, and is on track to meet a 2030 clean power goal five years early.
The surge is partly fuelled by power shortage fears after a 2022 drought shrivelled water supplies for China’s hydropower.
But it already has more coal power than it needs, said Ms Qin, but a rigid grid system makes it hard for provinces to share power, meaning many are building their own coal plants.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting a coal yard Pic: Xinhua News Agency,
‘Blip’ or ‘unacceptable’?
Seven other countries added new coal power in 2023 too, GEM found.
Those were Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Japan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Korea, Greece, and Zimbabwe.
But GEM also partly blamed the global net increase in coal power on rich countries stalling plant closures amid the energy crisis in 2022.
Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege, said: “We can’t afford blips.”
She told Sky News: “Since the start of the year, my country has been reeling from one climate-induced emergency to another, with flooding from king tides and drought affecting communities throughout the islands.”
Coal power, still the single largest source of emissions globally, must be “phased out as soon as possible” to avoid “catastrophic sea level rise and [save] lives and livelihoods”, she said.
She called it “unacceptable” the world has hardly started on shifting the trillion dollar subsidies for the fossil fuel industry to clean alternatives.
A spokesperson from the Chinese embassy in London said China will go from peaking emissions to carbon neutrality “in the shortest span of time ever in the world”.
“Our climate policies and objectives are fully consistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.
“Today, close to half of the world’s installed [solar PV] capacity is in China, over half of the world’s new energy vehicles run on roads in China, and one-fourth of the world’s increased area of afforestation is in China.”
They added: “We are also working to cultivate large-scale new growth drivers in green infrastructure, green energy, green transportation and green lifestyle.”
The UK’s jobless rate ticked up to 4.6% in April while payrolled employment has fallen sharply since, according to official figures covering the period when budget tax hikes on businesses came into effect.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the new unemployment rate covering the three months to April was the highest since July 2021.
It had previously stood at 4.5% – a total of more than 1.6 million people.
At 4.6%, it is above the peak level predicted for this year, just in March, by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
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Figures from the taxman also highlighted by the ONS showed the number of people in payrolled employment during May fell by 109,000 – double April’s revised figure of 55,000 and the biggest monthly drop in five years.
The ONS Labour Force Survey data was the first to cover April’s rises in employer national insurance contributions and the national living wage – hikes to costs for businesses which lobby groups had warned would result in job losses, price rises and lower wage settlements.
The ONS figures showed average weekly earnings, excluding the effects of bonuses, over the three months to April were weaker, from a downwardly revised 5.5% to 5.2% year on year.
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Liz McKeown, ONS director of economic statistics, said: “There continues to be weakening in the labour market, with the number of people on payroll falling notably.
“Feedback from our vacancies survey suggests some firms may be holding back from recruiting new workers or replacing people when they move on.”
The ONS data piles more pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves, just a day after she confirmed her winter fuel U-turn would cost £1.25bn.
She has consistently defenced her budget, arguing the taxes on business were a one-off necessary evil to account for a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances inherited from the last government.
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Employment minister Alison McGovern said in response to the data: “Six months after we launched Get Britain Working, we are already seeing the benefits with economic activity at a record high, with 500,000 more people in employment since we entered office and real wages growing more since July than in the decade after 2010.
“People all over the country are benefiting from increased training opportunities and the newly launched Jobs and Careers Service will allow us to test new and innovative approaches to personalise employment support.”
Despite the wage figure easing, that 5.2% level remains comfortably ahead of the 3.5% rate of the pace of price growth – inflation.
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The curb to consumer spending power will be welcomed by the Bank of England as its rate-setters continue to fret that strong wage growth represents an inflation risk ahead.
The ONS figures did little to boost financial market expectations of a further rate cut next month.
LSEG data showed 90% of market participants believed there would be no no change – with just one further cut this year being fully priced in.
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