China’s Carbon Emissions Surged 53.5% In 10-Years Time

China’s greenhouse gas emissions jumped by 53.5 percent in the decade between 2005 and 2014, according to Chinese government figures that Beijing is obliged to report as a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

hinese emissions hit 12.3 billion tons in 2014, which was a more than 50-percent surge compared to emissions in 2005, the figures, cited by Reuters, showed.

Carbon emissions data from China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emission producer, is opaque, but the country has to regularly report data to the United Nations. China has previously reported carbon emission data for 2005 and 2010, Reuters says.

A study published in Nature Geoscience in July last year argued that China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peaked in 2013 at 9.53 gigatons and have declined in each of the following three years to 2016. According to the authors of the study, the slowing pace of Chinese economic growth has made it easier to cut emissions. The biggest drivers of the decrease in CO2 emissions between 2014 and 2016 were changes in China’s industrial structure and diminishing share of coal in energy consumption. The authors concluded that “the decline of Chinese emissions is structural and is likely to be sustained if the nascent industrial and energy system transitions continue.”

China has pledged that its total CO2 emissions would peak around 2030 and its carbon intensity would fall sharply by then. Last week, Chinese media reported that China is vowing to continue its efforts to fight climate change and boost energy saving and speed up emissions reduction.

As for the United States' carbon emissions, earlier this year, Dr. Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said the U.S. CO2 emissions reduction over the past decade has been the largest cut in emissions in the history of energy.

The IEA, however, has a stark warning to the world: last year global carbon emissions reached 33.1 gigatons, breaking their previous record even though the annual increase was relatively modest, at 1.7 percent.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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