China Energy Outlook 2020 - Flipbook - Page 15
China Energy Outlook:
Understanding China’s Energy and Emissions Trends
Nan Zhou, Hongyou Lu, Nina Khanna, Xu Liu, David Fridley, Lynn Price,
Bo Shen, Wei Feng, Jiang Lin, Carolyn Szum, Chao Ding
China Energy Group
International Energy Analysis Department
Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division
Energy Technologies Area
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Introduction
China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of primary energy as well as the world’s
largest emitter of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2). China surpassed the U.S. in primary
energy consumption in 2010 and in CO2 emissions in 2006. In 2018, China was responsible for
21% of total global primary energy use (IEA, 2019a) and about 29% of global energy-related CO2
emissions (IEA, 2019b).
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab’s) China Energy Group was founded in
1988. Since then, the China Energy Group has worked collaboratively with researchers and
policymakers in China and around the world to both bring information on energy use and
energy efficiency to China and to understand China’s energy use and energy-related trends.
This China Energy Outlook presents key information on China’s historical energy and emissions
trends and current energy-related policies and programs, both of which inform our future
outlook regarding China’s energy use and emissions to 2050.
Chapter 1 presents the most recent data available on China’s Current Energy and Emissions
Trends, covering energy consumption, energy production, and energy-related CO2 emissions.
The chapter shows that despite an earlier peak in 2014 and slight downturn in 2015 and 2016,
China’s energy use and related CO2 emissions have begun to climb again. China has collected
energy-related data regularly since 1980, tracking the production, transformation, import and
export of different sources of energy as well as how energy has been consumed by the
economy’s industry, buildings, and transportation end-use sectors. Berkeley Lab’s China Energy
Group has published the China Energy Databook, a fully relational database of national and
provincial energy balances, plus detailed sectoral energy end-use tables developed in Microsoft
Access containing over 120,000 data points, since 1992.1 LBNL’s China Energy Group has also
published an accompanying Key China Energy Statistics booklet with selected figures and tables
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For more information, see https://china.lbl.gov/china-energy-databook
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