China Energy Outlook 2020 - Flipbook - Page 17
Chapter 1: China’s Current Energy and Emissions Trends
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)4 and about 29% of global energy-related
CO2 emissions (IEA, 2019b).
China’s 1.4 billion people consume energy to meet their daily needs, including heating and
cooling of their living and working places, fuel for cooking their meals, electricity to power their
appliances and equipment, and fuels for both their own personal transportation as well as the
products they purchase. Energy is further used in China to manufacture these consumer
products, along with construction materials that are used to build China’s buildings, roadways,
bridges, and other infrastructure. While China exports manufactured products and consumer
goods, the majority of these are consumed in China to support domestic demand.
The energy required to meet these consumer demands is both produced domestically and
imported. China is rich in domestic coal resources and coal is China’s dominant fuel source, not
only for production of electricity but also as a source of energy for China’s vast industrial sector,
which has been responsible for roughly 70% of China’s primary energy consumption for
decades. But use of natural gas and oil is growing rapidly, especially in the buildings and
transport sectors.
Overall, China’s energy structure is electrifying, growing from a share of 19% electricity in total
final energy use in 2010 to 23% in 2017. The buildings sector is approaching 30% electrification
– up from 25% in 2010 – followed by industry at nearly 25%, with transport at a mere 4% in
2017. While still dominated by fossil fuels, recent growth in China’s electricity generation
capacity has mostly been in solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power - also to meet the growing
demands of the industrial, buildings, and transport sectors. The share of non-fossil energy
(renewable electricity plus nuclear) in total primary energy consumption has grown from 6.2%
in 2000 to 12.3% in 2017, and it is reported to have reached 14.3% in 2018 (Liu, 2019).5
These trends also mean that China is decarbonizing, with CO2 emissions per unit of energy
consumption – which held steady at a rate of about 2.5 gCO2/gce from 1980 to 1995 and then
fluctuated between 2.5 and 2.4 gCO2/gce until 2010 – recently declining at a relatively rapid
rate to the current value of 2.19 gCO2/gce, the lowest it has been in China. China’s value is still
4
To calculate primary energy, electricity units need to be converted to standardized energy units. For this report,
we use the direct equivalent method unless otherwise noted when we use China’s power plant coal consumption
method. The International Energy Agency (IEA) uses the physical energy content method. For more information on
these conversion methods, see Lewis et al., 2015.
5
This reported value of 14.3% likely reflects improvement in the rate of curtailment of wind and solar electricity
generation and a 25% jump in nuclear power capacity in 2018.
3