New coal power and steel projects announced in China in the first half of 2021 alone will emit CO2 equal to Netherland’s total emissions, new mapping of the project pipeline by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) shows. A total of 18 new blast furnace projects with a total capacity of 35 million tonnes per year and 43 new coal-fired power plant units were announced; if approved and built, they will emit an estimated 150 million tonnes of CO2 a year. State-owned power and steel firms have continued to build and announce new coal-based projects, even as China’s leadership has pledged to aim for carbon neutrality and called for strictly controlling “high-energy, high-emission” projects.
In the past months, however, peaking carbon emissions and controlling financial excesses appears to have gained priority in Beijing over the stimulus-fuelled, post-covid construction boom, with our analysis showing slowing CO2 emissions growth in the second quarter of 2021.
The IPCC’s new Sixth Assessment Report on climate science has starkly demonstrated the importance of peaking and declining global greenhouse gas emissions to curb the increase in global temperatures. As China has been the dominant driver of global emissions growth during this century, as well as during the past year, the success of China’s efforts plays a crucial role in the global picture. China’s ability to curb its CO2 emissions growth and realize its emissions targets crucially depends on permanently shifting investments in the power and steel sectors away from coal power plants and coal-based steelmaking toward zero-carbon power capacity, low-carbon steel and green hydrogen production.
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