China Confronts Climate Change

A bottom-up perspective

Peter Koehn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138942080
• eBook ISBN: 9781317375845
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

China is an integral actor in any movement that will stabilize the global climate at conditions suited to sustainable development for its own population and for people living around the world. Assessments of China's climatic-system consequences, impact, and responsibilities need to take into account the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of subnational governments, non-governmental organizations, transnational non-state connections, and the urban populace in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. A multitude of recent local initiatives that have engaged subnational China in actions that mitigate emissions can be enhanced by powerful framings that appeal to citizen concerns about air pollution and health conditions.

China Confronts Climate Change offers the first fully comprehensive account of China's response to climate change, based on engagement with the global climate governance literature and current debates over responsibility along with specific insights into the Chinese context. Responsible implementation of any overarching climate agreement depends on expanding China's subnational contributions. To remain fully informed about GHG-emissions mitigation, China watchers and climate-change monitors need to pay close attention to bottom-up developments.

The book provides a valuable contemporary resource for students, scholars, and policy leaders at all levels of governance who are concerned with climate change, environmental politics, and sustainable urban development.

1

CHINA’S POSITION IN CLIMATE FUTURES

Contributions, consequences, and responsibilities

For multiple reasons, “the success of efforts to address climate change will be in large part determined by Asia” (Schreurs, 2010, p. 89). Global climate change engages China’s governments and population in three fundamental ways: contributions, consequences, and responsibilities. This chapter treats these three issues in the context of future expectations.

China’s contributions in comparative and historical perspective

Driven in large measure by the booming economies of China and India, Earth has been running on a “recarbonization” track for the past decade (Tanner and Horn-Phathanothai, 2014, p. 131; Steckel, et al., 2011, p. 3443). Currently the world’s top GHG emitter in aggregate terms, China’s emissions are expected to continue to grow through at least 2030 (Hart and Liu, 2010/2011, pp. 100, 102; Porter, 2014b, p. B9; Davidson, Greene, and Liu, 2012/2013, p. 11).¹ China’s total emissions could approach the combined output of the United States and the European Union by 2020 (Chen, 2012, p. 39). In a widely shared view, Dieter Helm (2009, p. 14) maintains that “whether China builds 1,000GW of coal-fired electricity generation and whether it adds half a billion cars with conventional engines is of an order of magnitude more important to climate change than virtually any other trend.”

The principal sources of China’s anthropogenic GHG contributions are coal-derived energy for industrial production, construction, and cement manufacturing, and residential-building operations. Transportation constitutes the country’s most rapidly growing emissions trajectory.

Coal burning is the main challenge for China and the global climate. Coal “releases the most CO₂ of any fuel” (Gallagher, 2014, p. 14).² Coal, mostly from thermal power generation, is responsible for up to 80 percent of the PRC’s world-leading CO₂ emissions (Pan, et al., 2012, p. 163; Gallagher, 2014, pp. 37–38) and greater than 60 percent of total CO₂ emissions in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing (Gong, Peng, and Tian, 2011). King Coal, which has fueled decades of unprecedented GNP increases, has left China “the most coal-dependent economy in the world” (Hart and Liu, 2010/2011, p. 99).³ Furthermore, coal consumption increased by 2.6 percent from 2012 to 2013 (Wong, 2014b).⁴ By 2014, China burned as much coal as the rest of the world combined (Krauss and Bradsher, 2014, p. B8).

China’s cities are the locus of a growing share of the country’s energy consumption (Schreurs, 2010, p. 93) and carbon emissions. Shanghai’s total carbon emissions, for instance, increased by 48 percent from 2000 to 2008 (Yansong Wang, et al., 2013, p. 151).

Industry contributes a higher proportion of total emissions in urban China compared with other cities and countries around the world (UNHSP, 2011, pp. 11, 43; Gomez-Echeverri, et al., 2010, p. 33). However, industry’s share of total CO₂ emissions is declining in the face of rapid increases in China’s vehicle pool and transportation-connected emissions (UNHSP, 2011, p. 44; Spilker, 2013, p. 107; Qi, 2013, pp. 314–315).⁵ By the end of 2010, for instance, the capital city of Beijing reported 4.7 million registered vehicles, up by 700,000 from the previous year (Wines, 2010; also see Gallagher, 2014, p. 40; Qi, 2013, p. 312). Total in-China vehicles sales rose to 22 million in 2013, compared with 15.6 million U.S. sales (Minter, 2015). Ford Motor Company alone is preparing an annual manufacturing capacity of 1.2 million vehicles (Bradsher, 2012). One Chinese auto executive predicts that annual motor-vehicle sales in China will total 40 million by 2020 (cited in Johnson and Bradsher, 2010).

Fueled by the extraordinary growth in on-road vehicles, China is already the world’s second largest consumer of oil (Gallagher, 2014, p. 40; also see Lee and Shalmon, 2008, p. 110) at 10.1 million barrels per day (Minter, 2015). Privately owned automobiles generate roughly twelve times the amount of carbon emissions as buses (Qi, 2013, p. 315).

Based on the frequency of encounters, many observers joke that China should declare the “crane” its national bird.⁶ By 2007, China added “more than 2 billion square meters of floor area in buildings every year – faster than anywhere else in the world” (Minx, et al., 2011, p. 9151).⁷ China accounts for greater than 40 percent of the world’s annual new construction (Wei and Anderson, 2010/2011, p. 157; Perelman, 2008/2009, p. 50; Chen, 2012, p. 27) and projections are that its building stock will double by 2020 (Hathaway, 2008/2009, p. 121; Barboza, 2015, p. B7).⁸ Presented in comparable terms, “China has been building a new Canada every year for the past six years, and is projected to continue doing so until 2020” (Leibo and Yang, 2013, p. x).

As a direct consequence of the construction boom, China’s cement production overshadows the rest of the world; it accounts for about 60 percent of the global total (UNEP, 2013, p. 25) and at least 5 percent of worldwide CO₂ emissions (Hsu, Singh, and Song, 2010/2011, p. 239). While energy efficiency has improved in the cement sector,⁹ consumption continues to rise. There are more than 170 cities in China with populations in excess of one million people (Blewitt, 2015, p. 230) and the Government plans that 70–75 percent of the country’s population (up from 47 percent in 2008) will be urban inhabitants by 2030 (Karlenzig and Zhu, 2012/2013, p. 129). Given China’s population and urban-consumption trajectories, growth projections for cement production and energy use for manufacturing are astonishingly high (UNEP, 2013, p. 25; Hsu, Singh, and Song, 2010/2011, pp. 239–240).

Energy-inefficient office and residential buildings are the norm in urban China¹⁰, and many more continue to be constructed every year (Rao, Wang, and Zhang, 2012, p. 3136; Gomez-Echeverri, et al., 2010, p. 37; Qi, 2013, p. 56). Although China’s large public buildings consume 10–20 times more energy (Price, et al., 2011, p. 2175), the higher number of residences results in residential-energy use accounting for as much as one-fourth of national emissions (UNHSP, 2011, p. 43). Air conditioning accounts for an increasing share of residential-energy use (Rao, Wang, and Zhang, 2012, p. 3136; Qi, 2013, p. 297).¹¹ In light of urban-population-growth estimates, the building sector (particularly residential buildings) is projected to contribute one-third of China’s GHGs by 2050 (Mo, 2012, p. 77).

The results of one study based on decomposition analysis of emission data suggest that “under business-as-usual assumptions, China’s emissions could increase about threefold by 2050, underlining its status as a crucial actor in global mitigation efforts” (Steckel, et al., 2011, p. 3444; also Garnaut, et al., 2009, pp. 96, 105; Gomez-Echeverri, et al., 2010, p. 53). While the dire forecasts are well-publicized, less is known about China’s voluntary steps to limit GHG emissions and to move in a low-carbon-development direction (see Fan, Li, and Han, 2011, p. 397). As early as 2010, Wei reported that:

China today is already the top manufacturer of wind turbines and biogas fermenters in the world . . . It is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric bicycles, and may dominate production of electric cars.¹² Chinese factories churn out 30 percent of the world’s solar panels and the country is doubling its wind-power capacity annually (Wei, 2010, p. 78; also Zang, 2009, p. 571; Gomez-Echeverri, et al., 2010, p. 56).

In a major policy step that recognizes the urgency of reducing China’s emissions, the Supreme Council announced plans in November 2014 to cap coal consumption at 4.2 billion tons (62 percent of the country’s energy mix, down from its current 66 percent share) by 2020 (Wong, 2014c). China’s emissions-mitigation national and subnational initiatives are explored in depth in Chapters 3 and 4.

“Business-as-usual” consequences

Chinese scientists generally agree that climate change already has impacted China. First, the average annual temperature nation-wide has increased more than the global average. Leading meteorologists predict that the annual average temperature will rise by 1.7 degrees Celsius by 2030 and by 2.2 degrees Celsius by 2050 (J. Li, 2013, p. 113; also Hu and Yang, 2009, p. 6). Second, total annual precipitation has decreased, especially in northeastern and northern regions. In contrast, western China has experienced “a substantial increase in annual and season total precipitation” (J. Li, 2013, p. 113). Third, scientists concur that there has been an increase in “the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events” (J. Li, 2013, p. 114).

China’s policy leaders can find numerous incentives for quickly adopting the low-carbon-development pathway. The domestic implications of climate change for China’s current population and future generations are serious and will require expensive adaptation measures (see Nadin et al., 2016). The impacts of climate change can reverse decades of development progress, erode current foundations of human prosperity, and place heavy environmental and economic constraints on future prospects for sustainable development. In the China context, two major vulnerabilities involve water: seawater and freshwater (see Figure 1.3 in Gomez-Echeverri, et al., 2010, p. 14). Another adverse consequence concerns pollution and health.

Subsidence and sea-level rise

Rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion present major problems for China’s sinking coastal cities (J. Li, 2013, pp. 114–115; Vandenbergh, 2008, pp. 919–920; Kai, 2007; Liu, 2009, pp. 91–92). The combined threats of sea-level rise, land subsidence, inundation, obstructed drainage, vector spread, and disrupted transportation (UNHSP, 2011, p. 66; Hu, 1995, p. 334) pose particularly complex and costly challenges. China’s densely populated coastal areas, where most productive industrial and commercial cities are located, are further threatened by flooding from storm surges associated with increased typhoon activity and with the contamination of freshwater supplies by saltwater intrusion (Cao, Gemmer, and Jiang, 2012, pp. 61–62, 65; Han, Hou, and Wu 1995, pp. 82, 88–93).

Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin rank among the world’s most exposed megacities in terms of infrastructure assets (UNHSP, 2011, p. 71). The latter two metropolitan areas are prone to subsidence. In these densely populated and productive centers, a sizeable proportion of China’s annual GDP, and up to 130 million people, are at risk (Adger, et al., 2001, p. 577; Tanner and Horn-Phathanothai, 2014, p. 65; Green-Weiskel, 2010/2011, p. 47). Flood prevention in the face of massive sea-level rise is prohibitively expensive (Tanner and Horn-Phathanothai, 2014, p. 77) and evacuation of urban populations and industries of the required magnitudes¹³ and their relocation in newly built communities is mind-boggling in terms of logistics and costs, as well as extremely emissions-exacerbating.

Interior water pressures

Temperature rises also have had negative consequences for China’s freshwater systems. Glacial shrinking and ecological decline on the Tibetan Plateau along with precipitation declines and evaporation increases along its reaches have dramatically reduced the supply of water available to 120 million people living downstream from the headwaters of the Yellow River, China’s second longest river (J. Li, 2013, pp. 115–116, 118–119; Kai, 2007; Gallagher, 2014, p. 8). High evaporation rates and decreased stream flows have reduced interior reservoirs relied upon for drinking water and hydropower generation (Pokhrel, Oki, and Kanae, 2012, p. 190; Davidson, Greene, and Liu, 2012/2013, p. 15).¹⁴ At the same time, the demand for residential and office-building water is escalating (Davidson, Greene, and Liu, 2012/2013, p. 23). Estimates (2008) suggest that “two-thirds of China’s 660 cities are water short and 110 of those suffer severe shortage” (J. Li, 2013, p. 119).

The water/energy nexus is particularly problematic in China. Coal-powered plants and nuclear-powered f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise
• China Confronts Climate Change
• Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Boxes
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Introduction and Overview
• 1 China’s Position in Climate Futures: Contributions, Consequences, and Responsibilities
• 2 Framework for Analysis of Contemporary Climate-Change Governance
• 3 China’s National Climate Change Context: Top-Down Governance, Policies, and Constraints
• 4 Bottom-Up Opportunities, Initiatives, and Constraints
• 5 Subnational Framing of Climate-Incidental Initiatives
• 6 Current Collaborations and Promising Opportunities: Internal and Transnational
• 7 The Local Power of Diaspora Connections
• 8 Conclusion: Bottoms Up?
• Index