Carbon Emissions Scenarios for China to 2100

Please note that Tyndall working papers are "work in progress". Whilst they are commented on by Tyndallresearchers, they have not been subject to a full peer review. The accuracy of this work and the conclusions reached are the responsibility of the author(s) alone and not the Tyndall Centre. Introduction China's economy is growing rapidly with nearly 10% per year increases in GDP over the last two decades. At the same time the economic expansion is leading to large increases in energy demand despite continuously decline in energy intensity between 1980 and 2000. Since 2000, with quick expansion of heavy industries such as iron and steel, China's energy demand is rocketing with a reversed trend in energy intensity. Coal continues to dominate the Chinese energy system despite a slowly declining share, and is fuelling the majority of new power generation capacity. China's generation capacity has exceeded 700 GW in 2007, nearly 80% from coal. Demand for imported oil is also increasing sharply as car ownership rises and domestic oil output matures. China's oil import dependence is going to exceed 50% in 2010 compared with 29% in 2000. Demand for natural gas is also growing, and largely exceeds China's supply capacity. These trends bring with them a number of pressing challenges. Securing enough energy to sustain economic growth is an important priority for the Chinese government. Alongside this, more attention is being given to addressing the environmental side effects of economic development. These include desertification, air and water pollutions. They also include an increasingly large contribution to international environmental problems, particularly climate change. China is now the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO 2), the most important greenhouse gas (GHG) 2 , after a 50% increase between 2000 and 2005. Furthermore, some areas of China will be increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change such as increased flooding and desertification. Aware of the huge challenges ahead, the Chinese government has set up various measures and target to reduce China's reliance on fossil fuels, particularly coal and mitigate the impacts of rapid economic growth. But effects of these measures are yet to be seen, and they are at the best only starters of what are needed to address China's environmental concerns and its implications to the international challenge of tackling climate change. Against this background, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is conducting a research project on China's Energy Transition: …