The kindest cut.Punchstock

Skyrocketing emissions of greenhouse gases are not an inevitable accompaniment to China's stunning economic growth, a British-Chinese study finds. But decoupling the growth of carbon emissions from economic development — by improving energy efficiency and by massive investment in renewable energies, for example, requires rapid and determined action on the part of the Chinese government.

The analysis, China's Energy Transition: Pathways for Low Carbon Development, by Tao Wang and Jim Watson of the UK's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is one result of a Tyndall-led research project on global decarbonization. The authors conclude that if China's carbon emissions peak between 2020 and 2030, the country will make a "full contribution" to global efforts to combat climate change, without sacrificing its economic growth. The report is being presented to Chinese government officials, energy experts and climate scientists at a launch in Beijing today.

"Our report is not intended to be prescriptive," says Watson, an energy-policy specialist. "We're not saying that China needs to actually reduce its emissions, and we were keen not to develop economic storylines outside the range of economic possibilities."

Gain without pain

The report's four scenarios describe possible emission pathways towards a low-carbon future for China that would not much dampen its economic aspirations.

Structural changes, most notably the service sector becoming the dominant branch of the economy, could help restrict China's energy demand in 2050 to between 15% and 100% higher than in 2005, the report finds. Meanwhile, China's economy could continue to grow to between 8 and 13 times its current size.

All scenarios described in the report include nuclear power — albeit to different degrees. Three out of four also include carbon capture and storage technology as a crucial means of reducing emissions from burning coal, China's most abundant fossil fuel.

China could get by with a budget of 70–111 billion tonnes of cumulative carbon emissions by 2100, provided emissions peak no later than 2030, the authors conclude. This, says Watson, would still be in line with capping global cumulative carbon emissions at 490 billion tonnes over the twenty-first century. That's the upper limit of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change think the world can afford without risking catastrophic climate change.

The report is a further step towards developing a global strategy for phasing out carbon emissions over this century, says Malte Meinshausen, a climate-policy expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. "These kind of in-depth country reports are exactly what we need," he says.

But the emission scenarios described in the report would probably still lead to potentially dangerous global warming in excess of 3 °C, he cautions. To avoid the risk of dangerous climate change, global emissions should peak no later than 2015, and Chinese emissions in the early 2020s — not 2030, Meinshausen says. "We need to pull out all the stops," he adds.

Coordinated action

Watson and Wang, an environmental economist, have based their cautiously more optimistic analysis on data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency and various Chinese sources.

The measure of its success, says Watson, is whether the Chinese government will be interested in the study, and willing to discuss its findings further. But he adds that China is unlikely to make substantial announcements concerning its climate targets before the United Nation's climate summit in Copenhagen in December this year, where more than 190 nations will attempt to agree on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

The developing world, including China, was not obliged to cut its emissions under Kyoto. Policy experts reckon that China's position concerning future cuts, or at least slower growth, in its carbon emissions will be crucial for the negotiations in Copenhagen.

"China can achieve low carbon growth, and there are promising signs that it will build on its small green accomplishments as it is trying to get out of the current recession," says Watson. "But successful climate diplomacy will require all other countries to act with the same urgency."