Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time - Carbon Brief
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For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22189256

The latest data, for the first quarter of 2025, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable or falling for more than a year, as shown in the figure below.

However, with emissions remaining just 1% below the recent peak, it remains possible that they could jump once again to a new record high.

Outside of the power sector, emissions increased 3.5%, with the largest rises in the use of coal in the metals and chemicals industries.

Sector-by-sector analysis suggests that, in addition to the power sector, emissions have likely also peaked in the building materials and steel sectors, as well as oil products consumption.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    2 days ago

    The reduction in China’s first-quarter CO2 emissions in 2025 was due to a 5.8% drop in the power sector. While power demand grew by 2.5% overall, there was a 4.7% drop in thermal power generation – mainly coal and gas.

    This is catching up to Europe’s FF use declines (10%+ in 2024) in power sector. The overall reduction in emissions isn’t that big because China is doing something pretty crazy and highly emittive. It is making liquid fuels from coal. Geopolitics forces it to for independence.