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Key developments
‘Wartime’ floods swamped southern China
‘WARTIME’ EMERGENCY: Extreme weather events continued over the past two weeks. Dongting lake – China’s second-biggest freshwater lake – in southern China’s Hunan province experienced a wide “dyke breach” on 6 July, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The newspaper found the flooding in Hunan was “the most severe flooding seen in 70 years”, with local authorities declaring a “wartime” emergency. State-run newspaper China Daily said the water level on one Hunan river, at 77.63m, was “the highest water level recorded since 1954”. In central China, Henan province, which had experienced a “one-in-a-thousand-year” rainstorm in 2021, also issued a flood warning, reported the Paper, a state-supported outlet. Another central province, Anhui, evacuated 195,000 people whose lives were affected by heavy rainfall, said state news agency Xinhua.
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RESCUE FUNDING: Chinese premier Li Qiang called for “unswerving efforts” on flood control and disaster relief, reported Xinhua. Some 540m yuan ($74m) of funds were issued by the central government to “help local authorities search, rescue and relocate disaster victims”, reported financial media Caixin. An additional 200m yuan ($27.5m) was provided to help flood rescue efforts in Hunan and Jiangxi, reported Science and Technology Daily. (See Carbon Brief’s recent Q&A for more on flooding in China.)
CLIMATE CHANGE: China’s weather agency forecasted that “extreme heat [will] persist across the country” over the summer as “climate change pushes global temperatures higher”, Agence France-Presse reported, citing state broadcaster CCTV. The Economist said that, as a result of climate change, China is likely to “increasingly experience periods of heavier rainfall, as well as longer periods of dryness”, according to World Weather Attribution. Xinhua reported that provinces in southern China are expecting high temperatures ranging from 35-40C in the coming days.
EU moved ahead with provisional tariffs on Chinese EVs
PROVISIONAL TARIFFS: The EU’s provisional duties on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) came into force on 4 July, despite Beijing calling on Brussels last month to “scrap” them, Bloomberg reported. The tariff rate was set between 20-48% for individual automakers – with companies that cooperated in initial investigations receiving a lower rate, added the newspaper. EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said “we can also find ways not to apply [the tariffs] at the end of the day” since the negotiations with China were still ongoing, “but it is very clear this solution [would] need to solve that market distortion that we are currently having”, according to Reuters. It noted that definitive duties are due by November.
BEIJING’S RESPONSE: The Chinese commerce ministry and foreign ministry both opposed the EU duties. Meanwhile, China announced a probe into EU brandy imports, reported Reuters. This is the second EU product, after pork, that China has investigated as a countermeasure. Xinhua quoted data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) and said the export of “new energy” vehicles (NEVs) in June reached 80,000, up 12.3% year-on-year. However, the CPCA told Reuters that the June number was actually 20-30 percentage points lower than expected growth due to the EU tariffs. The newswire quoted the association saying: “Our (NEV export) growth used to be at least 30-40%, and it has slowed to only more than 10%, meaning (the tariffs) had a 20-30 percentage point impact on (NEV export growth), a conspicuous short-term impact.” Chinese manufacturer Neta Auto viewed the EU tariffs as a “temporary setback” that would incentivise Chinese companies to explore other overseas markets, such as in Africa, according to the SCMP.
OTHER COUNTRIES: Following similar moves by the EU and US, Canada was also considering raising tariffs and blocking Chinese investments, with an intention to “deter Chinese-made electric vehicles from accessing the Canadian market”, said Bloomberg. ASEAN members, such as Thailand and Indonesia, also expressed “concerns about the negative effects of massive Chinese imports”, reported the SCMP, but no measures have been announced so far. Meanwhile, leading Chinese EV maker BYD announced plans to build a factory in Turkey, BBC News reported, noting that, as Turkey is part of the EU Customs Union, it will be able to bypass EU tariffs. The announcement came after the Turkish government had also announced tariffs on Chinese EVs, as reported in the 13 June edition of China Briefing.
China published draft carbon market rules
EMISSIONS ALLOWANCES: China has published draft rules aiming to “reduc[e] an oversupply of permits” in its national carbon market, Bloomberg reported. Participants would no longer be able to borrow allowances from “future years” and the rules on “carrying over unused permits from previous years” would become stricter, if the draft rules are enacted, added the outlet. Yan Qin, lead carbon analyst at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), was quoted by the news outlet saying “the confirmation of supply tightening will send a strong signal to the market participants”.
CLOSING LOOPHOLES: The market has seen “companies hoarding carbon permits in anticipation of tightening allocations, leading to very low liquidity in the carbon market”, financial media outlet Caixin said. The business newspaper added that strict penalties in the interim carbon market rules issued in January encouraged traders to “stor[e] their quotas for the future, rather than selling [them]”, adding that “previous expectations of tighter quota allocations for emissions-controlled companies have heightened the perceived value” of allowances, it added. The draft rules, according to an anonymous source interviewed by Caixin, “means that the quotas previously hoarded by emissions-controlled companies and not traded will lose their value after a set period, potentially releasing more supply”.
Spotlight
Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024
Last November, Carbon Brief published analysis suggesting that China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions might have peaked, with this being reinforced by analysis published in May.
In this issue, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, offers further support for his earlier analysis, using recently released data to show that clean energy pushed coal to a record-low 53% of China’s electricity mix in May 2024.
This analysis is published in full on the Carbon Brief website.
Why official data on electricity generation is increasingly limited
Every month, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) publishes data on China’s electricity generation by technology. The figures for May 2024 came out nearly a month ago, in mid-June, and were widely reported at the time.
However, this data is now increasingly limited because it excludes, among other things, “distributed” solar sites, such as those on the roofs of homes and businesses. Analysis for this article shows this misses out about half of the electricity generated by solar overall.
There is now enough data to work around the limitations in the NBS power generation data and give a complete picture of China’s power generation mix in May.
What a complete set of generation data revealed
Putting the various figures together showed that, far from the modest 29% year-on-year increase in the incomplete NBS data, there was a record 78% rise in solar electricity generation in May 2024.
Installed solar capacity increased by 52% to 691 gigawatts (GW) and capacity utilisation improved from 16% to 19%. This delivered the largest increase in China’s electricity generation for any technology, with solar generation rising 41TWh from 53TWh in May 2023 to 94TWh in May 2024.
The second-largest increase was from hydropower, where capacity only increased 1%, but utilisation jumped from 31% to 41%, as the sector recovers from the record drought seen in 2022-23. This led to a 39% or 34TWh increase in power generation, which hit 115TWh.
Wind power saw a strong increase in capacity of 21%. Utilisation fell, however, likely due to month-to-month variations in wind conditions. As a result, power generation grew by a relatively modest 5%, or 4TWh, reaching 83TWh.
Nuclear and biomass-fired power generation also saw small increases in capacity, but the utilisation of nuclear plants fell from 87% to 85%.
How surging clean energy pushed fossil fuels into reverse
In total, clean power generation grew 78TWh in May 2024, which was more than enough to exceed the 49TWh increase in electricity demand.
As a result, gas-fired generation plummeted by 16%, despite a 9% increase in capacity, driving a steep 24% drop in utilisation. Coal-fired generation capacity increased by 3% while power generation from coal fell 3.7%, resulting in average plant utilisation falling by 7%. Falling demand could temper investment in new coal capacity, which has run hot in the past two years.
The changes in coal and gas-fired generation, combined with a slight degradation in the thermal efficiency of coal-fired power plants, imply a 3.6% drop in CO2 emissions from the power sector.
Why the clean power surge meant a record-low share for coal
After these changes in output, China’s power generation mix shifted significantly away from fossil fuels in May 2024. The share of coal-fired generation fell to 53%, down from 60% at the same time last year and the lowest share on record, as shown in the figure below.
Meanwhile, solar rose to 12%, up from 7% a year earlier and the highest on record. The remainder was made up of wind (11%), hydropower (15%), nuclear (5%), gas (3%) and biomass (2%).
Meanwhile, strong clean-energy capacity growth continued in May 2024, with 19 gigawatt (GW) of solar being added, 3GW of wind and 1.2GW of nuclear.
In the first five months of 2024, China has added some 79GW of solar and 20GW of wind. These additions are up 29% and 21% respectively from last year’s numbers, which were already record-breaking.
What the power sector shift means for China’s CO2
The rapid growth in generation from solar shows that the solar capacity boom is delivering new electricity supplies at a scale sufficient to cover much of China’s demand growth.
This reinforces the view that China’s CO2 emissions are in a period of structural decline.
If clean energy additions are kept at the level reached in 2023 and early 2024, then CO2 output is likely to keep falling, confirming 2023 as the peak year for the country’s emissions.
However, with China due to announce new climate targets by early next year, the government’s level of ambition for clean energy growth remains an open question.
Watch, read, listen
GRID INVESTMENT: The Financial Times reported on surging investment in upgrading China’s electricity grid “to support green energy transition”, citing analysis finding “more than $800bn” would be spent by 2030.
FLOOD AND COMMUNIST: Chinese website 12371.cn – the official website for Chinese communist party members – carried a notice by the organisation department of the CPC Central Committee, calling on “communist party members at grassroot level” to play an “exemplary role” in “flood prevention and disaster relief”.
‘HIGH QUALITY DEVELOPMENT’: The Chinese communist party’s Qiushi magazine published an “interpretation” of the “philosophy” behind “high quality development”, a concept widely circulated in Chinese policy documents in recent years.
POWER REFORM: Caixin published an explainer breaking down reasons behind the need for a “green power system” in China, as well as how that new system could operate.
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The total amount of utility-scale solar and wind, in gigawatts (GW), under construction in China as of June 2024, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM). The number, comprising 180GW of solar and 159GW of wind, is nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, according to GEM’s latest updates.
New science
Diversifying heat sources in China’s urban district heating systems will reduce risk of carbon lock-in
Nature Energy
A new study found the share of non-fossil sources in China’s urban district heating systems remained low, but “new coal-fired combined heat and power plants” continued to be built in the past few years. It said replacing “polluting coal” with “new and improved coal-fired combined heat and power plants” will help to reduce emissions; expanding the use of “industrial waste heat and air/ground-source heat pumps” could also help decarbonisation. The paper concluded that “strategic choices for district heating technologies are necessary for China” to reach its “dual carbon goals”.
Methane emissions from livestock in China are projected to rise 13% by 2030, but there is the “technical potential” to cut them by 36%, a new study suggested. Using four large-scale national livestock greenhouse gas inventory surveys, the researchers created a high-resolution dataset of the country’s livestock methane emissions over 1990-2020. The most effective methane mitigation measures would be “increasing animal productivity and coverage of lagoon storage” used for manure, the authors said. At carbon prices below $100 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, this would be “more cost-effective than livestock nitrous oxide mitigation in China”, the study added.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 11 July: ‘Wartime’ flooding emergency; EU tariff impact; Record-low coal share appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 11 July: ‘Wartime’ flooding emergency; EU tariff impact; Record-low coal share
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
Climate Change
GREENPEACE GAS PROTEST DAY TWO: Activists spend first night on Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform, “in this for the long haul”
- NEW footage and photos available here and on Instagram – more being uploaded today.
- Interviews available with campaigners on board the Rainbow Warrior on request.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists have slept overnight on Woodside’s Floating Production Unit and dropped a massive 12×14-metre banner reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef”.
Two activists have set up temporary hanging tents on the South East pillar, while the other two returned to the Rainbow Warrior late yesterday afternoon, after fulfilling their initial role. The activists will occupy the platform for as long as possible.
The environmental advocacy group is peacefully protesting Woodside’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef as part of its Browse proposal.
Sakyo Noda, one of the Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists, said: “As a Japanese person living in Australia, I feel incredibly passionate about stopping Australia’s gas exports to Asia.
“Despite what the gas industry tells us, Australia’s gas is not helping to decarbonise Asia. It is simply not true. We shouldn’t be allowing fossil fuel companies like Woodside to extract new fossil fuels, let alone at extraordinary places like Scott Reef”.
Aboard the Rainbow Warrior, Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, added, “Everyone is in good spirits. We’re in it for the long haul.”
Links:
Photos and video of Scott Reef here
Audio and footage of yesterday’s press conference here
Content and live updates will be uploaded to a live blog and Instagram
In-person interviews in Perth with David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, can be organised. Dial-in, SimSat and Zoom interviews with Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, currently aboard the Rainbow Warrior, can be organised.
