Wider adoption of heat pumps could accelerate decarbonisation of heating in China’s carbon-intensive buildings and light industry sectors, a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.
The report, published in collaboration with Tsinghua University, finds that, by using heat pumps as part of China’s strategy to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, direct emissions for heating in buildings could fall by 75% to 70m tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) in 2050, due to increased electrification and improvements to energy efficiency.
Similarly, using heat pumps could help reduce direct emissions from heating in light industries from more than 110MtCO2 today to less than 10MtCO2 in 2050.
In 2023, China was one of the few nations to see total heat pump sales rise. However, greater policy support is still needed to accelerate uptake and help shift the buildings and light industry sectors towards less-carbon intensive energy sources, the report says.
- How much energy does China consume for heat?
- How can heat pumps help China meet its ‘dual carbon’ goals?
- How effective are heat pumps as a solution for China?
- How can policy support heat pump adoption?
How much energy does China consume for heat?
China’s final energy consumption was 107 exajoules (EJ) of energy in 2022. Within this, the IEA report says, heat consumption reached about 50EJ. China’s heat consumption equals “about one-third” of total heat consumption globally.
Around a quarter of China’s heat use is in buildings, with the remainder in industry.
In the buildings sector, heat consumption has grown faster in China than in any other country over the past decade, standing at 12EJ in 2022. This is largely due to growing demand for heat for space and water, which has “nearly tripled” direct and indirect emissions since 2000.
Since 2010, direct coal consumption for heating overall has fallen by 15%. The IEA report attributes this to policy drives beginning in the mid-2010s, initially “to improve air quality, then later to expand clean and low-carbon heating”.
However, an exception to this is district heating, namely, a centralised heating mechanism that is the dominant source of heat for urban areas in northern China. Heat pumps and other decentralised solutions are more common in southern and rural northern China.
District heating networks in northern China rely on coal for more than 80% of their heat production. It is the key driver of coal consumption in building heat provision across the country, according to the IEA.
One 2019 study found that China’s emissions from district heating alone were greater than the total CO2 emissions of the UK.
Dr Chiara Delmastro and Dr Rafael Martinez Gordon, the report’s lead authors, tell Carbon Brief:
“[This] was mostly driven by the expansion of [heat] networks in north urban China, in particular…The length of the district heat network has increased by 250% since 2010, of which the large majority is in the north.”
Delmastro and Martinez Gordon also note, however, that “China has taken action towards cleaner and more efficient heating in recent years” – for example, by shifting from using coal-fired boilers to more efficient combined heat and power plants.
Meanwhile, heat consumption for industry in 2022 totalled 38EJ. Some of this demand is for low- and medium-temperature heat (below 200C), which is generally required for light industries, as well as the pulp and paper sector and some chemical sector processes.
This demand – which could easily be served by existing state-of-the-art heat pump technology – totaled 4.7EJ in 2022 and released more than 110MtCO2 of direct emissions, the report says.
However, more than 80% of industrial demand for heat requires temperatures above 200C, predominantly for iron and steel manufacturing. Other industries that require such high temperatures include non-metallic minerals and non-ferrous metals, as well as some processes in the chemicals and petrochemicals and pulp and paper sectors. These sectors comprised the majority of industrial heat demand, consuming 33EJ in 2022.
How can heat pumps help China meet its ‘dual carbon’ goals?
Heat demand in buildings and industry in China is largely driven by coal and accounts for 40% of both China’s coal consumption and its CO2 emissions.
The IEA does note, however, that the use of coal for heat has reduced slightly, largely due to “policies to improve air quality, reduce CO2 emissions and maximise energy efficiency”.
In 2022, carbon emissions from space and water heating accounted for the vast majority of direct emissions from buildings in China, around 290MtCO2, while direct emissions from heating for light industry totalled 110MtCO2. The IEA places China’s total carbon emissions at 12,135MtCO2 in 2022.
The report provides estimates of the uptake of heat pumps in China under the “announced pledges scenario” (APS), in which governments are given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to meet all of their climate goals on time and in full.
It also looks at uptake under the “stated policies scenario” (STEPS), reflecting the IEA’s own judgement of where government policy is currently heading.
If China upholds its “dual carbon” commitments, in line with the APS, then the IEA estimates that heat pump capacity in buildings would rise to 1,400 gigawatts (GW) in 2050, meeting one-quarter of China’s heat demand for the sector.
Under the APS, China would install 100GW in buildings each year until 2050 – the equivalent of “the capacity deployed in the US, China and the EU in 2022 combined”.
Emissions from buildings heat would fall from 290MtCO2 to 80MtCO2 in 2050, a reduction of 210MtCO2, with heat pumps accounting for 30% of this decrease. The other drivers for building decarbonisation would include greater adoption of electrification, energy efficiency measures and behaviour changes.
For light industry, under the APS, approximately 1.5GW of heat pumps would be installed annually between 2025 and 2050, meeting one-fifth of heat demand in 2050.
This would contribute to “drastically” reducing carbon emissions, which would fall by 95% overall from more than 110MtCO2 to 10MtCO2. Electrification, including through use of heat pumps, would be responsible for 70% of these emissions reductions.
The report adds that two energy-intensive sectors could be well-suited to using heat pumps: the pulp and paper sector, in which around 55% of current heat demand could be provided by industrial heat pumps, and the chemical sector, for which around 18% of demand could be met.
Heat pumps would be unlikely to serve demand for other energy-intensive sectors, however, as “only a few early-stage prototypes exist for temperatures beyond 200C, all of which are far from being ready for the mass market”.
Even under the STEPS, the stock of heat pumps in buildings in China would double, reaching more than 1,100GW by 2050 and contributing to building emissions falling by more than 25%, with fuel-switching options such as coal-to-gas also playing a role.
For light industries, heat pump-led CO2 emissions reductions under STEPs would “remain limited”, as under the current policy settings, heat pumps may be “deployed slowly”. Overall, by 2050 heat-related emissions would only fall by 15%.
Significantly, the policies required to meet climate goals in China – and the rest of the world – under the APS would see some industries “strongly mobilised”, the report says. Sectors such as mining and machinery would need to expand, ramping up clean-energy technology production to meet domestic and global demand.
While this additional industrial activity would raise China’s heat demand by 5% in the APS compared with the STEPS, the associated emissions would be more than offset by the savings enabled by wider deployment of electrification and clean heating technologies.
Moreover, the deployment of heat pumps would allow for a 20% decline in the energy intensity of heat supply by 2050 – the energy demand per unit of heat – compared to today, the report says.
The alignment between expanded heat pump use and decarbonisation of the electricity system could see indirect emissions from power generation for heat drop by more than 40% by 2030 as more renewable and nuclear power comes online, it adds. By 2050, electricity’s share in heat generation could exceed 75%.
For example, the IEA states that the pulp and paper sector could see coal use “almost entirely phased out by 2050”, if China’s climate goals are met. The sector has already cut the share of coal in its energy needs from 43% in 2010 to 10% in 2022, due to electrification and coal-to-gas shifts.
Under the APS, direct coal use for space and water heating in China would fall by 75% by 2030 and would be “almost completely phased out” by 2040, with heat pumps becoming a key technology for heating in urban and rural areas by 2050.
However, significant investment would be needed in this scenario to deploy enough heat pumps to meet demand.
How effective are heat pumps as a solution for China?
With more than 250GW of installed heat pump capacity in buildings in 2023, China accounts for more than 25% of global heat pump sales and was the only major market to see heat pump sales grow in 2023, the report says. In 2022, 8% of all heating equipment sales for buildings in China were heat pumps.
They are “already the norm” for space heating and cooling in buildings in some parts of central and southern China, which do not benefit from centralised district heating. Rural areas are now seeing a growing uptake of heat pumps, due to policy support to encourage rural regions to limit coal consumption, the report adds.
The same is also true for district heating, where network operators are increasingly installing heat pumps. While the majority are “air-source” pumps operating at relatively low temperatures, some networks are beginning to use large-scale heat pumps that recycle waste heat from steel mills, sewage treatment processes and coal chemical plants.
They “offer one of the most efficient options for decarbonising heat in district heating networks, buildings and industry”, according to the report.
In terms of both direct and indirect emissions, annual carbon emissions from a heat pump currently installed in China are more than 30% lower than those from gas boilers. “Shifting from fossil fuel boilers to heat pumps”, the report says, “would reduce CO2 emissions virtually everywhere they are installed”.
Despite high upfront installation costs, heat pumps also help users save money on energy bills over their lifetimes, according to the IEA.
The image below shows the different climate zones across China. Air-to-air heat pumps are more cost-effective than both gas boilers and electric heaters in some colder climates, as well as in regions with hot summers and cold winters.
Air-to-water heat pumps save money over electric heaters, although they are only less expensive than gas boilers in areas with competitive electricity prices compared to gas.
Heat pump use in energy-intensive industries is less viable, as current technologies to generate temperatures above 200C are still largely under development.
However, for light industries, industrial heat pumps are “far cheaper” than gas and electric boilers and nearly cost-competitive with coal boilers over their lifetimes, due to their high efficiency levels, states the report.
Despite this, uptake is not widespread, due to high upfront installation costs and lack of public awareness of the effectiveness of heat pumps.
Delmastro and Martinez Gordon tell Carbon Brief:
“In certain processes alternative technologies [to heat pumps] might be less costly and more appropriate, and – depending on policy decisions – different levels of heat pump deployment may be stimulated. However, to meet China’s carbon neutrality goal, we estimate that heat pumps need to supply at least 20% of heat demand in light industries by 2050.”
The report adds that state-of-the-art heat pumps – heat pump technology that is either newly-released or close to release – are well-placed to meet heat consumption needs in the building sectors and light industry sectors, and could theoretically supply about 40% of demand.
In addition, China currently wastes heat resources that could be redirected via heat pumps. In 2021, it generated 45EJ of waste heat resources – almost equal to the combined heating demand of buildings and industry – from sources such as nuclear power plants, other power plants, industrial activity, data centres and wastewater, according to the report.
How can policy support heat pump adoption?
Heat pumps have “increasingly featured” in China’s national-level energy and climate policy as one aspect of the energy transition. For instance, the 14th “five-year plan” for a modern energy system (2021-2025) calls for the expansion of clean heating provision for end-users as part of its electrification drive.
However, Delmastro and Martinez Gordon explain that the more targeted, practical policy recommendations in the IEA report “should [fall] under the umbrella of a clear national action plan for heating decarbonisation, which is missing now in China”.
This would allow China to set quantitative targets for heat pump use that would provide a clear signal to markets and promote wider investment in R&D, manufacturing and deployment.
Meanwhile, the report suggests that more stringent performance requirements for new buildings, stronger energy performance benchmarks, inclusion of heat pump installation requirements in building codes and extension of the scope of the national emissions trading scheme (ETS) to include industry could all drive heat pump adoption.
Loans, tax credits and other financial support mechanisms could address consumer reluctance to pay high upfront installation costs, adds the report.
The northern city of Tianjin offered grants of 25,000 yuan ($3,700) for air-source heat pump purchases, but this is not a common practice – particularly in urban regions.
Raising awareness of the benefits of industrial heat pumps and reducing electricity costs for industry could accelerate uptake in light industry, the report says.
Electricity pricing incentives have already seen rural residential areas switch from using coal to using gas for heating. Similar incentives for electricity in rural parts of Beijing, as well as subsidies for installing heat pumps, mean that heat pumps are now the cheapest heating option for households in that region, based on IEA calculations.
Expanding this policy nationwide could “further increase the competitiveness of heat pumps in regions where electricity currently costs significantly more than gas”, the report states.
Other measures that could make heat pumps more attractive to consumers include combining heat pumps with solar panels or solar thermal solutions, plus adapting the power system to provide tiered electricity pricing and time-of-use power market measures.
Finally, more recovery of waste energy resources, combined with thermal energy storage technologies, could “optimise heat supply by transforming surplus electricity…into heat and storing it for use during the winter heating”, the report says.
“In northern Hebei, for example”, it adds, “heat recovered by heat pumps from renewable power and waste heat could account for 80% of the district heat supply during winter in 2050”.
The post Heat pumps could help cut China’s building CO2 emissions by 75%, says IEA appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heat pumps could help cut China’s building CO2 emissions by 75%, says IEA
Amid an unprecedented European heatwave, a Paris court ruled today that France’s biggest fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies has not fully accounted for its contribution to climate change or identified all the ways it could limit it.
A group of non-profit organisations and local authorities filed the claim in 2020 under France’s then-new duty of vigilance law. This requires all large businesses headquartered in France and international corporations with a significant presence there to set out a clear plan to prevent human rights violations and environmental damage – even among their subsidiaries.
“It’s a very big win for the whole climate movement,” said Justine Ripoll, head of campaigns for Notre Affaire à Tous, one of the NGOs that brought the claim.
She said the judges made clear that companies have climate obligations reflecting their impact on global emissions, and added that the ruling shows “lobbying to undermine legislation won’t have the impact corporations could expect.”
The ruling marks another legal victory for climate activists, after the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion last year finding that countries can be held responsible under international law for breaching their climate obligations, including by expanding fossil fuel production. In May, the UN General Assembly backed the ruling and called on countries to comply with it.
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Total’s climate lawsuit
As part of their claim, climate activists and local authorities wanted the court to force TotalEnergies to take stronger action aligning with the 1.5°C warming threshold in the Paris Agreement, including by stopping new fossil fuel projects and reducing production levels.
The lawsuit claim was ruled inadmissible in 2023, but this was overturned the following year. However no public bodies except the city of Paris were allowed to join. A court in Paris finally heard the claim on its merits in March.
Two weeks before the hearing, the French public prosecutor’s office said it agreed with TotalEnergies that the scope of duty of vigilance law did not extend to climate change. But the court had a different view, saying climate risks and impacts do fall within the law’s scope.
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Coming two days after France recorded its hottest-ever day, the court said the law is not intended to make the companies concerned responsible for all climate risks – resulting from all human activity since the industrial revolution – but they must “act according to their situation”.
In TotalEnergies’ case, its oil and gas activities release greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere with resulting negative climate impacts, which must be properly identified in its vigilance plan.
The court also explicitly said that the plan must include scope 3 emissions from the use of products and services by customers, “due in particular to the inherent link between oil and gas production and the combustion of products by users”. This is in line with domestic and international court rulings across the world in recent years.
TotalEnergies was given six months to update the plan. After that, the court will scrutinise whether the measures are adequate, with a hearing already scheduled for 21 January 2027.
Milestone for climate accountability
Théa Bonfour, senior advocacy and litigation officer at NGO Sherpa, which was also involved in the case, said it was a “first important milestone” but she warned that the tribunal will still have to exercise its power to analyse the plan’s details.
However, the court did not agree to a request by the NGOs and the City of Paris for TotalEnergies to completely stop all of its new fossil fuel projects or to cut production by 37% for oil and 25% for gas by 2030.
TotalEnergies was approached for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.
The company could still appeal the decision but, even if it does, it still has to comply with the ruling while the process is ongoing.
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Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling is a “key step towards stronger corporate climate accountability”.
“The inclusion of the whole range of emissions attributable to TotalEnergies’ activities in the sphere of responsibility of the company is a critical legal step validating other recent judicial decisions,” said Duyck. “This constitutes a stringent rebuttal of the argument that the responsibility lies solely with consumers.”
Christina Eckes, professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam, said the ruling had increased pressure on polluting companies to justify their business decisions.
“It’s not just TotalEnergies. When you look at the sustainability plans of fossil fuel industries in Europe, they’re mostly scope 1 and 2; you can’t claim to have a sustainability plan if you’re only talking about 10% of your emissions.”
Influential ruling
The Total decision has significant implications for other ongoing lawsuits.
The most important is that brought by a Belgian farmer who is bringing a climate damages claim against TotalEnergies. A decision on the merits was postponed until 9 September so that judges could see the outcome of the French ruling.
A separate duty of vigilance case against TotalEnergies in relation to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline in Uganda is still ongoing at the Paris Judicial Court, after a similar earlier claim was dismissed in 2023. The $4-billion project has been controversial due to its social and environmental impacts.
The post French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/06/26/fossil-fuel-firm-total-must-account-total-emissions-french-court-lawsuit/
After a four-year set up period, a fund to help vulnerable countries respond to climate impacts is facing criticism from Nigeria’s environment minister over delays in delivering aid, while its chief executive says the first disbursements will be made by the end of the year.
At an event at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, Nigerian environment minister Balarabe Abbas Lawal said that whenever he goes to UN climate summits “we talk about loss and damage funds, and all these years nothing has been translated into action”.
He added that the fund currently “looks like a mirage”, and said that “a number of our governments are beginning to believe that COPs are just talk shops”.
The idea of addressing the loss and damage caused by climate change was first discussed at COP13 in 2007. A fund was agreed to at COP27 in 2022 to help vulnerable countries respond to climate emergencies, and it was officially set up the next year. Since then, the fund’s board and management have been working out the details of how it will work.
Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, a banker from Senegal, was appointed CEO in 2024. Referring to Lawal’s frustration, Diong told Climate Home News on Thursday that the fund is “moving according to plan”.
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A call for funding requests, launched at COP30, closed on June 15. Projects – including those to strengthen responses to floods in Bangladesh and Lagos and improve water infrastructure in Jamaica – bid for a combined $250 million. Diong said that the fund’s board would decide which projects to fund at its next board meeting in the Philippines, starting on July 8.
“We hope that by the end of the year we can begin then to make the decision and see the funds going, so hopefully the frustration for Nigeria will be reduced”, he said, adding that “every time wasted, when it comes to loss and damage, is lives not saved”.
Funding concerns
While climate campaigners have called for tens of billion of dollars of funding a year, wealthy nations have promised the fund $822 million and delivered just $449 million – with countries like Italy, France and Luxembourg failing to pay in full.
A briefing paper prepared by the fund’s secretariat earlier this year warned that, unless fresh contributions are secured, the fund could run out of resources by the end of 2027.
Diong said that the fund intends to hold a replenishment round, where governments promise money, next year. In the meantime, as public finance “is being very difficult to mobilise”, the fund is looking at other sources of funding.
“What exactly that source of funding will be, we have to look at the potential, look at the feasibility and so on”, he said, so the fund can keep up with demand.
In an open letter in April, a group of climate campaigners called for developed countries to increase contributions to the Loss and Damage fund and introduce taxes on fossil fuel companies, financial transactions, luxury air travel and wealth to help finance it.
“Rich countries must be held strictly accountable for the devastation they have caused,” said Climate Action Network International head Tasneem Essop. “Their failure to fulfill their responsibility to the loss and damage fund is not just an oversight; it is a shameful betrayal of humanity.”
The post As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming appeared first on Climate Home News.
As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming
Climate Change
China Briefing 25 June 2026: Five-year plans passed | Critical-mineral tensions | Industrial decarbonisation plan
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
New five-year plans
GENERATION TARGET: China today released its 15th five-year plan for building a “new-type energy system”, according to finance news outlet Cailianshe. It said the plan covered topics including energy sources, power-market reform and China’s role in clean-energy supply chains and climate governance. The plan, published by the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that China will aim for clean energy to constitute 30% of power generation by 2030 – up from approximately 22% today. It also stated that wind and solar will become the “mainstay” of China’s power mix. The government will work to increase clean-energy consumption, such as by upgrading the grid to “accommodate” 900 gigawatts of distributed energy and promoting emerging solutions such as virtual power plants and hydrogen. The plan also urged the “strengthening” of coal’s role as a “bottom-line guarantee”.
IN THE WORKS: At a meeting on 11 June, China’s State Council approved the “15th five-year plan for building a beautiful China”, reported industry news outlet BJX News. The meeting readout noted the importance of “actively address[ing] climate change” and developing “green production and lifestyles”, it added. The next day, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) approved a series of environment-related five-year plans, including the “15th five-year plan for a national response to climate change”, said business news outlet 21st Century Business Herald article. The full text of the plans is not yet available.
JOBS AND GOVERNANCE: A separate five-year plan on employment included calls to “unlock employment potential” by developing “new energy system” projects, according to current affairs outlet China News. The government also published a white paper on global governance that said the “general public truly feels that nations are taking action and that unity can overcome any obstacle” to address climate change, reported state news agency Xinhua. It added that the paper called on developed countries to “honor their commitments” on climate finance. Foreign minister Wang Yi said in a press conference that China aims to “innovate governance mechanisms” to address issues such as how countries can “achieve” a global low-carbon transition, Xinhua also reported.
Critical mineral barbs
REDUCE DEPENDENCIES: The Group of Seven (G7) major economies have stated that “no single country should supply more than 60% of their imports of rare earths”, reported Bloomberg, in “an effort to reduce their reliance on China”. The full communique, which does not mention China by name, said that diversifying supply chains was “urgen[t]”, due to “market concentration”, the “growing use of arbitrary trade restrictions” and the need to “reduce vulnerabilities”. In response, China’s foreign ministry urged the G7 to “stop disrupting the international trade order” with “self-made rules”.
EXPORTS BLOCKED: The Indonesian government’s new nickel production quotas and pricing rules could put $50bn of Chinese investment at risk, Chinese diplomats argued in a letter covered by the Financial Times. Lithium miners in Zimbabwe, including Chinese firms, are asking for more time to build local processing facilities ahead of a 2027 lithium concentrate export ban, said Reuters. Meanwhile, China restricted trade with two US rare-earth companies, in response to the US adding companies including CATL and BYD to a “blacklist”, said the Financial Times. China’s exports to Japan of rare earths used to make permanent magnets remain “negligible”, reported Reuters.
DIALOGUE URGED: EU member states have asked the European Commission to develop new trade instruments to deal with the “economic threat” posed by China, reported the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Despite “combative rhetoric” ahead of the summit, the Financial Times reported that the 27 leaders opted for dialogue rather than immediate action to address “global macroeconomic imbalances”. Separately, the European Commission plans to impose tariffs on Chinese plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, reported German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
CLIMATE MINISTERIAL: The EU, China and Canada held a climate ministerial, in which Chinese environment minister Huang Runqiu said countries “must strengthen cooperation rather than retreat from it”, said Euronews. Climate outlet Tanpaifang reported that Huang also said COP31 should address “insufficient emission reduction efforts and financial support from developed countries”. According to a European Commission transcript, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said: “We need to act for climate, but also for competitiveness and independence. We cannot afford to depend on third countries.”
Mandatory targets for energy users
NEW TARGETS: From August, the Chinese government will “set binding targets” for companies on how much low-carbon power and non-electric energy they must consume, said Bloomberg. It added that targets will be set for how much low-carbon power provinces must absorb into their grids. Provinces and “key energy-consuming industries” will see their uptake of clean energy monitored on a quarterly basis and be subject to annual assessments by the State Council, said industry news outlet International Energy Net.
END-USER PRESSURE: The announcement marks the first time that China has established targets for non-fossil energy consumption at the “end-user level”, reported economic news outlet Jiemian. It added that the previous system, which only covered power, placed the responsibility for absorbing renewable energy into the grid “primarily” onto local governments and power grid companies.
SUPPORTING THE MARKET: The new measures will “help address grid integration challenges and promote better utilisation of renewable energy”, an official at the National Energy Administration told reporters, according to Xinhua. The official said it would also help boost demand for other low-carbon industries, such as “green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol”. Liu Guobin, vice-president of the China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute said in an “explanation” posted on International Energy Net that the measures would also “convey clear…expectations to the market” for the long-term outlook for renewable energy, “guiding the rational allocation of investment”.
More China news
- BECALMED: China’s thermal power generation rose 2.1% year-on-year in May, as “lower wind speeds curbed renewable energy growth”, reported Reuters.
- TRUCK TARGET: The government issued a new plan for developing “new-energy heavy duty trucks (HDTs)” that aims to have sales of electric, hydrogen and other low-carbon HDTs account for 40% of new truck sales by 2030, said Xinhua.
- SUPERMASSIVE SYSTEM: China’s total power capacity reached 4,000 gigawatts in May, reported BJX News, larger than that of the US, EU, India, Russia and Japan combined. Coal’s share of the capacity mix fell to 32%, while the non-fossil share rose to 62%.
- EXPORT DRIVER: China’s exports of electric vehicles (EVs) rose 54% year-on-year in May to $10bn by value and lithium-battery exports “rose 37% to $8bn”, but solar cell exports fell 7% by value to $2bn, said Caixin. The thinktank Ember found that Chinese EV exports to south-east Asia, particularly Thailand and the Philippines, reached an “all-time high” of $1.2bn.
- ONGOING RISK: The heavy rainfall seen throughout June, as well as drought, is likely to continue during China’s flood season, said the Ministry of Emergency Management in comments covered by Jiemian.
- PROJECTION PUSHBACK: The China Energy Research Society’s Wang Weiquan described projections by BloombergNEF of China’s emissions reduction and share of coal in the power mix as “overly optimistic” and “even radical”, according to the state-run newspaper China Daily.
Spotlight
What is in China’s new three-year action plan for industry?
China has issued a new action plan for energy conservation and reducing carbon emissions across nine heavy industries.
In this issue, Carbon Brief examines how the plan will impact China’s industrial development and decarbonisation.
China will conduct an “intensive campaign for energy conservation and carbon reduction upgrades” across heavy industry between 2026 and 2028.
The plan targets nine key industries: steel; electrolytic aluminum; cement; flat glass; oil refining; ethylene; synthetic ammonia; methanol; and coal-fired power.
After 2028, it said that production capacity that does not meet efficiency standards will be phased out and that efforts will be broadened to other industries.
Combined, power and industry make up the vast majority of China’s emissions profile.
Emissions in some of these sectors – notably, steel and cement – have been falling. However, chemical-industry emissions have experienced double-digit growth.
China’s power sector, which generates the majority of its electricity through coal, is responsible for around 40% of the country’s total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Focused on efficiency
The plan outlined several measures for companies to take to reduce their energy use and emissions profile.
According to a Carbon Brief count, the majority are focused on energy efficiency, such as promoting high-efficiency industrial processes and upgrading energy-consuming equipment.
More than 70% of China’s steel, aluminium, cement and flat glass capacity does not meet energy efficiency benchmarks, said a government official in a Q&A published by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Yang Zhou, senior advisor China at Agora Energiewende, told Carbon Brief that the policy will “pick the last lowest hanging fruit” in terms of eliminating low-efficiency capacity. After this, she said, the focus will turn to entering a “deep-water” phase of decarbonising industrial capacity, as well as making it more efficient.
Some of the measures that companies are encouraged to take in the plan do directly link to decarbonisation. These include developing “hydrogen metallurgy” and sourcing low-carbon materials and fuels, as well as increasing electrification and renewable power usage.
The coal-power industry should improve flexibility, decouple combined heat and power operations and integrate biomass and renewable energy into their operations, it said.
Coal plants are expected to reduce coal consumption per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity by “at least five grams of standard coal” and carbon emissions per kWh by 10%-20%, if not more.
The document said that the share of coal-fired power capacity that meets energy efficiency benchmarks should improve by 15 percentage points by 2028. This rises to 20 percentage points for the other eight industries.
By 2028, according to the NDRC, the plan aims to cut energy use by more than 100m tonnes of standard coal per year and reduce CO2 emissions by more than 200m tonnes.
Supporting business
Companies will receive support from the central government, which will subsidise 20% of the total investment that “approved” projects require.
Provinces should “fully leverage” pricing mechanisms to encourage retrofitting, said the policy.
Local policymakers can now add a surcharge of up to 0.1 yuan ($0.15) per kWh to market-traded electricity prices for non-compliant producers – which finance outlet Caixin said was a “central” tool for enforcement.
The South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed analyst, however, saying the policy may not “deliver its intended effects”, as some industries still receive subsidised electricity from local governments.
Companies will also be able to use verified CO2 emission reductions from approved projects to “offset” emissions from “new, renovated or expanded” dual-high projects. For industries covered by China’s carbon market, this may be formalised in their emissions allowances.
The NDRC official said that support should be provided to “ensure they receive reasonable returns on their carbon emission allowances”.
The policy “seeks to strike a balance” between energy security and climate goals, rejecting the “radical thinking of ‘one-size-fits-all shutdowns and phase-outs’”, according to a widely-read commentary by Sprinting Power Worker, a “self-media” WeChat account.
“For industries such as coal power, steel and cement, a gradual capacity reduction is expected due to market forces,” said Yang. She added:
“For growing sectors like chemicals and non-ferrous metals, China’s strategy is to expand capacity, [albeit] increasingly concentrated, scaled-up and efficient. Continued decarbonisation will require large-scale deployment of solutions like electrification, green power-green hydrogen coupling and circular economy.”
Watch, read, listen
SULPHURIC SLOWDOWN: Rhodium Group published an analysis of how China’s efforts to restrict exports of sulphuric acid could impact global electrification efforts.
ARCTIC ACTIVITY: The Circumpolar podcast explored the variety of interests, including energy and the environment, driving China’s actions in the Arctic.
TRANSITION IN NUMBERS: Thinktank Agora Energiewende hosted a webinar on its new report, which outlined key trends in China’s energy transition.
CARBON TAX: The Center for Strategic and International Studies looked into how China is responding to the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism.
4.9%
The amount by which China’s oil consumption is expected to fall in 2026 compared to the year before, according to a report by a thinktank under oil giant PetroChina, covered by Reuters. It said the decline is due to the “pivot to new energy and high oil prices due to the Iran war”, according to the report.
New science
- Economically developed Chinese cities “transferred” 42% of their greenhouse gas emissions related to plug-in electric vehicles to less developed cities in 2020, “substantially increasing” the recipients’ climate mitigation costs | Nature Cities
- Renewable energy development “significantly reduces” urban-rural income inequality in Chinese cities | World Development
- Grain trading between Chinese provinces increased more than fivefold between 1980 and 2020 and production shifted northward, driving a more than 217% increase in “embodied nitrogen losses and greenhouse gas emissions” | Nature Food
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China Briefing is written by Anika Patel, with contributions from Lekai Liu. It is edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 25 June 2026: Five-year plans passed | Critical-mineral tensions | Industrial decarbonisation plan appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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