PLEA Network

15 May 2017, Climate Home, India and China ‘on track to exceed Paris climate pledges’. With downgraded outlooks for coal use, India and China are set to beat their pledges to the Paris climate agreement, according to an updated analysis of their climate policies. Just as coal plants are cancelled in the two largest emerging economies, in the US, the Trump administration has started to roll back regulations designed to constrict emissions. But analysis released by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) on the sidelines of a UN climate meeting in Bonn, Germany found policies in India and China would more than outweigh slower emissions reductions in the US. The growth in global emissions has stalled in recent years, thanks mainly to reduced consumption of coal in China. “This has been attributed partially to structural changes in the Chinese economy, but also a continued policy drive to reduce coal use to both combat air pollution and climate change,” said Dr Yvonne Deng, a consultant scientist at Ecofys, one of a group of organisations that contributes to the CAT project. Deng said it was unclear whether the last three years of coal data in China was “merely a pause in the steady growth, or whether this is a sign of China having reached its peak in coal consumption”. Earlier this year, China cancelled construction plans for 103 coal power stations. If it turned out to be a sustained decline, she said, the country’s annual emissions in 2030 could be 1-2 gigatonnes lower than CAT predicted at this time last year. China’s current emissions are between 11 and 12Gt a year. Read More here