Author: Huw Slater

The trajectory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in China has emerged as a critical factor in determining future climate change. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was established, committing developed countries to specific GHG reduction targets. The agreement focused on developed countries that were clearly responsible for most GHG emissions to that point. While there continues to be good reason for developed countries to take the lead in reducing GHG emissions, many are suggesting that it is impossible to ignore China’s meteoric rise to the top of the list of the world’s polluters and the effect that it may have on future climate change.

It is widely acknowledged that China’s low level of per-capita emissions and the need for economic development for China’s poor must be taken into consideration with regard to climate change mitigation. It seems inescapable however, that the fate of any global attempt to contain GHG emissions will depend very much on the capacity, and indeed willingness, of China to achieve a level of sustainable development.

It is especially interesting to see what contributions China’s up-and-comers have to make to the climate change debate, and China’s role within it. It is in this context that I discuss a recent paper by Xunpeng Shi, recently presented to the China Update 2008, which asks the question: “Can China’s coal industry be reconciled with the environment?”

The central thesis of Shi’s paper is that, due to a decreasing trend of “pollution emissions” per unit of coal in China, the coal industry can “harmonise with the environment”. This seems to suggest that due to the improving emission intensity of China’s coal industry, there will eventually come a point where its emissions are not damaging to the environment.

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