This article by Xumeng Deng was highly commended in the “Young China Watchers & Lau China Institute Writing Competition 2024” on the topic of “Whither the China Model: The economic, developmental and social challenges facing China today”.
Xumeng is a 4th year MPhys Physics student at Jesus College, University of Oxford, specialising in Atmospheric Physics and keenly interested in interdisciplinary solutions for climate change mitigation and prevention.
2024 has marked China’s warmest summer since meteorological records began in 1961, with temperatures regularly exceeding 40C nationwide. Some of the same provinces broiling in the summer heatwave have also found themselves deluged by heavy rainfall, leaving urban centres flooded and crops spoilt. With the country vulnerable to extreme weather worsened by anthropogenic climate change, how will China’s development model adapt to the increasingly severe challenges this presents, and balance maintaining economic growth with preventing environmental degradation?
Figure1: Warming stripes displaying temperature change in China, relative to average of 1961-2010 https://showyourstripes.info/c/asia/china/all/
To understand how China might address these problems, we must first examine its recent developmental history. China became the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in 2006 and its second largest economy in 2009 after years of spectacular growth under ‘reform and opening up’ (改革开放) policies. Fuelled mostly by emissions-intensive coal, rapid industrialisation and urbanisation quadrupled national energy consumption between 1980 and 2010. As shown by Figure 1’s warming stripes, China’s temperature deviations in the last decade have consistently been over 1C higher than average, evidence of a warming climate due to the increased emissions of GHGs.
Whilst past leaders prioritised economic growth over environmental considerations, citing “first development, then environment”, and internationally argued for ‘climate equity’, which would limit China’s obligations as a still-developing nation, Xi Jinping has shifted away from this stance by accepting China’s significant role in tackling the climate crisis as the world’s biggest GHG emitter. As a signatory of the 2016 Paris Agreement, China has committed to limiting global warming relative to pre-industrial levels to 2C, and preferably 1.5C, with its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for decarbonisation mandating ‘peak carbon emissions’ by 2030 and ‘carbon neutrality’ by 2060. Furthermore, 2021’s Fourteenth Five-Year Plan targets “reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 13.5% and CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 18%”, as China seeks to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions.
How then does China stick to these commitments and deliver a lasting economic transformation? With sustained investment in renewable energy, the sector has progressed to become China’s top contributor to economic growth in 2023, with a record 11.4 trillion RMB. China is also set to significantly exceed its 1200 GW target for installed solar and wind by 2030, with a projected 1720 GW by 2025, five years ahead of schedule. This supports the idea that “innovation in green technology can catalyse both economic growth and environmental improvement” since increased renewables deployment lead to decreased GHG emissions. To strengthen its green economy, China has looked to play to its traditional strengths of manufacturing and exporting, as a combination of consistent government backing and low-cost domestic supply chains have allowed China’s “New Three” (新三样) to dominate the global green transition, accounting for over 80% of global solar panel exports, over 50% of lithium-ion batteries and over 20% of electric vehicles (EVs). With the export market paying dividends, rising domestic EV sales, which in July topped those of internal combustion engine vehicles for the first time, will also lead to decreases in transport emissions and improvements in urban air quality.
However, China’s ambivalence over its decarbonisation plans has led to international scrutiny. Its tactic has often been to “under-promise and over-deliver” – by setting easily achievable targets, it can claim to be on track for delivery without constraining its economic goals. 2030’s peak emissions target also looks to be met five years ahead of schedule, but according to Climate Action Tracker, China ‘still plans no meaningful emissions reductions in the critical period before 2030’. This is in large part due to a continued dependence on coal power, which still makes up the bulk of power generation. Coal allows for flexibility in the event of a power demand surge, such as during the energy shortages of 2022, amid which Xi pragmatically declared that China “would not stop burning fossil fuels until its energy security under renewable sources could be guaranteed” – indeed, approvals for new coal-fired plants have risen in recent years, with China accounting for 95% of new plants worldwide in 2023. Though Xi may have distanced himself from the ‘economy vs environment’ rhetoric of his predecessors, China’s reluctance to renounce fossil fuels, again prioritising economic over environmental gains, will undermine its green progress on other fronts, guaranteeing increased GHG emissions and rising temperatures.
Indeed, high and low temperatures in China are predicted to be over 2C hotter relative to 1961-2010 averages by 2050, falling short of the Paris Agreement’s commitments. Inaction inevitably has a cost: the World Bank estimates that unabated climate change in China could lead to estimated GDP losses of 0.5-2.3% as early as 2030, via both indirect losses such as supply chain disruption and direct losses such as natural disasters. A warming climate also poses grave public health implications, begetting increases in heat-related mortality, particularly for China’s densely-populated cities swelled by rural migrants, increasing numbers of whom now arrive due the distressing of land by climate change. These cities suffer both from the urban heat-island effect and are more at risk of flooding; furthermore, those on the coast are most vulnerable to sea-level rise and typhoons. The Communist Party, faced with the ever-present question of its legitimacy to rule, knows that its political survival hinges on ensuring the welfare of its people. December 2022’s nationwide protests are still fresh in the collective memory, when frustrations over the party’s draconian COVID-19 restrictions boiled over. These scenes could easily repeat as recurring climate-induced humanitarian disasters feed into existing societal discontent due to a flagging economy.
Despite encouraging signs of green progress, the global impact of China’s climate response dictates that even more ambition is necessary in adhering to its international commitments. To maintain its domestic stability and international standing, China must go beyond rhetoric in acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis and drastically reducing its emissions, even if at an economic cost. China’s growth has been a model to nations worldwide – the world must hope that its efforts to tackle the climate crisis can be too.
BOOK LIST
In addition to articles and papers from a variety of sources, which have been directly hyperlinked, the following books were also referred to in the writing of this essay:
• The River Runs Black by Elizabeth Economy
Economy, E.C. (2011) The river runs black. The Environmental Challenge to China’s future. United States: Cornell University Press.
• Blue Skies over Beijing by Michael Kahn and Siqi Zheng
Kahn, M.E. and Siqi Zheng (2016). Blue skies over Beijing : economic growth and the environment in China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of Young China Watchers.