Biggest culprit turns to sun, wind

Weekend Australian
Saturday 11/10/2008 Page: 4

China is the elephant in the international lounge room when it comes to global warming but, far from being ignored, it is constantly being held up by both sides of the argument on emissions management. Detractors of the Rudd Government's plans to introduce a unilateral carbon charge scheme in Australia point to China's emissions it is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, emitting 24 per cent of the global total and exceeding US emissions in 2007 by about 14 per cent and the enormous increases to come from its commitment to coal-fired power to meet rapid industrialisation.

Supporters of the Government's plans argue we will have little influence over China and other large emitters in the next round of international negotiations on global warming if we cannot ourselves demonstrate commitment and acceptance of economic pain. China, meanwhile, continues to press forward with coal-fired development while maintaining a hard line on a global carbon trading scheme in post-Kyoto negotiations. After the recent G8 meeting in Japan, China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil declined in follow-up talks to endorse a commitment to cut national emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 suggesting that the major developed nations would need to cut emissions by up to 95 per cent to win their support.

Last year China oversaw the commissioning of more than 80,000MW of new coal-fired capacity nearly triple Australia's coalburning generation and it has approved more than 200 new coal-burning generators, each 600MW or more, for delivery by 2012. (By comparison, NSW, which accounts for 40 per cent of Australian electricity consumption, has 12 units of 660MW.

Notwithstanding this activity and its tough negotiating stance, China is busy ensuring that the developed nations understand it is not "doing nothing" about greenhouse gases. One of its leading energy academics, Jianxiong Mao of Tsinghua University in Beijing, told a major clean energy conference in Manila in June that China is closing 4000 of its old, inefficient power stations of up to 300MW capacity and building 120,000MW of renewable energy.

In an interview in New Scientist magazine, Wu Changhua, Greater China director of the Climate Group, says that the country's highest decision-making body has conducted two study sessions on global warming in a year. The country, she says, is "deeply aware of its environmental problems." Wu notes that the Chinese Government has legislated to boost electricity production from renewable energy to 15 per cent by 2020, from 8 per cent at present, and to require 3 per cent to come from wind, solar energy and biomass.

Australian proponents of "showing China the way" gloss over the fact that the country already has 6000MW of wind farms a target Australia hopes to reach in 2020 and that it is aiming to have 100,000MW of wind energy in 12 years' time. China invested $US12 billion in renewable energy last year and its Government has estimated that it will need to spend an average of $US33 billion a year for the next 12 years to achieve zero-emissions and low-carbon goals.

China is also planning a six-fold increase in its nuclear energy capacity, raising a challenging issue for Australian federal and state governments that cannot bring themselves to develop new uranium mines despite estimates that their product could contribute a billion tonnes of greenhouse gas abatement worldwide a year compared with the current 400 million tonnes from our exports. The Chinese Government drives the wind program by insisting that consumers pay the actual price of production. Wu Changhua suggests China does not need any lessons in pursuing cleaner coal burning.

The Government, she says, is already investigating carbon capture and storage, pushing its power sector to buy the most advanced pulverised coal technology, and closely following development in integrated gasified combined-cycle plants. These turn coal into a gas and are in pole position at present to lead the shift to "clean coal" electricity supply. China is also the world's largest producer of solar photovoltaic cells, having doubled its output on sun power panels in each of the past four years.

The Chinese Government is also engaged in ensuring that Western journalists writing about its carbon emissions understand the situation. It points out to them that much of industrial emissions come from production of cement, aluminium and plate glass, essential ingredients for the economic revolution it is pursuing. Twenty per cent of Chinese emissions roughly equivalent to Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions come from cement production.

International government visitors to Beijing for the recent Olympics will have found their attention being drawn to an 11-story building housing the Sino-Japan Friendship Centre for Environment Protection. Here the city's pollution levels are monitored and research information passed on from the globe's most energy-efficient (because it is one of the most energy resource poor) nations. Japan has much to contribute it uses an eighth as much energy as China does to $1 in GDP.

Japan has sponsored 18 "model projects" in China involving emissions-reducing and energy-saving systems. Nippon Steel, Japan's largest steelmaker, for example, has introduced an eco-friendly coke-manufacturing process called dry quenching that is becoming widely used in Chinese operations it now has 30 factories using the technology. Japan, however, remains fearful of selling its best technology to China because low-cost competitors may steal it.