China to increase its reliance on coal as energy crisis deepens

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China to increase its reliance on coal as energy crisis deepens

This can include adverts from us and 3 rd parties based on our understanding China has announced plans to increase its reliance on coal as the energy crisis deepens, threatening a huge blow to the UK's ambitions for a landmark international agreement on phasing out the resource at COP 26 climate change summit later this month. The energy crisis is gripping China heavily, with thousands of homes and factories plunged into darkness in rolling blackouts over recent weeks.

Now, Beijing has said it will ramp up coal use, hinting at a rethink in its timetable to slash emissions. In a statement that followed a meeting of the Beijing - National Energy Commission, the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, highlighted the importance of regular energy supply. As many as 20 Chinese provinces are thought to be experiencing the crisis to some degree, with factories temporarily closed, shops lit with candlelight and reports of mobile networks failing after a three-day outage hit the northeast. China is already the largest consumer of coal, relying on the resource for 56 percent of its power.

China published previously plans to reduce carbon emissions to reach peak emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutral by 2060. Analysts have said that if China wants to reach the 2060 goal, some 600 coal-fired power plants would have to shut down. In the statement announcing the new coal plants there appeared a hint at a change in the plan, saying the crisis had led the Communist party to shift the timing of this ambition with a new phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions The statement said: Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced. Given the dominant place of coal in the country s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs and continue to phase out obsolete coal plants in an orderly fashion.

The statement added: Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified. This renewed dependency on coal appears at odds with President X Jinping's recent pledge to stop building coal plants abroad. The announcement will derail a key focus in Glasgow ahead of the COP 26 climate summit and could cause serious concern in UK. Alok Sharma, the UK s president-designate of COP 26, has said that the amendment of ban on coal power will be a key aim of the summit. China to use secret Sea Hunter warships if Taiwan is lost INSIGHT China developing Secret Ocean War Hunters, picture suggest China pounding mass Military drills with strategic drills ANALYSIS Barnier asks Poland: Do you want to stay in EU? COP 26 - which will take place from October 31 to November 12 -- will see more than 120 world leaders meet in Glasgow to discuss plans for climate change. Under the UNFCCC 1992 World Framework Convention on Climate Change, every country on Earth is entitled to treaty binding to prevent dangerous climate change and find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an equitable way. George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University s China Centre, told the Guardian: China has stumbled into an energy crisis in much the same way the rest of us have done but it is exacerbated by the fact that the grid and the electricity companies are subject to price controls and cannot pass the prices on. Many have decided to shut down production and they have had a lot of power outages for households and companies.