February 29, 2016 9:12 pm
BEIJING: China’s coal
consumption fell for the second year in a row, government data showed Monday,
as the world’s biggest polluter attempts to tackle chronic pollution that
accompanied economic growth.
Coal use fell 3.7
percent last year compared to 2014 levels, according to a report from China’s
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The drop follows a 2.9 percent decrease in
2014.
China’s rise to the
world’s second largest economy was largely powered by cheap, dirty coal. As
growth slows, the country has had a difficult time weaning itself off the fuel,
even as the pollution it causes wreaks havoc on the environment and public
health.
China’s consumption of
the fuel doubled in the decade to 2014, reaching more than four billion tons a
year.
Monday’s figures did
not give an absolute total.
It emerged in November
that China had been under-reporting its consumption for years, after a
different set of statistics were revised, with the figure for 2012 alone going
up 17 percent, or 600 million tons.
There are widespread
doubts over the accuracy of official statistics in China, which critics say can
be subject to political manipulation.
Coal fell to 64 percent
of the country’s energy sources last year, Monday’s NBS report said, down from
66 percent in 2014.
Observers reacted to
the declines with tempered optimism.
“These statistics show
that China is on track to far surpass its Paris climate targets, which is great
news for everyone,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior global campaigner on coal
for Greenpeace. “However, the trend is not moving as fast as it could.”
China’s President Xi
Jinping has said that the country’s CO2 emissions, to which coal is a major
contributor, will peak “around 2030”, as pledged in Paris.
The State Council,
China’s cabinet, has also announced plans to reduce by 60 percent the amount of
“major pollutants” coming from its coal-fired power plants by 2020.
Despite the decrease in
coal use, many Chinese cities are often blanketed with toxic smog, much of it
the result of using the fuel in industries like power generation and steel.
Nearly 300 Chinese
cities failed to meet national standards for air quality last year, according
to a Greenpeace report.
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