Days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its most urgent warning yet about the impacts of human-induced climate change, the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI) at UC Berkeley and the Center for Global Sustainability (CGS) at the University of Maryland today released a groundbreaking new report – “A Decade of Action: A Strategic Approach for a Coal Phase-Down in China” – that details how China can strategically, responsibly and rapidly phase-down coal-power generation over the next decade.
“When it comes to breaking our dependency on coal, all eyes are on China,” said former California Governor Jerry Brown, Chair of the California China Climate Institute. “If leaders in China follow this straightforward strategy, they can show the world that it’s still possible to avert climate catastrophe.”
“In the recent U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration, China sent a positive signal to the world in pledging with the United States to enhance climate action over the next decade,” said Nathan Hultman, Director of the Center for Global Sustainability. “A core action is to accelerate the work of phasing-down coal consumption during China’s 15th Five Year Plan. And this analysis offers China a real opportunity to deliver on this promise.”
There is broad scientific consensus that to prevent catastrophic warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the world must rapidly transition from coal – the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel – to renewable sources of energy. As the top coal-fired power-generating country in the world by far, China will play a pivotal role in determining the success of this shift.
Accordingly, this report identifies approximately 1,000 poorly performing, old, small, redundant or otherwise undesirable coal-fired plants, referred to as “low-hanging fruit plants,” for rapid retirement across China. These plants account for nearly 20% of China’s existing coal power capacity – or just over 200 GW. By combining these retirements with the cancellation of new projects at early development stages, China can decrease its total coal power capacity to 981 GW by 2030.
“Key to our analysis is the roadmap that we’ve laid out for China to structure its coal phase-down with targeted retirements of the low-hanging fruit plants,” said Prof. Ryna Cui, the report’s lead author and co-director of the Center for Global Sustainability China Program. “We focus on identifying plants that can be retired generating larger environmental, economic, and social benefits, to maximize China’s societal gains from achieving its coal phase-down commitment.”
Notably, by following this phase-down plan, China can reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) by 29.3%, sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 36.6% and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 41.2% compared to 2020 levels – and drastically improve air quality and public health. In the face of prolonged and extreme drought in China, this strategy can also save 2.3 billion cubic meters of water annually – or 23% savings from 2020.
By spreading these shutdowns out over time and space, and ensuring China’s remaining coal plants are evenly distributed geographically, this report finds that the potential economic costs and risks of this strategy can be managed. In fact, based on this analysis, only 5.7% of assets would be lost and while 33% of existing power plant workers could lose employment, these workers – primarily medium- and high-skilled – would be well-positioned with the necessary transferable skills to work in the growing renewable energy sector.