China fails on carbon neutral pledges; local governments increase coal power

China's local governments have greenlighted more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents, reported The Guardian. The approvals suggest that between January and March this year, at least 20.45 gigawatts of coal power was approved, which was up from 8.63GW in the same period last year, whereas in the whole of 2021, 18GW of coal was approved. This report on consumption has been analysed by Greenpeace. The government of Xi Jinping has a five-year plan from 2016 which has stressed reducing the use of coal and developing clean energy sources. Further in 2020, Xi Jinping announced that his country would become carbon neutral by 2060.

China's coal power consumption 

Xi's pledge to be carbon neutral by 2060 has led to an era of reduced coal power approvals as local governments have been keeping their local economies in check with Beijing’s priorities. A surge in the approvals of coal powers came in 2020 immediately after the five-year plan came to an end. This happened due to the anticipation by the local governments for tighter restrictions on coal expansion in the next round. However, in 2021, Beijing suffered huge power outages, leading to a dramatic shift in the CCP’s energy priorities. Further, the price of electricity witnessed an increase as factories reopened to service global demand as the rest of the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Xi Jinping's government set a cap on the prices and many of the plants reduced their capacity rather than operating at a loss. Notably, China has been relying on coal for more than half of its energy consumption. Due to the cold in the northern part of the country, people have faced the prospect of a gruelling winter without heat. This has led to prioritising energy security instead of reducing the use of coal. Resulting in a “myth that if you build more power plants, that will bring more energy security,” said Xie Wenwen, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace. 
It has been argued that in order to obtain China’s growing energy needs, it is not more coal that is needed, but a more flexible grid. According to the report released by the  Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air technologies for storing clean energy “are not yet mature enough to be deployed at the scale considered essential” for China’s plans to expand the use of renewable energy.