China Briefing 27 June 2024: Extreme weather; New talks on EV tariffs; Coal power decline

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China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.

Floods in the south, drought in the north 

EXTREME WEATHER: China has been hit by extreme weather over the past two weeks. About 35% of its corn production was affected by severe drought in north China where some rivers had “dried up a month ago”, reported Reuters. In the south, torrential rain and flooding killed at least 38 people in Guangdong province – China’s most populated – as well as eight people in Hunan province and two in Anhui province. Local newspaper Guangxi Daily reported that this week’s floods in Guilin, capital city of Guangxi province, were the largest in the area since 1998. Chinese president Xi Jinping “has urged all-out efforts to fight floods and droughts, and to ensure solid work in disaster relief”, said state agency Xinhua. Some 33 rivers in China “exceeded warning levels”, according to Xinhua. 

GLOBAL WARNING: Yang Pingjian, director of the environmental sociology department at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, wrote in China Environment News that “the adverse effects of climate change have become more and more obvious: heavy rainfall, typhoons, hail and other extreme weather occur” in China. The National Climate Center said that China is “experiencing more frequent and intense heatwaves due to global warming”, reported China Daily. The “average onset of high temperatures (those exceeding 35C) has advanced by 2.5 days per decade” and the average heatwave starting date has moved from 24 June in 1981-1990 to 7 June in 2011-2020, the outlet added. New research covered by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post found that “widespread heat stress will be felt by most of China’s population by the end of the century due to climate change, with the north of the country expected to be hit hardest”. 

SUMMER PRESSURE: These high temperatures may cause peak electricity consumption to grow by more than 100 gigawatts (GW) year-on-year during this summer’s peak period, putting pressure on “ensuring power supply”, China Securities Journal reported. Writing in financial newspaper Caixin, Qin Qi, China analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) noted that this expected 100GW increase is “similar to 2022’s growth, which saw power shortages and blackouts”, adding that this “highlighted the need for a more flexible inter-provincial electricity trading mechanism”. She also pointed to the need for flexible grid operations and demand-side measures to help China “effectively manage peak demand pressures without compromising its climate commitments”.

Renewable energy pushed thermal power into decline

THERMAL DECLINE: A surge in solar power and hydropower in China in May led to a 4.3% decline in thermal power – mainly coal –  that month, Bloomberg reported, adding that this supported earlier Carbon Brief analysis finding China’s emissions may fall this year. The drop in thermal power was the largest since 2022 and could continue as long as China does not “reprioritise carbon-heavy investment to revive growth”, the outlet added. Hydropower generation rose 38.6% year-on-year in May 2024 and solar by 29.1%, state-run industry newspaper China Energy Net said.

SOLAR CAPACITY: China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) pledged in a press conference to “guide production capacity expansion” and “prevent unnecessary investments” in the country’s solar manufacturing sector, following a call for help from industry participants “grappl[ing] with a surge in capacity”, according to finance newswire Yicai. Economic news outlet Jiemian quoted Li Chuangjun, director of the NEA’s new energy and renewable energy department, saying at the press conference that the industry should “avoid repetitive construction of low-end solar capacity”. 

NO OVERCAPACITY?: NEA head Zhang Jianhua said at the same press conference that “whether from the perspective of comparative advantage or of global market demand, China’s new energy industry does not have a so-called ‘overcapacity’ problem”, state-run newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported. Zhang added that “supply moderately exceeding demand is helpful for achieving technological progress and reducing product costs”, and that the solar industry specifically is characterised by a strong private sector, “sufficient” competition and companies “choosing to expand production” due to “optimistic outlooks towards future markets”, according to the newspaper. 

EU and China to discuss electric vehicle tariffs

NEW TALKS: After expressing opposition to the EU’s additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) and announcing an anti-dumping investigation into pork products from the EU, China agreed to a new discussion over the tariffs this week, the Financial Times reported. Bloomberg said the talks “may buy time” for China to “sow enough opposition” between EU member states, as Beijing suggested German luxury automakers “could benefit if Berlin convinces the EU to drop tariffs”. 

MIDDLEMAN GERMANY?: Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck, who visited China last weekend, showed there was an “open attitude of China and some politicians in the EU in seeking dialogue and cooperation amid trade friction”, said a Global Times’ editorial. Habeck said the EU’s tariffs measures were “not a punishment” and its “doors are open for discussions”, Reuters reported. The German Chamber of Commerce in East China, a business advocacy group, also argued that the EU tariffs “cannot offer protection to German carmakers or increase their competitiveness”, SCMP reported. Reuters said that China’s share of Germany’s EV imports rose to 40.9% in the first quarter of this year.

CHINA COMPROMISE?: China’s state-controlled Global Times newspaper wrote “observers said the best outcome the Chinese side wants is that the EC, the executive body of the EU, scrap its tariff decision before 4 July and abide by WTO rules”. Another state-run newspaper China Daily said in an editorial that Beijing is “willing…to try and resolve the reasonable concerns of the EU” and hopes that Brussels will avoid escalating frictions “by meeting China halfway”. In an interview with the Financial Times, Zhu Min, a member of China’s “five-year plan” committee, argued there was no “overcapacity” or “dumping” of cheap EVs on the European market. He said the price of EVs is higher overseas than in the domestic market and that China’s domestic buyer rebate also applied to foreign EV brands, such as Tesla in China, added the outlet. 

EU-China climate dialogue and Li’s new commitment

CHINA-EU TALKS: Amid their ongoing tariff dispute, China and the EU held the fifth “high-level environment and climate dialogue” on 18 June, said Xinhua. The Chinese vice premier Ding Xuexiang and the European Commission’s Maroš Šefčovič agreed there were “common interests” and discussed “climate change and protecting the ecological environment”, the state news agency continued. Ding also said the EU’s tariff plan was “typical protectionism” which is “not conducive to the EU’s green transformation”, added the agency. China’s minister of ecology and environment, Huang Runqiu, and the EU’s commissioner for climate action, Wopke Hoekstra, signed “an updated memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation on emissions trading”, the Chinese International Environment Net reported.  

PREMIER’S REMARKS: The Chinese premier Li Qiang announced yesterday that “China is committed to addressing climate change and has been proactively developing green industries such as new energy” at the World Economic Forum’s “summer Davos” meetings in Dalian, China, Xinhua reported. Li said “the green transition itself holds immense potential for development” and that all nations should “create more growth drivers for the green economy”, added Xinhua. Reuters said Li also “hit back” at overcapacity accusations from the US and EU, arguing that China’s production of clean energy technologies “first met our domestic demand, but also enrich[es] global supply”. At a domestic conference, president Xi encouraged technology innovation and said Chinese EVs “add[ed] new momentum to the global automotive industry”, according to Xinhua. 

How is China adapting to increasingly frequent flooding?

In recent years, China has seen more frequent floods caused by heavy rains. Dozens of people have died in south China this month due to torrential rain and flooding. In April, floods caused damage worth 12bn yuan ($1.65bn) – “the worst [losses] in 10 years”.

In this issue, Carbon Brief looks at the reasons for China’s recent floods and how the country is trying to adapt. A full version of this article will be published on Carbon Brief’s website. 

Rising floods

There are various factors behind the frequent heavy rain and flooding in China in recent years. 

In a press briefing covered by China Daily, Zheng Zhihai, chief forecaster at the National Climate Centre of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said that “higher than normal temperatures” were behind frequent heavy rainfall in southern provinces since April.

China Daily noted: “This temperature increase has elevated the atmospheric moisture levels, intensified convective processes, and led to more frequent occurrences of heavy rainfall.” 

Sea level rise has also been cited as a primary factor behind China’s coastal floods, as it increases the intensity and frequency of storm surges and raises baseline water levels.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a natural climate cycle that entered its warmer El Niño phase in mid 2023, was partly to blame as it raised sea surface temperatures and directed vast amounts of water vapour from the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal towards southern China, found one analysis. 

Dr Faith Chan, head of the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, told Carbon Brief that the rainfall pattern in Guangdong during this April was quite similar to the intensive rainstorm on 6-8 September in 2023 after Typhoon Haikui.

In addition to the natural causes, human activity also played a role. Chan said:

“Of course, the El Niño effect enhanced the wet and low-pressure moist current in the east coast of China and the west Pacific. But human-induced climate change led to the greenhouse effect and caused sea temperature to rise, which caused more storms and low-pressure rain belts. That is a fact.”

Indeed, Prof Yang Chen of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences told Carbon Brief that human-caused intensification of heavy rainfall over China had been even larger than expected.

Adaptation measures

China has built a number of large water projects to prevent flooding, such as the south-north water transfer projects in the Yangtze river that was launched in 2002. 

In the most recent “national water network construction planning outline” published by the State Council  – China’s top administrative authority – constructing “national water networks” by 2035 is labelled as the “backbones” of future flood prevention. 

China also launched the “sponge city programme (SCP)” in 2015. 

Sponge cities cost the government 1.5–1.8bn yuan ($210-250m) between 2015 and 2018. They are designed to collect, purify and re-use at least 70% of the floodwaters through “green-blue facilities”, such as green roofs, permeable pavements and stormwater parks, in urban areas. The overall system was meant to resolve the issues of urban heating, freshwater scarcity and flooding all at once.

But the 2021 floods in Zhengzhou, a showcase sponge city, laid bare the inadequacy of the SCP in the face of climate change. 

A paper suggested the SCP, which is designed to withstand one-in-30-year rain events, has limited effectiveness against more intense downpours. 

Additionally, SCP can create a false sense of security, which encourages more people to move to high-risk areas, leading to an increase in population and assets in exposed areas that require ever-increasing protection in a cycle referred to as a “levee effect”, said Chen.

Meanwhile, a lack of coordination added another layer of difficulties. Zheng Yan, researcher at China Academy of Social Sciences, noted in the aftermath of the 2023 Beijing flood that government bodies often looked after their own jurisdiction and aimed only to move the problem and divert the floods quickly, which piled pressure on cities in downstream areas.

Looking abroad

As flooding is a challenge faced by cities across the world, there is a plethora of ideas and technologies that China can draw on.

Rotterdam, a Dutch delta city of 600,000 people that is surrounded by water on four sides, has built water storage facilities, such as an underground parking garage with a basin the size of four Olympic swimming pools. It has also installed green roofs and facades to absorb rainwater.

Japan has built an intricate network of concrete tunnels and vaults about 14 storeys beneath the Saitama prefecture in the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan’s capital city, that could hold more than 1,000 Olympic pools of rainwater. 

Both cities’ underground flood diversion facilities are often used as a prime example of a viable flood defence system for urban cities on the frontline of climate change. 

Hong Kong has a similar underground stormwater storage system beneath the sport pitches of the Happy Valley Racecourse, designed to withstand one-in-50-years flood events. 

Chan said it is difficult to compare flood mitigation measures as each city is very different in terms of geography, demographic, densities and topography. 

Nevertheless, he told Carbon Brief: 

“In my opinion, China’s megacities should think about using underground spaces to store the sudden extreme discharge from super intensive rainstorms…Tokyo and Rotterdam are quite wise in that regard for using their underground spaces.” 

This Spotlight is written by freelance climate journalist Jia Ning Tan for Carbon Brief.

CHINA IN SPACE: The Economist’s “The Intelligence” podcast aired an episode about China becoming a “superpower” in the physical sciences.

RUSSIA-CHINA PIPELINE: A Financial Times podcast said Russia and China are “deadlocked” over a gas pipeline deal.  

FARMING LAND: The Chinese communist party’s magazine Qiu Shi published an article by Hunan province’s communist theory study group on protecting arable land and the “political responsibilities” related to it. 

CARBON FOOTPRINT: Finance outlet Southern Finance Omnimedia’s social media account 21 Low Carbon published an explanation of China’s new “national unified carbon footprint management system”.

The total value of an international “sustainability bond” issued by the Bank of China for investment in “renewable energy, sustainable water resources and wastewater management infrastructure projects” in the countries that joined China’s Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI). (The total value of loans for BRI countries reached $87bn in 2016 and $3.7bn in 2021.)

A comparative review of methane policies of the US and China in the context of US – China climate cooperation

Climate Policy

China and the US – two of the world’s biggest methane emitters – should make their methane policies more “climate-centric”, according to a new study. Existing policies relating to methane are concentrated in the energy sector and are “largely driven” by safety, pollution concerns and use of resources, rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the study said. The researchers suggested that both countries should focus on methane mitigation and “consider more climate-centric policies”.

Warming climate apathy to mitigate the disparity in climate policy support across distinct income strata

Energy Policy  

The Chinese government has employed economic incentives to offset the financial impact of the clean energy transition, but “these measures may not fully address the underlying issue of climate apathy, wherein individuals prioritise immediate interests over long-term climate concerns”, a new study said. Surveying 4,700 Chinese adults each year for three years, the study found that those on low incomes were less likely to support climate policy, with “climate apathy” explaining a much larger share of this effect – some 38% – than “economic burden”, which only explained 8% of the effect on policy support. The authors concluded: “Addressing climate apathy is a cost-effective strategy to boost policy support.”

Investigating the impact of weather on stroke in summer

International Journal of Biometeorology

A new study collected data of stroke hospitalisation in the city of Tianjin, China, from 2016 to summer 2022. The study found a direct link between temperature extremes and hospitalisation: “83% of the Inpatient-heavy events within the study period were caused by a combination of dramatic temperature changes and continuous high temperatures.” The authors concluded: “More attention should be paid to the combined effects of continuous high temperature and sudden temperature changes in summer stroke prevention.”

China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected]