China NewsBase
Fast, easy search of the China news that matters
The China News Database was last updated at 02:45PM today.
Database searches currently perform best when a tag filter is used. We suggest trying out these tags: Xi Jinping, Russia, Taiwan, COVID-19, climate change, electric vehicles, gaming, IPOs, Belt and Road Initiative.
You may also filter by articles featured in our daily members-only Access newsletter, to get a curated overview of the top news and analysis about Chinese politics, business, and society. Select one option:
- All top news and analysis
- SupChina top news and analysis
- Top news and analysis from elsewhere — Stories in the “News briefing,” previously known as “Recommended links”
This product is in beta testing and development. If you would like to share feedback on the content or user experience, please email editors@supchina.com.
1,201 articles matching the search query.
Three tornadoes, record rainfall, and blistering heat waves raise climate alarm in China
Extreme weather has hit areas all around China in the past week, as Beijing forges on with new policies to reach its climate goals.
China rolls out another plan to adapt to climate change
China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and various other departments, yesterday published a new plan to tackle climate change amid another season of heavy rainfall that has already left at least 32 people dead in southern China.
High-speed train accident kills one, injures eight in Guizhou Province
A Guangzhou-bound train derailed after plowing into landslide debris, but China’s high-speed railway network has proven to be remarkably safe despite the country’s mountainous geography and climate extremes.
NGLC Giving Circle awards nearly $20,000 to emerging organizations combating climate change
“Across the world, targeting specific groups—in our case, people who love the outdoors—and empowering locals to use their voices to get more support, that is absolutely what we need more of,” says Kyle Obermann, co-founder of China Outdoors Collective.
China doubles down on coal
Forget clean energy: The approval of a new mega-mine in Ordos, China’s mining hub, shows that Beijing is still committed to mining coal.
Outlier or New Normal? Trends from the 2022 China’s Global Energy Finance Database Update - The China Africa Project
There were “no new energy development finance commitments in 2021 from China to foreign governments through its two most active policy banks” for the first time in the 21st century, a policy brief has found using the China Global Energy Finance (CGEF) Database managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. Some more interesting findings:
From 2016 to 2021, CDB and CHEXIM conducted 92 loans worth $75.1 billion to 37 foreign governments and entities in the energy sector, far exceeding total energy sector lending by the World Bank over the same period. China is not alone in decreasing development finance in 2021, as most development finance institutions around the world decreased new commitments last year.
China Seeks to Cut Coal Import Reliance With Mining Boom
China plans to increase domestic coal production capacity by about 300 million tons in an effort to reduce its reliance on imports, a plan that will deal a blow to its climate ambitions.
China’s clean energy conundrum
Climate change looms over China’s population and resources, but cutting carbon may not be as important as the nation’s top priority: security.
Deadly link between sharp emissions fall and China’s record 2020 rains
A sudden drop in air pollutants was linked to China’s record-breaking rainfall in 2020, according to a study by Nature Communications. The drop, caused by industry shutdown from the COVID-19 pandemic, was a major contributor to one-third of the extreme rains that led to mass flooding, killing more than 150 and affecting 55 million people.
Air quality and health co-benefits of China’s carbon dioxide emissions peaking before 2030
Early carbon peak could save lots of Chinese lives, and lots of money. If carbon emissions top off before 2030 under the 1.5°C target, it could help China avoid around 118,000 deaths by 2030 and around 614,000 by 2050 from exposure to the most deadly small particles, a Nanjing University study published in Nature Communications found.
Industry and power generation are the two major sources of carbon emissions in China, contributing more than 80% of the total emissions in 2010 due to the sectors’ intense use of fossil fuels, especially coal. A rapid shift away from fossil fuels toward zero- or low-carbon energy sources and more carbon capture systems (CCS) under a strict climate target would drive the substantial reduction in carbon emissions and help meet the current NDC target. Under a 2°C target, carbon mitigation costs could be more than offset by health co-benefits in 2050, yielding a net benefit of $393 billion to $3,017 billion (in 2017 USD value).
Building a green future in China
At a time when floods, wildfires, and other climate-related disasters have become more frequent and destructive than ever, the global construction industry, which has long been criticized for its carbon emissions, is moving toward a more sustainable future. In China, a government initiative and a growing eco-conscious public are major factors in heralding green buildings.
China’s $60 Billion Wind Empire Needs to Grow Its Own Blades
China dominates the world’s wind energy market, but it has to import balsa, the light tropical wood that all wind turbine manufacturers use in their blades. But now China’s $60 billion wind industry is set on planting its own balsa trees on a commercial scale.
Meeting Anti-Pollution Targets, Beijing Breathed Clean Air in 2021
Beijing met its pollution targets in 2021: “The Chinese capital recorded only eight heavily polluted days last year,” Sixth Tone reports, and “the average concentrations of six major air pollutants — including the hazardous PM2.5, PM10, ground-level ozone, and sulfur dioxide — were below the national standard for the first time since 2013.”
Where to invest in China’s ‘common prosperity’ age
Coal, real estate, gaming and social media all look to be on their way out in China. Who are the new economic winners in Xi Jinping’s common prosperity era?
China Climate Plan Needs Power Lines for Green Energy
Ultra-high-voltage (UHV) power lines will be essential for China’s clean energy future, because unlike coal and other fossil fuels, “wind and sunshine can’t be trucked to power plants closer to urban centers,” Bloomberg reports. Bloomberg writes that the project of building out UHV lines in China “will take 30 years and cost $300 billion,” and it won’t be a frictionless process, because however clean the power the lines carry is, the thickening web of high voltage towers is “expensive, noisy and, to many, a blight on the landscape.”
China's JA Solar to Put USD1.6 Billion Into Third Big 2021 Expansion Plan
Renewable energy giant JA Solar Technology will spend $1.6 billion to build wind and solar power stations in the northeast, on the momentum of China’s renewed commitment to clean energy after COP26.
China’s Coal Support Continues With $31 Billion Finance Promise
China continues to set itself apart from global peers when it comes to coal, allocating more than 200 billion yuan ($31 billion) in financing at a time when most global banks are shunning the fuel.
China to set up $31.4 bln relending facility for cleaner coal use
China will establish a special relending facility worth 200 billion yuan ($31.35 billion) to support the clean use of coal, state broadcaster CCTV quoted the country's cabinet as saying on Wednesday.
EXCLUSIVE Merkel pushes German tech in urging China to make coal power cleaner
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she encouraged Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in a call to make sure the new coal-fired power plants that China is building were at least more efficient than older ones, mentioning German companies' expertise.
China's key industries could hit peak coal use by 2024 - govt researcher
China's major coal consuming industries, including power, steel, cement and coal chemical production, could hit peak use of the dirty fossil fuel around 2024, a government researcher said on Wednesday.
Biden-Xi meeting: No breakthrough, but a possible journalist visa thaw
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s virtual meeting yesterday evening appears to have been relatively friendly and promises more stability for the U.S.-China relationship. There were no breakthroughs, but Chinese media reported that an agreement had been reached to issue journalist visas, starting with the U.S. side.
COP26 agrees on ‘phase-down’ of coal after last-minute deal between U.S., China, EU, and India
The COP26 “Glasgow Climate Pact” is the first climate summit agreement to explicitly mention fossil fuel reduction — though a “phase-out” of coal was watered down to “phase-down” at the last minute, at the behest of China and India.
U.S., China issue joint pledge to slow climate change in the next decade
A last-minute U.S.-China climate pledge at COP26: With just two days left at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, John Kerry and Xiè Zhènhuá 解振华, the special climate envoys of the world’s two largest emitters, unexpectedly announced the U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s. The 16-point declaration adds detail to an earlier U.S.-China joint statement from April, though the effects of the new statement are still unclear, and the two countries made no major commitments beyond what was already public. Kerry and Xie both said that the new declaration “was a product of nearly three dozen negotiating sessions,” according to the Washington Post, which adds, “One European negotiator said that the significance of the U.S.-China accord was no guarantee that the broader talks in Glasgow would succeed.”
China brings little to the table at COP26
At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, climate activists have been disappointed with China’s unchanged long-term carbon reduction pledges and Beijing’s decision to boost coal production to cope with an immediate energy crisis. However, some analysts see increased momentum to transition China’s energy mix away from coal in the medium-term.
China’s Coal Pledge Could Have Canada-Sized Emissions Impact
A Canada-sized reduction in CO2 emissions: Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 effectively marked the end of new international coal financing in September by pledging China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” but the exact amount of coal power capacity that would be averted was not immediately clear. One study now has a rough estimate: According to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, “646 million tons of annual CO2 emissions could be avoided, more than Canada’s current annual fossil CO2 emissions.” Additionally, a joint report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that China’s pledge would effectively cancel “two thirds” of planned coal power projects in Asian countries outside of China and India.
When Will China Get Off Coal?
Reality check on climate goals: In a ChinaFile conversation, four experts — Lauri Myllyvirta, Alex Wang, Ilaria Mazzocco, and Philip Andrews-Speed — agree that China’s climate goals are feasible, though more details on policy implementation are needed. The experts pointed out that China has still not defined the level at which emissions are set to peak by 2030, and Andrews-Speed suggested that the 2060 carbon-neutral goal might not be possible unless China significantly ramps up carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) technology.
China Binges on U.S. Gas to Manage Energy Shortage, Carbon Footprint
Record U.S. liquefied natural gas exports to China today are in contrast to just a couple of years ago, after the country imposed tariffs on U.S. LNG during the trade war.
'Ordinary people suffer most': China farms face climate woes
A “national awakening” on climate change? Li Shuo, a climate policy expert at Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing, suggested that a series of recent natural disasters made worse by climate change is having an effect on public attitudes in China. The Associated Press reports that “in a common pattern around the world, those who have contributed least to the warming and have the fewest resources to adapt often feel the pain most acutely.”
Editor’s note for Monday, November 1, 2021
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Xi Jinping has still not left China since January 2020, and contributed only by video at the G20 and merely wrote a letter to the COP26 climate change summit. Is he mostly being cautious about COVID-19 ahead of a CCP plenum on November 8-11?
China to Issue Carbon Reduction Plans for Specific Sectors, Xi Says
President vows the country will press ahead with its decarbonization efforts with series of plans and measures in the ‘1 plus N’ policy framework
China Hurries to Burn More Coal, Putting Climate Goals at Risk
Faced with electricity shortages, the country is racing to expand mining despite risks to the environment, miner safety and the economy.
These Companies Pollute the World More Than Entire Nations
“China Baowu, the world’s top steelmaker, put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan”: Bloomberg worked with CREA, a Finland-based environmental research group, to better understand “some of the largest emitters in China’s most-polluting sectors.” The resulting article also analyzes the path to carbon neutrality for six major sectors: power supply, steel, construction, petrochemical, transportation, and agriculture.
Chinese power sector reforms mean more coal now, less coal later
China needs to burn coal to end power shortages, but is the country’s ongoing electricity crisis all bad news for the climate? No, writes energy policy researcher David Fishman, because by using the crisis to implement fundamental price reforms for power markets, Beijing has actually disadvantaged coal in the future and taken a major step toward decarbonization.
Beijing confronts the energy crisis, but nature gets in the way
A story from the SupChina A.M. newsletter. Sign up for free here.
How China will achieve carbon neutrality: The role of the emissions trading scheme and other reforms
“China, when it makes targets, is not unreliable in commitments,” said Michael Davidson, a leading scholar on China’s environmental policy. But that doesn’t mean the path to carbon neutral will be easy.
Xi Jinping says China ‘will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad’
At the UN General Assembly, China’s leader pledged to end support for coal projects overseas in favor of green and low-carbon energy. But while the single sentence effectively marked the end of coal financing abroad, China continues to build new coal power plants at home.
Has China quit overseas coal financing?
China did not fund any overseas coal projects in the first half of 2021, the International Institute of Green Finance said. This marks a milestone in the greening of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which since its inception in 2013 had included generous funding of coal every year.
America’s second most senior diplomat heads to Tianjin, the Chinese capital’s satellite city
A top U.S. diplomat is heading to China for talks with her counterparts, but no one expects much to change as China-U.S. relations continue to deteriorate.
The world’s largest carbon market is finally about to start trading in China
Starting tomorrow, over 2,000 power generators in China will begin trading carbon credits on a nationwide market. The credits will be cheap at first and only cover a fraction of China’s total emissions, but the system will expand in the coming years to help the country achieve its climate goals.
U.S. and China commit to ‘taking enhanced climate actions’ after Kerry’s negotiations in Shanghai
China appeared to accept U.S. climate envoy John Kerry’s proposition that climate change be treated as a standalone issue in relations, nearly three months after dismissing the possibility. But will the words of a new joint statement translate into action?
