Trends in China that impact emissions and AGW

[JimD]

I have been thinking for a time that trends in China are at least as important as those in the US or Europe in that consumption in the highly developed areas, while exceedingly high, is relatively plateaued and in most places declining slightly.  In China however, all relevant trends that I am aware of indicate that we are looking at a long period of rapidly increasing consumption that has dire implications for slowing and eventually reducing carbon emissions.  Given its vast population, rapid growth rates and huge rises in consumption it will possibly dominate the metrics governing emissions going forward.  India also has potential to have this kind of effect due to its large and growing population, but its economy is not in a condition yet where it can have the effect China is likely to have.  So I thought it might be useful to have a depository for metrics related to China which have a direct impact on emissions and other AGW issues.  Here it is.

[JimD]

The transition to consumption-driven growth may be more advanced than previously thought

The story of China’s investment addiction is well known. China invests more in factories, smelters, roads, airports, shopping malls and vast housing complexes than any modern nation has done in history.

One of the standard complaints about the Chinese economy is that capital investment is exceedingly high and that the savings rate is correspondingly also exceedingly high.  This creates a potentially unstable situation (a bubble in infrastructure and housing) which can result in an economic crash.  Many pundits have been predicting such a downturn in China for some time.

Chinese save excessively (a slightly warped metric as we are talking in the desired endless growth concept here) due to a lack of strong social systems like health care and unemployment. 

This propensity to save makes the necessary rebalancing of the Chinese economy harder. If consumers cannot be relied upon to spend and exports can no longer be the engine of growth, all that is left is investment.....
..... Each year, official data show investment at close to 50 per cent, savings at about the same level and consumption at about 35 per cent.

But, what if the data is wrong?

...That is the intriguing claim by two academics, Jun Zhang and Tian Zhu, respectively of Fudan University and China Europe International Business School, who argue that consumption has been consistently underreported. In a recent paper they find three important areas of undercounting. One is housing. China, they argue, does not properly account for “imputed rent”, an estimate of how much owner-occupiers would need to pay if they were renting. Second, they say, a lot of private consumption shows up in statistics as corporate expenses. For example, many executives pay for their private car on the company account. Although this appears in official data as investment, it is really consumption.  Third, and most important, they argue, GDP surveys underrepresent high earners, who may not relish the idea of officials with clipboards noting down their every expenditure. If high-income households are missing from the survey, so is their consumption. Taking these three factors together, the two academics calculate that China underestimates consumption by 10-12 percentage points.

The article (linked below) goes on to quote statistics which support the idea that consumption in much higher in China than thought and that investment is lower than thought.  If accurate, this means that there is less chance of a slowdown in China and implies that the growth in consumption in China is accelerating faster than previously believed and the growth in per capita emissions is rising faster than previously thought.  If the Chinese economy manages a relatively smooth transition towards a much greater reliance on consumption to promote growth that can only lead to a significant rise in emissions.  These numbers also imply that the figures on current Chinese emissions might be understated.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/15769e36-35c1-11e3-952b-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#ixzz2hwNDH4sN

[Laurent]

A Chinese scientist explaining his views :
(Pan Jiahua)
Available in French and German but you can hear is english in the background (sorry)
http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/047960-001/que-faire?autoplay=1
On Youtube you can find some speech from him :

[JimD]

China's economy speeds up, but Sept. data weaken

...The Chinese economy grew at an annual rate of 7.8% in the third quarter, accelerating from the second quarter's 7.5% increase, while data for September showed industrial production and retail sales easing off their levels from the previous month....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-economy-speeds-up-but-sept-data-weakens-2013-10-17?mod=wsj_share_tweet

[mati]

This page from China on nuclear capacity is updated regularly:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/

They do provide projections on the decrease in their reliance on coal electricty generation.

[Csnavywx]

7.8% is blisteringly fast. This represents a doubling period of just 9 years. Even a growth rate of half that is still too fast to seriously talk about lowering total emissions. 16% automobile growth? Holy crap, batman.

[JimD]

Mati

But if one breaks down the numbers on coal use and future energy production numbers for China a different picture arises.  The following is from my post #73 in the Coal thread from Sept 25th.

Some more info from the Bloomberg white paper referred to above just popped up on another blog and while I was reading what they said I noticed another point to make about the projections on Chinese coal consumption in 2030.

Their numbers indicate in China today coal accounts for 67% of the 1124 GW of production or 753 GW from coal.

In 2030 they project coal will be 44% (middle scenario) of 2707 GW of production or 1191 GW from coal.  Which is 'more' than their entire current production from all sources.

The spin is that this percentage reduction is a great improvement and that China is getting green.  But really this is a disaster as it means their overall coal consumption will rise by 58%!



bnef.com/WhitePapers/download/358

[Csnavywx]

http://people.duke.edu/~cy42/SNG.pdf

China seems to be making a move to syngas in an effort to burn their coal reserves without so much air pollution (except for the CO2 of course). This could be an emissions disaster in the making.

[JimD]

Cs

Such has been proposed here in the US before, but the economics of it are not there (which is a good thing of course).  Should natural gas supplies run short in the future don't be surprised if you see it float up on the radar screed again.

[JimD]

"China’s Insatiable Hunger for Energy Resources"

EDIT (forgot some links)

According to the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration, “the imminent emergence of China as the world's largest net oil importer has been driven by steady growth in Chinese demand, increased oil production in the United States, and a flat level of demand for oil in the U.S. market.”

It is a little eye opening that China is going to overtake the US as the worlds largest oil importer.  This has big implications going forward.  Note link concerning Saudi-US relations.

....the country’s energy self-sufficiency ended two decades ago, in 1993.

Since then, its oil import dependency has leapt to 58 percent in 2012 and is forecast to reach 70 percent by 2020.

....China already imports more than 50 percent of Iraqi crude, is Iran’s remaining major foreign customer despite international sanctions, and last week acquired a 49 percent share in the Russian Federation’s state-owned Rosneft oil company’s eastern Siberian Srednebotuobinsk field. Africa now supplies China with 1.2 million barrels per day.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Chinas-Insatiable-Hunger-for-Energy-Resources.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/us-saudi-usa-idUSBRE99L0K120131022

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/the-real-reason-for-saudi-shift-away-from-u-s.html

[wili]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/28/2844091/shanghai-clean-air-smog/

Shanghai To Forbid Coal Burning As China Decides To Monitor Smog’s Effects

On Friday, Shanghai released its Clean Air Action Plan in an effort to rapidly and substantially improve the air quality in China’s most populous city of nearly 24 million residents. The primary focus is to reduce the concentration of PM2.5 (particulate matter of 2.5 microns or less) by around 20 percent from 2012 levels by 2017.

The plan, which broadly targets six areas — energy, industry, transportation, construction, agriculture, and social life — will completely ban coal burning in 2017. This entails closing down more than 2,500 boilers and 300 industrial furnaces that use coal, or shifting them to clean energy by 2015.

“The frequency of heavy pollution will be significantly reduced by 2017. The air quality will better meet residents’ expectations as well as the general qualifications of building an international metropolis,” Wu Qizhou, deputy director of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, told Chinese Daily.

According to Wu, the development and utilization of renewable energy technologies and the distribution of natural gas will both be accelerated as well.

The city will also establish a green traffic system that prioritizes public transportation, with the goal of raising public transportation use in downtown districts to fifty percent by 2015...

China also released a new $817 billion plan to fight air pollution in September, with a strong focus on Beijing. According to a Greenpeace analysis, up to seventy percent of Beijing’s pollution comes from coal-burning factories and power plants surrounding the city. 

I wonder if the emphasis on the livability of cities means that the dirty coal plants will just be moved further out to the hinterland.

[Andreas T]

Not sure about this as a source but sounds promising:
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/china_extends_distributed_solar_target_to_20gw_by_2015

[JimD]

Wili.  The cynic would sure figure that that might be the eventual  political solution.  In reading your quote it occurred to me that the wording of what was planned to be shut down might not include the typical public power plants (they might be just outside the city already).  It sounded like they were talking about the little heating and power plants built by industry for themselves in the days when the availability of public power was limited.  I read once that 50 such facilities were coming on line a week a few years ago minus any attempt at permitting.  If Shanghai has 2800 of that need to be shut down I wonder how many there are in the entire country.  50-100K?

[wili]

Good points, and good question. Unfortunately, I have no idea. Next time I see my bro, who is something of a Sinologist, I'll pose the question to him (if I remember).

[JimD]

One of the things that prompted the US to start cleaning up our air was really bad air pollution.  Earlier this season there were a couple of reports about bad smog in China.  They are occasionally seeing levels that used to kill people in places like England during the early years of the industrial revolution.

This has happened again in Shanghai and one wonders how often this will have to occur before the public demands that change happen.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1374386/children-and-elderly-told-stay-home-severe-smog-continues-envelop

[JimD]

Here is another article on pollution in China only this time it focuses on the dire circumstances in the non-major cities.  The situation is abysmal to say the least.

I do believe that China will have to start dealing with this more effectively due to its impacts on the health of so many people. Doing so will be a drag on the growth of the economy I expect.

...Clouds swirled up around the factory, saturating the air with the smell of rotten eggs. Coking concentrates soft bituminous coal into hard briquettes that are used to smelt iron into steel, but it also produces carcinogenic emissions. “We can’t open our windows at night,” Hu Xuhui, a man in his late sixties who lives across from the factory, told me. “The days are bad, but the nights are worse.”

Handan, which is two hundred and fifty miles southwest of Beijing, has an urban core of 1.4 million inhabitants and a sprawling rural region of eight million more
...

...Although pollution in Beijing has attracted global attention in recent years—and has sometimes caused expats and tourists to flee—environmental damage is much worse in smaller industrial cities. According to government figures, of the ten most polluted cities in China, seven are in Hebei Province, and Handan is one of them. On bad days, you cannot see to the other side of a four-lane road. Earlier this year, a factory leaked a toxic chemical into the Zhuozhang River, which feeds the city’s reservoir. The river turned brown, dead fish were found floating on the surface, and the city’s water was cut off overnight. Supplies had to be trucked in, and there was a run on bottled water. . . ....

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/02/131202fa_fact_johnson

[ccgwebmaster]

Here is another article on pollution in China only this time it focuses on the dire circumstances in the non-major cities.  The situation is abysmal to say the least.

I do believe that China will have to start dealing with this more effectively due to its impacts on the health of so many people. Doing so will be a drag on the growth of the economy I expect.

But remember that the growth in sulphate aerosol pollution from Chinese industry is thought to be one factor contributing to below trend warming to date (and there is a similar period of below trend warming when the western nations went through similar stages of dirty air followed by cleaning up the air).

Carbon dioxide emissions did not drop historically - if anything some of the technology to clean the emissions actually requires more energy (flue scrubbers in power stations for example).

When the Chinese clean up their air we can expect a period of above trend warming as those particulates precipitate out of the atmosphere without so many rushing in to renew them. Sulphate aerosols - depending on height of injection - come out fairly rapidly (weeks from the troposphere and months from the stratosphere I believe), so there would be a correlation between improving air quality in China and above trend warming.

With the system as near to dangerous feedbacks as it is already - good chance this little bit of additional warming would be one of the last straws onto the back of the camel before the big changes really start to feed through - and that assuming the Chinese act fast on air quality.

[Laurent]

Made in China: Up to a quarter of California smog
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24909-made-in-china-up-to-a-quarter-of-california-smog.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|environment#.UuLlt6FKHUI

[JimD]

Empire...ism?

China pillages Africa like old colonialists says Jane Goodall

China is exploiting Africa's resources just like European colonisers did, with disastrous effects for the environment, acclaimed primatologist Jane Goodall has told AFP...

...During the last decade China has been investing heavily in African natural resources, developing mines, oil wells and running related construction companies.

Activists accuse Chinese firms of paying little attention to the environmental impact of their race for resources.

"In Africa, China is merely doing what the colonialist did. They want raw materials for their economic growth, just as the colonialists were going into Africa and taking the natural resources, leaving people poorer," she told AFP in an interview in Johannesburg.

The stakes for the environment may even be larger this time round, she warns.

"China is bigger, and the technology has improved... It is a disaster."

Other than massive investment in Africa's mines, China is also a big market for elephant tusks and rhino horn, which has driven poaching of these animals to alarming heights.
...

http://bangkokpost.com/news/world/395675/china-pillages-africa-like-old-colonialists-says-jane-goodall

[JimD]

A very ugly set of numbers and alarming conclusions.

China seems to be heading for a big recession.  If it happens it will be very instructive in figuring out how the global economy going forward is able to deal with financial crises, which are always going to occur but will be extra intense given the systemic degradation being caused by AGW, declining resources and the need to replace fossil fuels.

My bet is that it will completely change all of our conclusions on what China can accomplish going forward and also on how cooperative they will be on AGW issues.

So now we know what China’s biggest property developer really thinks about the Chinese housing boom. A leaked recording of a dinner speech by Vanke Group’s vice-chairman Mao Daqing more or less confirms what the bears have been saying for months.

It is a dangerous bubble, and already deflating. Prices in Beijing and Shanghai have reached the same extremes seen in Tokyo just before the Nikkei boom turned to bust, when the (quite small) Imperial Palace grounds were in theory worth more than California, and the British Embassy grounds (legacy of a good bet in the 19th Century) were worth as much as Wales.

“In 1990, Tokyo’s total land value accounts for 63.3% of US GDP, while Hong Kong reached 66.3% in 1997. Now, the total land value in Beijing is 61.6% of US GDP, a dangerous level,” said Mr Mao. “Overall, I believe that China has reached its capacity limit for new construction of residential projects”.

• China’s house production per 1,000 head of population reached 35 in 2011. The figure is below 12 in most developed economies “even when the housing market is hot; no country has a figure of greater than 14”.

• “By 2011, housing production per 1000 people reached 30 in Tier 2 cities, excluding the construction of affordable houses.

• “Many owners are trying to get rid of high-priced houses as soon as possible, even at the cost of deep discounts.

• “In China’s 27 key cities, transaction volume dropped 13%, 21%, 30% year-on-year in January, February, and March respectively.

• Among the 27 key cities surveyed, more than 21 have inventory exceeding 12 months, among which are 9 greater than 24 months.

• 42 new projects for elite homes in Beijing will be finished in 2015, hitting the market with an extra 50,000 units that “can’t possibly be digested”.

• China will have 400 million people over the age of 60 by 2033. Half the population will be on welfare by then.“

• Nomura: “We believe that a sharp property market correction could lead to a systemic crisis in China, and is the biggest risk China faces in 2014. The risk is particularly high in third and fourth- tier cities, which accounted for 67% of housing under construction in 2013 … ”

• Land sales and property taxes provided 39% of the Chinese government’s total tax revenue last year, higher than in Ireland when such “fair-weather” taxes during the boom masked the rot in public finances.

• The International Monetary Fund says China is running a budget deficit of 10% of GDP once the land sales are stripped out, and has “considerably less” fiscal leeway than assumed.

• Credit has already grown to $25 trillion. Fitch says China has added the equivalent of the entire US and Japanese banking systems combined in five years.

....China is a case of bastardized socialism on credit steroids. At the turn of century it had $1 trillion of credit market debt outstanding – a figure which has now soared to $25 trillion. The plain fact is that no economic system can remain stable and sustainable after undergoing a 25X debt expansion in a mere 14 years. But that axiom is true in spades for a jerry-built command and control system where there is no free market discipline, meaningful contract law, honest economic information or even primitive understanding that asset values do not grow to the sky.

Nor is there any grasp of the fact that the pell-mell infrastructure building spree of recent years is a one-time event that will leave the economy drowning in excess capacity to produce concrete, steel, coal, copper, chemicals and all manner of fabrications and machinery, such as backhoes and cranes, which go into roads, rails and high rises.
...

Still, once it’s clear that you’ve greatly overbuilt, overborrowed and overleveraged, the only way forward is down. The “water always seeks the least resistance” analogy holds up there as well. At some point, in economics like in physics, gravity takes over. And this time around the China avalanche as it moves down its slope has a good chance of burying the rest of the world in a layer of dirt and bricks and mud and mayhem too. So we might as well try to understand this for real, not quit halfway down

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/ilargi-stampede-in-the-china-shop.html

[Laurent]

China to scrap millions of cars to improve air quality
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27583404

[Shared Humanity]

Empire...ism?

China pillages Africa like old colonialists says Jane Goodall

http://bangkokpost.com/news/world/395675/china-pillages-africa-like-old-colonialists-says-jane-goodall

Absolutely! Why should we expect China to follow any path that is substantially different than  the western world as we went on our path of rapid growth over the last 3 centuries?

[Shared Humanity]

A very ugly set of numbers and alarming conclusions.

China seems to be heading for a big recession.  If it happens it will be very instructive in figuring out how the global economy going forward is able to deal with financial crises, which are always going to occur but will be extra intense given the systemic degradation being caused by AGW, declining resources and the need to replace fossil fuels.

My bet is that it will completely change all of our conclusions on what China can accomplish going forward and also on how cooperative they will be on AGW issues.

So now we know what China’s biggest property developer really thinks about the Chinese housing boom. A leaked recording of a dinner speech by Vanke Group’s vice-chairman Mao Daqing more or less confirms what the bears have been saying for months.

It is a dangerous bubble, and already deflating. Prices in Beijing and Shanghai have reached the same extremes seen in Tokyo just before the Nikkei boom turned to bust, when the (quite small) Imperial Palace grounds were in theory worth more than California, and the British Embassy grounds (legacy of a good bet in the 19th Century) were worth as much as Wales.

“In 1990, Tokyo’s total land value accounts for 63.3% of US GDP, while Hong Kong reached 66.3% in 1997. Now, the total land value in Beijing is 61.6% of US GDP, a dangerous level,” said Mr Mao. “Overall, I believe that China has reached its capacity limit for new construction of residential projects”.

• China’s house production per 1,000 head of population reached 35 in 2011. The figure is below 12 in most developed economies “even when the housing market is hot; no country has a figure of greater than 14”.

• “By 2011, housing production per 1000 people reached 30 in Tier 2 cities, excluding the construction of affordable houses.

• “Many owners are trying to get rid of high-priced houses as soon as possible, even at the cost of deep discounts.

• “In China’s 27 key cities, transaction volume dropped 13%, 21%, 30% year-on-year in January, February, and March respectively.

• Among the 27 key cities surveyed, more than 21 have inventory exceeding 12 months, among which are 9 greater than 24 months.

• 42 new projects for elite homes in Beijing will be finished in 2015, hitting the market with an extra 50,000 units that “can’t possibly be digested”.

• China will have 400 million people over the age of 60 by 2033. Half the population will be on welfare by then.“

• Nomura: “We believe that a sharp property market correction could lead to a systemic crisis in China, and is the biggest risk China faces in 2014. The risk is particularly high in third and fourth- tier cities, which accounted for 67% of housing under construction in 2013 … ”

• Land sales and property taxes provided 39% of the Chinese government’s total tax revenue last year, higher than in Ireland when such “fair-weather” taxes during the boom masked the rot in public finances.

• The International Monetary Fund says China is running a budget deficit of 10% of GDP once the land sales are stripped out, and has “considerably less” fiscal leeway than assumed.

• Credit has already grown to $25 trillion. Fitch says China has added the equivalent of the entire US and Japanese banking systems combined in five years.

....China is a case of bastardized socialism on credit steroids. At the turn of century it had $1 trillion of credit market debt outstanding – a figure which has now soared to $25 trillion. The plain fact is that no economic system can remain stable and sustainable after undergoing a 25X debt expansion in a mere 14 years. But that axiom is true in spades for a jerry-built command and control system where there is no free market discipline, meaningful contract law, honest economic information or even primitive understanding that asset values do not grow to the sky.

Nor is there any grasp of the fact that the pell-mell infrastructure building spree of recent years is a one-time event that will leave the economy drowning in excess capacity to produce concrete, steel, coal, copper, chemicals and all manner of fabrications and machinery, such as backhoes and cranes, which go into roads, rails and high rises.
...

Still, once it’s clear that you’ve greatly overbuilt, overborrowed and overleveraged, the only way forward is down. The “water always seeks the least resistance” analogy holds up there as well. At some point, in economics like in physics, gravity takes over. And this time around the China avalanche as it moves down its slope has a good chance of burying the rest of the world in a layer of dirt and bricks and mud and mayhem too. So we might as well try to understand this for real, not quit halfway down

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/ilargi-stampede-in-the-china-shop.html

The collapse will be spectacular but most of that 25 trillion in debt is owned by Chinese. The main financial impacts will thus be confined to Asia. The real impact will be fiscal as Chinese demand for anything plummets. We are already seeing this in certain commodities. Australia has dropped its forecast of coal shipments to China due to a mothballing of much of its steel making capacity.

The real problem that is still facing the global economy is related to demand. Large areas of the developed world are perilously close to rampant deflation. Some areas are already experiencing this. The developed world responded by loosening money to encourage consumption and investment with only moderating impacts. This is identical to the problem that the world faced in the 1930's. If China slips into a serious recession, we will be plunged into a global depression that is fiscally driven.

[JimD]

We  said.  I am sure you follow this stuff also.  One could put 5-10 articles a day into this topic.  China is looking very rough.  What happens there cannot but ripple through the whole world.

When this happens there will be a lot less interest in dealing with anything but returning to growth.  And that will be very hard.

I believe we are starting to see the beginnings of the wealth constriction which will demonstrate how difficult it will be to fund all of these green-BAU projects envisioned to save us.  We simple do not have the slack in the system to make that work even if it would work...which it won't since they are not carbon neutral nor sustainable. 

Cracks everywhere.

[TerryM]

I'd read pieces from Australia to British Columbia bemoaning China & Russia's new accord on gas shipments. Everyone who had been forecasting rosy futures based on selling expensive energy to China is now trying to find an exit door that doesn't lead to local ruination.
If China is headed towards a slump, or worse, this would add to an already untenable situation. With scrap being America's leading export to China any economic downturn shouldn't have a large effect on America's workforce, but any profits envisioned for the Northern Gateway may turn out to be a pipedream.
Terry

[Laurent]

China Weighs $16 Billion Car-Charging Fund
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-26/china-said-to-consider-16-billion-ev-charging-funding.html