I'm with Bob. This can be done incrementally (though I wish the steps were bigger and faster). The small successes show that it can be done and the doubters are wrong.
Impossible to get rid of coal? Quebec and Ontario prove coal isn't needed or even helpful.
Can't have more than a few percent wind and solar and keep the grid stable? Germany, Denmark, Spain and more in their gradual stepwise fashion have shown gird stabilty with 25% "intermittent" electricity sources.
Now you continue to insinuate China can't reduce their GHG emissions. They are proving they can.
While it is nice to quote reductions in tonnes of coal consumed, it is better to talk about changes in radiative forcing. The linked reference confirms, and quantifies, what we have long known; which is that as China cleans-up its aerosol emissions, GMST will increase due to CO₂ that is already in the atmosphere (and this does not consider the large recent increases in methane emissions from China due to such considerations as: (a) increased meat and rice production; (b) increase coal to synfuel production, and (c) leakage from natural gas sources/distribution lines:
Bengang Li, Thomas Gasser, Philippe Ciais, Shilong Piao, Shu Tao, Yves Balkanski, Didier Hauglustaine, Juan-Pablo Boisier, Zhuo Chen, Mengtian Huang, Laurent Zhaoxin Li, Yue Li, Hongyan Liu, Junfeng Liu, Shushi Peng, Zehao Shen, Zhenzhong Sun, Rong Wang, Tao Wang, Guodong Yin, Yi Yin, Hui Zeng, Zhenzhong Zeng & Feng Zhou (17 March 2016), "The contribution of China’s emissions to global climate forcing", Nature, Volume: 531, Pages: 357–361, doi:10.1038/nature17165
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7594/full/nature17165.htmlAbstract: "Knowledge of the contribution that individual countries have made to global radiative forcing is important to the implementation of the agreement on “common but differentiated responsibilities” reached by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over the past three decades, China has experienced rapid economic development, accompanied by increased emission of greenhouse gases, ozone precursors and aerosols, but the magnitude of the associated radiative forcing has remained unclear. Here we use a global coupled biogeochemistry–climate model and a chemistry and transport model to quantify China’s present-day contribution to global radiative forcing due to well-mixed greenhouse gases, short-lived atmospheric climate forcers and land-use-induced regional surface albedo changes. We find that China contributes 10% ± 4% of the current global radiative forcing. China’s relative contribution to the positive (warming) component of global radiative forcing, mainly induced by well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols, is 12% ± 2%. Its relative contribution to the negative (cooling) component is 15% ± 6%, dominated by the effect of sulfate and nitrate aerosols. China’s strongest contributions are 0.16 ± 0.02 watts per square metre for CO2 from fossil fuel burning, 0.13 ± 0.05 watts per square metre for CH4, −0.11 ± 0.05 watts per square metre for sulfate aerosols, and 0.09 ± 0.06 watts per square metre for black carbon aerosols. China’s eventual goal of improving air quality will result in changes in radiative forcing in the coming years: a reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions would drive a faster future warming, unless offset by larger reductions of radiative forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon."
See also (& image):
http://www.carbonbrief.org/21000-2