With a population of more than 1.4 billion and placed at the centre of global production and logistics, China’s thirst for energy is immense. Between 2010 and 2021, China’s power generation more than doubled, taking their share of global generation from 19% to 30%.
If this growth had been fuelled by high-emissions generation, it would have created a major problem for China’s environment. Also, given what we now know about supply-constraints and the likely price of coal, oil and gas over the coming decade, relying solely on these fuels may have restricted power capacity, or made it prohibitively expensive for some sectors.
For China, the green transition is as much an economic necessity as it is an environmental one.
