China is about to open 169 more coal mines

A worker works at a coal mine in Datong, Shanxi province, China in November 2021 – Photo: AFP

According to the newspaper South China Morning Post169 new coal mines could boost China’s mining capacity by 10% in the coming years, instead of reducing fossil fuels as Beijing has pledged.

GEM said the mines would threaten China’s plan to reduce coal output beyond 2025 to meet China’s climate goals, unless Beijing closes more of its existing mines.

The organization asserts that the new capacity is in stark contrast to China’s “dual carbon” goals and pledges to reduce methane emissions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged that Beijing will reach peak emissions around 2030 and be carbon neutral around 2060.

The Chinese government also pledged to begin phasing out coal consumption after 2025.

According to GEM, the new mines have a total annual capacity of 559 million tons of coal. Of the 169 mines, 139 are under construction and 27 have been approved for construction.

These mines could increase China’s methane emissions by 6 million tons a year, contributing more than 10% to the greenhouse gas emissions from coal mining globally.

Power generation accounted for about 40% of China’s carbon emissions last year. The country is “contributing” to 30% of global emissions.

For the world to be able to effectively limit global warming, the United Nations warns that carbon emissions need to peak before 2025 and, by 2030, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent compared with 2021.

Methane emissions also need to be cut by a third.

China contributes about half of the world’s coal mined. GEM estimates the country emits 38.4 million tons of methane annually and accounts for nearly three-quarters of the methane from global coal mining.

In a report in March 2021, the National Coal Association of China said that Beijing is targeting coal consumption to slow down to about 4.2 billion tons by 2025.

However, China’s coal consumption rose nearly 6% last year to about 4.5 billion tons.

The report by the association noted China’s power sector has made continuous progress in using “cleaner” coal to help reduce carbon emissions, including overhauling facilities to make it more efficient. fossil fuel.