stories_for_china
China is winning the future. Here’s how.
When it comes to clean energy, the United States is falling behind a country that the president loves to hate.
This week, the front page of the New York Times described the Trump administration’s repeal of the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s attempt to slash carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. “The war on coal is over,” declared Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. Right under that article was an article from halfway around the world detailing China’s massive new investment in electric vehicles, part of Beijing’s determination to dominate the era of clean-energy technology. It is a tale of two strategies.
The Trump administration has decided to move into a new century: the 19th century. Coal has been in decline for at least seven decades. In 1950, it accounted for half of all U.S. electricity generation. It is now down to a third. Additionally, massive automation of mining has meant that the jobs in the industry are disappearing, down from 176,000 in 1985 to 50,000 in 2017. Machines and software are replacing coal miners just as surely as in other industries. Demand for coal is weak because of alternatives, chiefly natural gas. In the past couple of years, many of the top American coal companies have been forced to declare bankruptcy, including the largest, Peabody Energy.
Despite President Trump’s policy shift, these trends are unlikely to change. Reuters found that, of 32 utilities in the 26 states that filed lawsuits over the Clean Power Plan, “the bulk of them have no plans to alter their multi-billion dollar, years-long shift away from coal.” The reason utilities are shedding coal is economics — the price of natural gas has plummeted in recent years, and its share of U.S. electricity generation has nearly tripled since 1990. In addition, costs are falling dramatically for wind and solar energy.
And, of course, coal is the dirtiest form of energy in use. Coal-fired power plants are one of the nation’s leading sources of carbon-dioxide emissions, and most scientists agree those emissions lead to global warming. They also cause terrible air pollution, with all its attendant health problems and costs.
That’s one of the reasons China, which suffers more than a million deaths a year because of poor air quality, is making huge investments in clean energy. The country has become one of the world’s leading producers of wind turbines and solar panels, with government subsidies enabling its companies to become cost-efficient and global in their aspirations. In 2015, China was home to the world’s top wind-turbine maker and the top two solar-panel manufacturers. According to a recent report from the United Nations, China invested $78.3 billion in renewable energy last year — almost twice as much as the United States.
Now Beijing is making a push into electric cars, hoping to dominate what it believes will be the transport industry of the future. Already China has taken a large lead in electric cars. In 2016, more than twice as many were sold in China as in the United States, an astonishing catch-up for a country that had almost no such technologies 10 years ago. China’s leaders have let it be known that by 2025 they want 20 percent of all new cars sold in China to be powered by alternative fuels. All of this has already translated into jobs, “big league” as President Trump might say: 3.6 million people are already working in the renewable-energy sector in China, compared with 777,000 in the United States.
China is still heavily reliant on coal, which it has in plentiful supply, and it has tried to find steady sources of other fossil fuels. It went on a shopping spree over the past two decades, making deals for natural resources and energy around the world, often paying at the peak of the commodities bubble in the mid-2000s. But over time, it recognized that this mercantilism was a bad strategy, tying Beijing up with expensive projects in unstable countries in Africa. Instead, it watched and learned from the United States as technological revolutions dramatically increased the supply and lowered the cost of natural gas and solar energy. China has now decided to put a much larger emphasis on this route to energy security, one that also ensures it will be the world’s leading producer of clean energy.
Trump has often talked about how China is “killing us ” and that he’s tired of hearing about China’s huge growth numbers. He should notice that Beijing is getting its growth by focusing on the future, the next areas of growth in economics and technology. The United States under Trump will be engaged in a futile and quixotic quest to revive the industries of the past. Who do you think will win?
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Disasters make 14 million people homeless each year.
About 14 million people are being made homeless on average each year as a result of sudden disasters such as floods and storms, new figures show.
Eight of the ten countries with the highest levels of displacement and housing loss are in South and Southeast Asia
By Adela Suliman
LONDON, Oct 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - About 14 million people are being made homeless on average each year as a result of sudden disasters such as floods and storms, new figures show.
The risk of displacement could rise as populations swell and the impacts of climate change become more severe, said a report issued on Friday by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and tropical cyclones are the main disasters forecast to uproot large numbers of people, with countries in Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population, hit particularly hard, according to modelling by the agencies.
Eight of the ten countries with the highest levels of displacement and housing loss are in South and Southeast Asia.
They include India, where an average of 2.3 million people are forced to leave their homes annually, and China with 1.3 million people uprooted each year, found the report, released on the International Day for Disaster Reduction.
The numbers exclude those evacuated ahead of a threat, and people displaced by drought or rising seas.
Russia and the United States also feature as countries where disasters could cause large-scale homelessness, unless significant progress is made on managing disaster risk, the study said.
"The findings underline the challenge we have to reduce the numbers of people affected by disasters," said Robert Glasser, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction.
"Apart from death or severe injury in a disaster event, there is no more crushing blow than the loss of the family home," he added in a statement.
The most devastating floods to hit South Asia in a decade killed more than 1,400 people this year, and focused attention on poor planning for disasters, as authorities struggled to assist millions of destitute survivors.
Refugees and people uprooted in their own countries are already at record-high numbers, said IDMC director Alexandra Bilak. The new model goes some way towards predicting the risk of disaster-related displacement, which is an "urgent, global priority", she noted.
It is also intended to help urban planners in hazard-prone towns and cities who must consider the safety and durability of built-up areas and the threats to millions living there. Justin Ginnetti, head of data and analysis at the IDMC, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation there was a strong correlation between the risk of being uprooted by a disaster and residing in a rapidly urbanising location.
With the poor often living on the outskirts of cities, on flood plains or along river banks, Ginnetti said better urban planning could make them less vulnerable.
He contrasted Japan and the Philippines, which have roughly the same number of people exposed to cyclones. Japan builds more robust housing and so faces far less displacement in a disaster than the Philippines, where homes are less able to withstand shocks, he said.
"We don't want people to think of disaster displacement as some kind of inevitable act of God - this is not (a) necessary outcome every time there's heavy rainfall," he said.
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Asia-Pacific faces more damaging disaster threat, UN warns.
Natural disasters could become more destructive in Asia-Pacific, where a person is already five times more likely to be affected than in other regions, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, urging countries to invest in resilience plans.
By Beh Lih Yi
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Natural disasters could become more destructive in Asia-Pacific, where a person is already five times more likely to be affected than in other regions, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, urging countries to invest in resilience plans.
Home to 60 percent of the world's population, Asia-Pacific is the planet's most disaster-prone region.
FACTBOX-Asia-Pacific: the world's most disaster-prone region
Last year, floods, storms and extreme temperatures killed 4,987 people - far fewer than the annual average since 1970 - and affected some 34.5 million, according to the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2017.
Poor and lower middle-income countries, which are typically least able to prepare for and respond to weather hazards, suffered about 15 times more deaths from disasters than richer Asian nations, said the report released by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Disasters can have "deeply disruptive effects on livelihoods" and further disadvantage already vulnerable people, many in rural areas, pushing more into poverty, it said.
In addition to the human costs, the ESCAP research indicated that between 2015 and 2030, 40 percent of global economic losses from disasters would occur in Asia-Pacific.
"It also shows that future natural disasters may have greater destructive potential," ESCAP said in a statement.
The commission said disaster risks exacerbated by climate change were likely to increase in the region.
They include more life-threatening heatwaves, worsening floods and droughts, more frequent and powerful tropical cyclones, and heavier monsoon rains in East Asia and India.
ESCAP head Shamshad Akhtar urged countries to fill gaps in their plans for dealing with disasters.
"The absence of an institutionalised insurance culture and adequate post-disaster financing threaten our extraordinary economic and developmental achievements," she said.
According to the report, the countries facing the greatest economic losses from disasters are the region's largest economies like Japan and China.
But its least-developed and small island nations could be hit hardest, losing between 2.5 and 4 percent of their gross domestic product annually.
ESCAP called for actions to mitigate disaster risk linked to climate change, including setting up a regional early warning system and investing in disaster risk education.
It said building disaster resilience into agricultural development plans was important, as studies showed most poor people in Asia-Pacific are farmers in rural areas.
"It is... critical for improving livelihoods and reducing poverty," the report said.
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China hastens the world toward an electric-car future.
The biggest automakers in the world are being forced to follow Beijing’s lead as China takes steps to dominate in electric vehicles and technology.
China Hastens the World Toward an Electric-Car Future
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By KEITH BRADSHEROCT. 9, 2017
A driver waiting for his electric car to be charged at a station in Beijing. Already the world’s largest maker and buyer of electric cars, China is forcing the rest of the auto industry toward a battery-powered future. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
SHENZHEN, China — There is a powerful reason that automakers worldwide are speeding up their efforts to develop electric vehicles — and that reason is China.
Propelled by vast amounts of government money and visions of dominating next-generation technologies, China has become the world’s biggest supporter of electric cars. That is forcing automakers from Detroit to Yokohama and Seoul to Stuttgart to pick up the pace of transformation or risk being left behind in the world’s largest car market.
Beijing has already called for one out of every five cars sold in China to run on alternative fuel by 2025. Last month, China issued new rules that would require the world’s carmakers to sell more alternative-energy cars here if they wanted to continue selling regular ones. A Chinese official recently said the country would eventually do away with the internal combustion engine in new cars.
“We are seeing ourselves at a crossroads in the development of the automobile industry in this country, with a global scale in mind,” said Jürgen Stackmann, Volkswagen’s top executive for VW brand sales and marketing, during a visit to Shanghai.
China has reshaped industries before — clothing, steel making, even lace — through a potent mix of government support and cheap labor. More recently it has transformed green-energy businesses like solar and wind power.
This, however, would be on a different scale.
If China succeeds — and there is no guarantee — Beijing’s policy makers will be front and center reimagining the global auto industry, a business that has helped define communities, industries and people’s aspirations for more than a century. It is a role that was almost inconceivable just a few decades ago, when China was more closely associated with a different type of green transportation: the black, classic Flying Pigeon bicycle.
China feels it has little choice in pressing forward. While it is true that electric vehicles fit neatly into China’s plan to become the world leader in sci-fi technology like artificial intelligence, the country also fears a dark future — one where its cities remain cloaked in smog and it is beholden to foreign countries to sell it the oil it needs.
Photo
Beijing’s Third Ring Road in a heavy haze in 2014. China is pushing ahead with electric cars, but nearly three-quarters of the country’s power comes from coal, which emits more climate-changing gases than oil. Credit Jason Lee/Reuters
Already, China is the world’s largest maker and seller of electric cars. Chinese buyers are on track to snap up almost 300,000 of them this year, three times the number expected to be sold in the United States and more than the rest of the world combined.
The country’s market heft is considerable. China buys more General Motors-branded cars than Americans do. Even for Tesla, the still-small American maker of luxury electric sedans, China has become the second-largest market, even though China’s taxes on imported cars are 10 times as high as those in the United States. Tesla officials have said they are considering opening a factory in China.
A week ago, G.M. and Ford unveiled plans to add a combined 33 electric models to their lineups. Global manufacturers like G.M. and Volkswagen are also moving much of their research, development and production of electric cars to China. China in turn is pressuring them to share that technology with their Chinese partners.
Behind the scenes, China is recruiting some of the world’s best electrical engineering talent, even in the United States. China is also home to many smaller companies that make the parts essential to assembling electric cars. All this comes just as electric cars are finally starting to become competitive with gasoline- or diesel-powered cars on performance and cost.
Electric cars are an increasingly common sight in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. For some drivers here, electric cars are all they know.
“I don’t plan to buy a gasoline car, since I heard they are going to be banned for sale,” said Xiong Jianghuai, a lawyer based in Shanghai, who has bought two made by Chery, a Chinese automaker. He said he was delighted that the operating cost was less than one-fifth of the cost of buying gasoline, even if the initial purchase price was a little higher.
“I think the future lies in electric cars,” Mr. Xiong said.
Many outside China — including some members of President Trump’s administration — say China is using unfair government support to create national champions that could eclipse their rivals abroad.
More Watts on the Road
Number of battery-electric cars sold or projected to sell, in thousands.
Note: 2017, 2018 and 2019 figures are forecasts.
Source: LMC Automotive
Chinese auto executives say their country is pursuing common-sense policies to develop cutting-edge industries.
“In China, the entrepreneurs in the industrial sector are very lucky, because we have the foundation” from the government, said Li Bin, the founder and chairman of the NIO Company, a Chinese electric car manufacturer. “These opportunities are rare or impossible in any other country in the world.”
China’s ability to dominate electric cars is not ensured. China’s auto manufacturing skills are considerable, but it has yet to create a single car model that has become popular abroad.
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Even in China, most car buyers still prefer Fords, Chevrolets and Volkswagens largely made by government-mandated joint ventures between global and Chinese companies. When it comes to electric cars, most Chinese models are inexpensive and boxy, unlike the sleek lines and looming falcon-wing doors of Tesla’s latest models.
Chinese officials have long called for electric cars to be practical, and not just luxuries.
“The central government has made a lot of strategies for the development of new energy vehicles,” said Song Qiuling, a deputy director at China’s Finance Ministry. “That is why we have seen the progress and development of new energy vehicles.”
Some players have already stumbled. Faraday Future, an electric car company based in the United States but owned by a Chinese company, scaled back after its parent hit hard financial times. China yanked electric-car subsidies away from a number of local companies after an investigation last year showed that many were overstating sales.
The environmental benefits may be tough to realize any time soon. Nearly three-quarters of China’s power comes from coal, which emits more climate-changing gases than oil. Even on electricity, China’s cars are still burning dirty.
Photo
Customers waiting last week in the showroom of a car dealership selling electric vehicles in Beijing. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
China is also favoring battery electric technology that it can call its own. Foreign automakers already control much of the advanced technology behind fuel-sipping alternatives such as plug-in hybrids, like the Toyota Prius, which runs on both gasoline power and an electric battery.
Still, electric cars make particular sense in China. China’s dense and crowded cities often mean shorter driving distances, while its extensive high-speed rail system reduces the need for long-distance road trips.
Han Tao discovered the limits of electric cars the hard way. A 35-year-old stock investor in Beijing, he said he ran out of charge in July while driving to Shenzhen, 1,300 miles away. His Chinese-made BYD E6 electric sedan needed a tow.
Still, he said, he and his wife prefer the E6 over the gasoline-powered Chevrolet Cruze they bought four years earlier.
“It doesn’t have the oily smell and the noise from the engine,” Mr. Han said. “It accelerates way faster than gasoline cars. It feels like you are on a high-speed train.”
China’s push for electric cars shows how its industrial ambitions can endure big political shifts. China named a former Audi engineer, Wan Gang, its minister of science and technology in 2007, and he has kept the position and maintained the push despite the emergence of a new slate of Chinese leaders.
Wen Jiabao, China’s second-most-powerful official as premier from 2002-12, was an avid supporter of electric cars who came from Tianjin, the center of China’s battery industry. Mr. Wen’s successor as premier, Li Keqiang, has also turned government backing for high-tech industries into his signature accomplishment, while President Xi Jinping has strongly endorsed the effort.
“The development of new energy vehicles,” said Xu Chaoqian, a top aide to Mr. Wan, “has received a lot of support from President Xi, Premier Li and others.”
Follow Keith Bradsher on Twitter, @KeithBradsher.
Ailin Tang in Shanghai and Adam Wu contributed research from Beijing.
A version of this article appears in print on October 10, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: China Hastens A Global Move To Electric Cars. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Are electric vehicles pushing oil demand over a cliff?
With China now planning to phase out gas-powered cars, automakers are talking about an all-electric future. It could mean a big drop in emissions.
With China now planning to phase out gas-powered cars, automakers are talking about an all-electric future. It could mean a big drop in emissions.
BY ERICA GIES, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
OCT 10, 2017
Volvo, BMW and other automakers have announced plans to expand their electric vehicle fleets. One GM official declared last week: “General Motors believes in an all-electric future.” Credit: Miles Willis/Getty
A research note from Barclay's Bank last week summed up what the boom in electric vehicles, along with gains in fuel efficiency, might mean for oil demand—a reduction, by 2025, almost as large as Iran's total production. And if electric vehicles seize a third of the car market by 2040, the drop in demand would be nearly as much as Saudi Arabia produces.
That kind of jaw-dropping outlook has become increasingly common in recent months amid signs that a tipping point is coming for electric vehicles.
The technology breakthroughs, market forces and government policies might also auger a peak in oil demand, and that would be a big step toward wiping out emissions of greenhouse gases from the automotive tailpipe.
From Europe to Asia, and in parts of the United States, policymakers are talking about how to make it happen.
France and Britain committed in July to ban the sales of all gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2040, motivated largely by health concerns about air pollution. Then China, the world's largest auto market, announced last month that it will set a deadline for automakers to stop selling internal combustion engine vehicles and set emissions targets for automakers. California officials said they want to follow suit.
Major automakers have been falling over each other in recent weeks to announce plans for electric vehicle fleets and the phase out of internal combustion cars. General Motors said it would launch 20 new all-electric models by 2023, including two within the next 18 months. Its global products chief, Mark Reuss, declared that "General Motors believes in an all-electric future." It seems the question is when, not whether.
Electric vehicles still face challenges, such as range limitations, battery weight and cost, and sparse charging spots. But the industry has been steadily chipping away at them, and confidence is growing.
The IEA documented a global 60 percent growth in the EV market from 2015 to 2016. While EVs make up just 0.2 percent of passenger vehicles worldwide, in six countries, their market share has surpassed 1 percent: Norway (29%), the Netherlands (6.4%), Sweden (3.4%), France, the United Kingdom and China (1.5%).
"Norway is leading the way," said Luke Sussmas, a senior researcher at Carbon Tracker, the British think tank. Norway introduced far-sighted EV incentives in the 1990s, and this year, around 40 percent of all vehicles sold there were electric. California introduced a modest zero-emissions vehicle policy in 1990 and has followed that with other incentives for hybrids and EVs. In the first quarter of 2017, 5 percent of new car sales in California were zero-emissions vehicles.
But policy incentives will only take EVs so far. The real tipping point will come when they are cost-competitive with internal combustion engines.
How Soon Could EVs Be Competitive?
Gregor Macdonald, editor of the Terrajoule industry newsletter, lays out his criteria for a "competitive" electric vehicle: it must go 200 miles without recharging and be priced, without subsidies like tax credits, within $3,000 of a comparable gasoline model. "The buyer won't even have to consider the additional savings of the lower lifetime running costs" for EVs, he said, noting that they are cheaper both to fuel and to tune up.
The Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf are getting close to his criteria already, and more choices are coming from across the industry.
Volvo has promised that all its models from 2019 on will be fully electric or hybrids. Jaguar Land Rover made a similar promise starting in 2020, and BMW and Volkswagen announced that they were planning more electric models. Ford is creating a new team to accelerate its development of electric vehicles.
Macdonald thinks some EVs will be competitive worldwide by 2020. Other analysts see a longer trajectory. Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, thinks it will be seven to 15 years.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Mark Reuss, head of global product development, introduced the Chevy Bolt EV at the 2016 North American International Auto Show. The car, designed to be a long-range mass market electric vehicle, was named 2017 North American Car of the Year. Credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty
Earlier this year, Sussmas co-authored a study for Carbon Tracker titled "Expect the Unexpected" that predicted EVs would be cost-competitive with internal combustion engine vehicles by 2020 and have a 35 percent market share by 2035.
Oil industry forecasts tend to be much more conservative. The oil company BP, for instance, forecasts 6 percent of the worldwide fleet will be electric by 2035.
Many oil companies say the peak is decades away. They cite the International Energy Agency's "current policies" scenario, which finds slowing growth but no peak for oil beyond 2040—but assumes no changes in policy or technology. But some, including Shell, say it could come as soon as 2021, and are changing their business models accordingly.
The IEA itself sees a range of possibilities. A chart of deployment scenarios in its 2017 Global EV Outlook shows some curves rising more sharply than the current pace of technology might suggest—and some meeting or exceeding IEA's own scenario for what's needed to achieve the goals of the international Paris climate agreement.
For its part, Carbon Tracker assumes that governments will achieve their Paris commitments and that the costs for low-carbon technologies will continue to fall rather than just stay static. The notion that costs and policies wouldn't change "is obviously a completely unrealistic proposition," Sussmas said.
Electric vehicles are just one factor influencing when global oil demand and emissions will decline; others include broader transportation demand, fuel efficiency standards and urbanization.
Carbon Tracker predicts that oil demand will peak as soon as 2020, remain somewhat flat until 2030, then drop off. It bases that analysis in part on its growth projections for EVs, which it says would displace 2 million barrels of oil use by 2035—equivalent to the supply glut that caused oil prices to crash in 2014. By 2050, EVs would take 66 percent of the market, displacing 25 million barrels a day, with "grave consequence for the industry," Sussmas said.
Samantha Gross of the Brookings Institution said the spate of government deadlines for the banning of traditional cars "seem a little early."
"They might be better off letting the market do that," she said.
But Macdonald counters that the ambitious policies are "affirming a trend that's already in place" and the distant targets set leave plenty of time for them to play out.
"In venture capitalism, startups and the history of new products, there's an old saying: the first 1 percent is the hardest," he said. For EVs, in the United States, "we weren't quite at 1 percent last year. We'll be at 2 percent next year," he says. "That's very dangerous for the auto industry."
If the automakers' recent announcements are any indication, they've gotten that memo.
In China and India, Air Pollution Drives Change
Just a few years ago, conventional wisdom held that China and India's billion-plus populations would enter the middle class, buy cars and lead U.S.-style lives, rocketing through the global carbon budget. "We just haven't seen that yet," Macdonald said. "It's not happening."
Instead, in China, toxic air pollution from coal plants and car emissions are causing human illnesses and crop failures that have sparked public protests. The government responded to the pollution problem with strong subsidies for EVs, Sussmas said.
Over 750,000 electric vehicles were sold worldwide last year, pushing the total electric car stock past 2 million. About 40 percent of the new sales were in China, according IEA data. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
In India, oil demand grew at 8.3 percent last year, and Macdonald predicts ongoing growth there for another five to seven years. But it is also reaching a crisis point with air pollution, Sussmas said. This summer, India's power minister, Piyush Goyal, said that by 2030, India is aiming for 100 percent electric vehicles.
"I think most people think that's unrealistic and almost impossible to deliver," Sussmas acknowledged. However, such targets "are still significant to the degree they illustrate discussions behind the scenes."
Oil: Not Just for Cars
Most of the people who are saying peak oil demand is coming are focused on these shifts in private car and truck use, especially EVs and culture change, because personal vehicles use 26 percent of oil worldwide and 45 percent in the United States.
But other uses for oil are not so easily replaced: shipping, aviation, trucking, plastics. And that is part of the reason many oil companies feel confident in ongoing demand for their product.
"It's not that ExxonMobil is insisting that we all use them. We're still using this stuff because it works really well," said Gross, who has worked for the oil industry. Regardless, she added, "you don't need to get rid of everything to see global oil demand start peaking and declining."
What does this all mean in terms of holding the world to less than 2 degrees Celsius of warming, as nations worldwide have agreed—possibly even 1.5 degrees?
The Energy Information Agency (EIA), which is the data arm of the U.S. energy department, recently projected that worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of all fossil fuels—oil, coal and gas—would grow 16 percent by 2040 from the levels of 2015, the year that the nations of the world agreed to the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change that is intended to reverse the trend.
The EIA's current scenario shows a slowing, but no decline, in global petroleum use. Liquid fuels, mostly petroleum based, remain the largest source of energy consumption, and with energy demand growing around the world, so do emissions.
For EVs to make the most of their emissions-reducing promise, the electricity sector will also have to continue its rapid shift to renewable energy sources.
And while that is beginning to happen, even the relatively optimistic Carbon Tracker doesn't see an end to warming.
The group says that if oil demand peaks in 2020, and we see declines in other fossil fuel emissions as well, the temperature rise would still exceed the Paris targets, reaching between 2.4°C (50 percent probability) and 2.7°C (66 percent probability) by 2100.
However, that's significantly less than the business-as-usual trajectory toward 4°C and beyond used by many fossil fuel companies.
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Gas trucks boom in China as government curbs diesel in war on smog.
Sales of large LNG trucks are expected to hit record levels in China this year as the government steps up an anti-pollution campaign that includes curbs on heavy-duty diesel vehicles.
A logo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is pictured on a LNG truck outside a heavy-duty truck shop in Yutian county, China's Hebei province September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Lee
YUTIAN, China (Reuters) - On a recent morning in Yutian, a dusty town bisected by the highway that connects Beijing to the sea, Su Meiquan strolled into a dealership packed with hulking trucks and prepared to drive off with a brand new rig.
After years of driving a diesel truck for a trucking company, he had decided to buy his own vehicle – a bright red rig fueled with liquefied natural gas, capable of hauling as much as 40 tonnes of loads like steel or slabs of marble.
Su hopes the LNG truck - less polluting and cheaper to operate than diesel ones - will be the cornerstone of his own business, plying the route to the western fringes of China.
“Everybody says gas is cleaner with nearly no emissions,” he said after signing a stack of paperwork in the dealer’s office. In front of him, photos of proud drivers posing in front of their own new LNG trucks had been taped to the wall.
Sales of large LNG trucks are expected to hit record levels in China this year as the government steps up an anti-pollution campaign that includes curbs on heavy-duty diesel vehicles.
LNG trucks account for about four percent of the more than six million heavy vehicles able to haul 40 to 49 tonnes of goods that are currently on China’s roads. The vast majority of the 43 billion tonnes of freight transported across China last year was by highway.
But demand for LNG trucks is soaring as companies and manufacturers shift to vehicles that run on the gas that Beijing sees as a key part of its war against smog.
Sales of LNG heavy trucks surged 540 percent to nearly 39,000 in the first seven months of the year, according to Cassie Liu, a truck analyst with the IHS Markit consultancy.
That was partly fueled by a ban this year on the use of diesel trucks to transport coal at northern ports in provinces like Hebei and Shandong, and in the city of Tianjin.
“We are seeing a blowout in LNG trucks this year, thanks to the government’s policy push,” said Mu Lei, marketing manager for China National Heavy Duty Truck Group [CNHTC.UL], known as Sinotruk, the country’s largest manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks.
The shift to gas trucks is helping fuel demand for LNG in China, as are other government measures aimed at clearing the air, especially in the north, which is shrouded in a hazardous coal-fueled smog for much of the winter.
One major project is piping gas to 1.4 million households across the north for heating this winter, shifting away from coal.
China, already the world’s No.3 LNG consumer, has seen imports jump 45 percent so far this year. [O/CHINA7]
Chinese companies like Jereh Group and ENN Energy Holding, which build LNG filling stations, and Zhangjiagang CIMC Sanctum Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd, which specialises in LNG tanks, are expected to benefit from the gas boom, analysts said.
OVERLOAD, PORTS
Government restrictions on cargo overloading last year, for safety reasons, has also driven truck sales as operators rushed to buy bigger trucks.
Pictures show customers with their new liquefied natural gas (LNG) trucks at a heavy-duty truck shop in Yutian county, China's Hebei province September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Lee
Next month, Beijing will also impose restrictions on thousands of northern factories using diesel trucks, forcing many to use more rail and others to consider gas-powered lorries.
Sales of new heavy-duty trucks, including diesel and LNG vehicles, jumped 75 percent in the January-August period to 768,214, according to industry website www.chinatruck.org.
It did not break down the numbers, but companies say that diesel growth is being dwarfed by that of the LNG trucks.
Last week, Sinotruk netted new orders for 1,371 heavy-duty trucks, 900 of which run on LNG, at an event bringing together coal transport companies from seven northern Chinese cities, Mu said. In the first half of this year, Sinotruk sold 5,200 LNG trucks, up 650 percent year on year.
“Gas trucks are both more environmentally friendly and more economic,” said Lai Wei, general manager of Tianjin Shengteng Transport Company, a privately-run trucking company.
Lai is tripling his LNG fleet to more than 100 by the end of this year, adding 65 new trucks made by Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile Co. Ltd [WCPOWA.UL], the country’s largest LNG vehicle producer.
Slideshow (7 Images)
He is also cutting back his diesel fleet to 30 from 50 previously because of the new emissions rules in Tianjin that come into effect this month.
Only vehicles meeting “National Five” emissions standards, similar to Euro V standards for trucks and buses in Europe, will be allowed to operate at the port.
Lai said he was also concerned that there might be further restrictions on diesel trucks in a few years.
CLEANER, CHEAPER
China, the world’s top energy guzzler, wants gas, which emits half the carbon dioxide as that of burning coal, to supply 15 percent of energy demand by 2030, up from 6 percent currently.
That effort stalled in 2014 as an oil price slump lifted demand for diesel. But as oil prices have risen in the past 20 months, rebounding to above $50, LNG sales, especially from Australia and the United States, have soared.[O/CHINA7]
Diesel costs between 10-30 percent more than gas on average currently at Chinese gas stations, according to truck companies.
For Su, the new truck owner in Yutian, about 140 kilometers to the east of Beijing, price is a major reason for making the switch from diesel.
He plans to hire two drivers to shuttle the 3,500 kilometers between Yutian and Urumqi, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, to carry steel products west and coal or other goods on the way back.
“It really suits our journeys as the longer the trip, the more you save on fuel on an LNG truck,” he said. He is paying 390,000 yuan for a Sinotruk rig, about 60,000 yuan more than a diesel truck would have cost.
“On a return trip, we can save 3,000 yuan in fuel,” he added. “That means we’ll be able to recoup within a year the extra cost on the vehicle.”
Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Philip McClellan
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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China diverts 10 billion cubic meters of water to arid north in massive project.
Water supplies in north have been challenged by droughts, a surging population, agriculture, and manufacturing growth.
China diverts 10 billion cubic metres of water to arid north in massive project
by Reuters
Wednesday, 4 October 2017 02:19 GMT
Water supplies in north have been challenged by droughts, a surging population, agriculture, and manufacturing growth
BEIJING, Oct 4 (Reuters) - China has transferred 10 billion cubic meters of fresh water from the country's south to its drought-prone north in the few years since a massive water diversion project came onstream, authorities said on Tuesday.
In recent decades, water supplies in north have been challenged by protracted droughts, a surging population, agriculture, and unprecedented manufacturing growth.
China aims to ultimately supply 44.8 billion cubic meters annually to the north via the ambitious water diversion project. That would be about seven percent of the volume of water consumed by the entire country in 2015.
The expensive engineering project, which involves transferring water from the south via three major routes, was first mooted as early as the 1950s.
Along the middle route, the water pumped from the Yangtze River has gone to Beijing, Tianjin and the provinces of Henan and Hebei, according to the South-to-North Water Diversion Office under the State Council, or Cabinet.
The middle route carries water through canals, water highways and pipelines from Danjiangkou reservoir in central Hubei Province. It came into operation in late 2014.
The project has supplied 2.7 billion cubic meters of water to Beijing, serving 11 million people.
Currently about 70 percent of Beijing's water supply comes from the project. Previously the city's water supply came mainly from underground water.
Tianjin received 2.2 billion cubic meters of water while Henan and Hebei got 3.5 billion cubic meters and 1.1 billion cubic meters, respectively.
China aims to keep national annual water consumption below 670 billion cubic metres through to 2020, as part of efforts to ease chronic regional shortages by cutting waste and boosting efficiency.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Michael Perry)
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