China Enacts Energy Statute with Significant Implications for the Climate
8 November 2024 – In the run-up to the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, China enacted the Energy Law, which will enter into force 1 January 2025. The Energy Law is an overarching national statute that promotes and coordinates among the key government priorities for China’s energy sector, including high-quality energy development, energy security, low-carbon and sustainable development, and carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
The energy sector plays a significant role in China’s climate change policies. According to official Chinese government data, emissions from the energy sector are responsible for 77.9% of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. When broken down by gas, China’s energy sector accounted for 86.5% of its carbon dioxide emissions, 44.7% of its methane emissions, and 21.5% of its nitrous oxide emissions in 2018.
Coal is a fundamental safeguard for China’s energy supply system in the Energy Law. This reflects China's growing emphasis on energy security. Furthermore, the Energy Law provides that China will increase the domestic exploration of oil and gas resources and promote the large-scale development of tight oil and gas, shale oil, shale gas, coalbed methane, and other unconventional oil and gas resources. In response to risks in the international energy market, the Energy Law also signals China’s promotion of energy-sector international investment and trade cooperation.
Despite the focus in the Energy Law on fossil fuel and energy security, it is also significant that China will continue to advance clean and low-carbon energy sector development. The Energy Law provides that China will do so by prioritizing the development and utilization of renewable energy, promoting the clean and efficient utilization of fossil fuels, and improving energy utilization efficiency.
More generally, the Energy Law lays out key policies and mechanisms for government regulation of the energy sector, including:
- Formulating energy plans to guide and regulate energy development at the national and local levels;
- Developing energy development and utilization policies to optimize the structure of energy supply and consumption, promote clean and low-carbon development of the energy sector, and improve energy efficiency;
- Accelerating the establishment of a nationally unified market for energy transactions;
- Strengthening the energy reserve system and emergency response mechanism in order to ensure a reliable and effective energy supply; and
- Supporting the advancement of science and technology in order to promote the high-quality development of the energy sector.
All countries urgently need to cut the emissions of short-lived climate pollutants and protect carbon sinks to slow warming in the near term. See examples of additional IGSD resources below on the urgency and opportunities to mitigate the short-lived climate pollutants, especially methane emissions from the energy sector:
- IGSD (October 2024), A Primer on Cutting Methane: The Best Strategy for Slowing Warming in the Decade to 2030.
- IGSD (July 2024), China Proposes Strengthened Regulatory Action and Additional Market Measures to Mitigate Coal Mine Methane Emissions.
- IGSD (June 2024), China Issues Measures to Regulate the Utilization of Domestically Produced and Imported Natural Gas. IGSD’s annotated English reference translation of the Administrative Measures on Natural Gas Utilization is available here.
- Xiaopu Sun, Tad Ferris, & Valerie Fajardo (March 2024), China’s Ongoing Efforts to Address Methane Emissions and Opportunities to Further Raise China’s Methane Mitigation Ambition, in collaboration with the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, National Singapore University .
- Xiaopu Sun, Pu Wang, Tad Ferris, Hui Lin, Gabrielle Dreyfus, Baihe Gu, Durwood Zaelke, & Yi Wang (August 2022), Fast Action on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants and Nature-Based Solutions to Help Countries Meet Carbon Neutrality Goals, Advances in Climate Change Research.
