cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22189256
The latest data, for the first quarter of 2025, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable or falling for more than a year, as shown in the figure below.
However, with emissions remaining just 1% below the recent peak, it remains possible that they could jump once again to a new record high.
Outside of the power sector, emissions increased 3.5%, with the largest rises in the use of coal in the metals and chemicals industries.
Sector-by-sector analysis suggests that, in addition to the power sector, emissions have likely also peaked in the building materials and steel sectors, as well as oil products consumption.
So, 350 million Americans managed to elect Trump. After 5 months, and him totally crashing the country, they haven’t managed to stop him… not to hopeful about humanity’s chances on stopping climate change 😢
The reduction in China’s first-quarter CO2 emissions in 2025 was due to a 5.8% drop in the power sector. While power demand grew by 2.5% overall, there was a 4.7% drop in thermal power generation – mainly coal and gas.
This is catching up to Europe’s FF use declines (10%+ in 2024) in power sector. The overall reduction in emissions isn’t that big because China is doing something pretty crazy and highly emittive. It is making liquid fuels from coal. Geopolitics forces it to for independence.
Net doesn’t matter. If we get net zero emissions, we’re fucked.
We must get it to 0.
Yeah, but isn’t net zero the huge milestone that’s actually accomplishable in “our lifetime”*?
*on some self reflection and as a millennial, very net negative emissions feels accomplishable in my lifetime, so I suppose when I’m saying “our lifetime” I mean before the Boomers/Gen X die off.
This is good news but I hate the title. It makes it sound like they are fixing more carbon than they are producing. Its more that its decelerating. Which is awesome.
Oh my, it couldn’t be related to the US massively reducing their demand on the country’s manufacture, could it?! If more people stopped demanding cheap, unnecessary, poor quality products with high environmental and ethical costs, maybe China’s emissions will drop even further!
No. It’s because they are adding a fuck load of solar panels every day. They are leading the world by an insane margin. They got a lot of shitty things going on over there but they are crushing it on clean energy
