Report says China’s carbon emissions could plateau by 2025-2030

A new Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report concludes that conventional wisdom about China’s galloping greenhouse gas emissions might be wrong.

“It is a common belief that China’s CO2 emissions will continue to grow throughout this century and will dominate global emissions,” the report from researchers at the Energy Department lab states.

“The findings from this research suggest that this will not necessarily be the case because saturation in ownership of appliances, construction of residential and commercial floor area, roadways, railways, fertilizer use, and urbanization will peak around 2030 with slowing population growth,” it adds.

The report outlines scenarios under which China’s emissions would plateau or peak in the 2025-2033 time frame and energy use would level off well before mid-century.

“There’s been a perception that China’s rising prosperity means runaway growth in energy consumption. Our study shows this won’t be the case,” said Mark Levine, director of the lab’s China Energy Group, in a statement.

The two main forecasts in the study variously show a plateau or at least much slower growth in energy demand beginning in the 2030-2040 time frame.

However, the greenhouse-gas forecasts rest on several assumptions about China’s ability to de-carbonize its energy sector, the summary notes, including a very steep drop in use of coal and major nuclear power expansion.

The whole study is available here.

China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter several years ago.