China Likely Cut GHG Emissions In 2015 (greenpeace.org)

mdsolar writes: Economic and industrial data released [Thursday] by the Chinese government's statistical agency indicates the country's carbon emissions likely fell by around 3% — with the contraction of key heavy industry sectors and the continued expansion of renewable energies driving a wedge between total energy demand and coal use. According to the data, China's coal output fell by 3.5% in 2015, thermal power generation by 3%, coal imports by 30%, pig iron output by 4%, coking coal output by 7%, and cement by 5%. All this suggests that both power sector coal consumption and total coal consumption probably fell by more than 4%. Total oil consumption grew only 1.1% in the first eleven months, gas consumption by 3.7% while cement production (which releases CO2 directly) fell by 4.9%. This indicates a fall of 3-4% in China's fossil CO2 emissions, roughly equal to Poland's total emissions.