On Wednesday, environmental group Greenpeace said that despite Beijing’s pledge to control, the provinces in China are still planning sizable new coal-fired power capacity projects.
In the first half of 2021, the local planning agencies approved 24 new coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 5.2 GW.
The number is 80% lower from the year prior when new projects surged to help China's post-lockdown recovery. However, the total planned capacity on China's provincial project lists totaled 104.8 GW, still considered high. The mount includes plants that have been approved and gone into the construction as well as those still at the planning stage.
The provinces with the most planned projects are Shaanxi, Guangdong, Gansu, and Guizhou. It remains uncertain how many will be completed.
The country plans to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net-zero by 2060 and the central government has pledged to control the number of new coal projects going into operation.
Li Danqing, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner in Beijing commented, "Control does not necessarily mean not approving new coal power plants, so we are still seeing new approvals but local authorities still have the power to launch projects without Beijing's authorization.”
Li advised that the central government should supervise tightly and carry out specific policies to control the expansion of coal power capacity.
