China’s President Xi Jinping said during his address at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that the country would stop investing in new coal-fired power plants abroad and will instead help developing nations build green and low-carbon energy. The move was welcomed by other countries, but analysts said to make bigger impacts, Beijing has far more to do at home than it has internationally.
US-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said China’s latest move would cull around $50 billion of investment earmarked for 44 coal plants in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Serbia, and South Africa. According to GEM, China backs one-sixth of 296.66 GW of coal projects in the announced, pre-permitted, and permitted phases across the world. More than half of them, or around 163 GW, are inside China itself.
With a total capacity of 1,047 GW, China’s coal fleet is the largest in the world. For comparison, India, in the second spot, has 233 GW, while the US, in the third, has 232.8 GW. GEM said China commissioned 38.4 GW of new coal-fired power capacity in 2020, or 76% of global capacity added last year. China also has 88.1 GW of coal-fired plants under construction, nearly half of the global total. Another 158.7 GW is under planning, also almost half of the global total.
