00:00Our world leaders are gathering in Turkey for the UN Climate Summit, COP31.
00:05Vice President Hang Zheng will represent China at the gathering in Antalya,
00:09as a recent study shows that China's carbon emissions recorded their biggest drop since the end of the pandemic.
00:15CO2 emissions were down 3.1% in the third quarter compared to a year ago.
00:20That pretty much matched a 3% fall in coal usage, while oil consumption fell 4%.
00:27Oil use for transportation saw an even sharper fall of 9%.
00:33And on the flip side, wind, solar and nuclear generated 110 terawatt-hours more power than a year ago,
00:41while hybrids and fully electric vehicles accounted for around 67% of passenger car sales.
00:48And as those emissions fall, value-added industrial output continues to rise up 5.1% year-on-year in
00:55the third quarter,
00:56and one private survey shows that factory activity in expansion territory for three consecutive months.
01:03Well, I asked Laurie Mulliverter, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute,
01:09how China's transition to electric vehicles has helped cut emissions.
01:13China's transport oil consumption already peaked three years ago,
01:19largely because of the shift to electric vehicles and also major investment in electrified public transport,
01:28the high-speed rail between cities and intercity transport.
01:33And the latest oil crisis has dramatically accelerated that.
01:40So in the most recent months with data, electric vehicles made up two-thirds of all electric vehicle sales.
01:49One big development in the past year is the breakthrough in heavy electric trucks and vehicles.
01:59So it's not just about private cars anymore.
02:01So if indeed coal consumption is falling, why is China building coal-fired power plants?
02:10Coal-fired power plants that are now coming online, and indeed there have been a lot in the past year,
02:16there are projects that were permitted in the early years of the decade.
02:20It takes about three, four or five years to complete a coal-fired power plant.
02:25So at that time, there was concern about having enough capacity in the power grid to meet peak demands,
02:36the moments when electricity consumption is the highest.
02:40And in response to that concern, the government did several things.
02:44They sped up the clean energy deployment, the deployment of energy storage.
02:51They improved the functioning of the power grid, which was the really crucial step.
02:56And they did permit a lot of coal-fired power plants.
03:00And these new coal-fired power plants are just coming online now,
03:05even though those power shortages were already largely resolved.
03:10With the COP summit about to get underway, what do you think China's expectations, its hopes are from it?
03:17There are significant opportunities for China at the COP.
03:22So one of the things that is going to be debated is a global target for electrification,
03:30which would mean countries targeting faster shift to electric vehicles,
03:36more use of heat pumps and other clean heating sources and so on.
03:43And that would be a major economic opportunity for China as well,
03:47because China is obviously a key producer of these technologies.
03:52But whether the government is prepared to go behind that global target is still a question mark.
04:00So one of the things that we've got is still a question mark.
