The World's Biggest Polluter Is Cleaning Up Its Act

Almost all the increase in China's energy capacity is now in clean power.

- David Fickling

Start steering around an oil tanker, and you'll find it slow, almost imperceptible work. When such a vast vessel begins to shift, however, the momentum is almost unstoppable.

It's the same situation with the most important destination for the world's LNG carriers, coal ships and oil tankers over the past few decades: China. The biggest consumer of carbon, and the source of a third of annual greenhouse emissions, is finally turning a corner to a cleaner future. China's size is so overwhelming that when its fossil fuel consumption peaks, as it's doing now, it will shift the direction of the planet.

Take oil demand. China's usage may have hit a ceiling in 2023 before falling 1.2 per cent last year, the Energy Institute wrote in its latest annual Statistical Review. That's earlier than some other analysts have estimated, but not by much. The internal think-tank of state-owned China National Petroleum Co. reckons the top will be this year.

The International Energy Agency sees decline setting in only after 2027, but notes that almost all the incremental growth since 2019 has been for petrochemicals—a matter of onshoring processing rather than adding fresh demand to the global market.

Coal is facing a similar moment.