World's Biggest Polluter Is Cleaning Up Its Act

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.

- Bloomberg

It's the same situation with the most important destination for the world's liquefied natural gas (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 whole planet.

Take oil demand. The country's usage may have hit a ceiling already in 2023 before falling 1.2% last year, the Energy Institute wrote last week in its Statistical Review, a huge annual compendium of data on power markets. 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.