And the energy intensity of the economy would decline only modestly, outgoing Premier Li Keqiang told the meeting in Beijing on March 5. Asian export coal traded at Australia’s port of Newcastle jumped 5.6% the following day, the biggest increase in a month.
It’s not hard to see why. China’s rise has been fueled by energy, and it wasn’t so long ago that this was being supplied almost exclusively by fossil fuels. The remarkable feat in 2022 — when emissions declined by a modest 23 million metric tons or so of carbon — came largely thanks to a Covid-induced slowdown that reduced growth ...