Greenpeace report highlights CO2 emissions of Chinese power firms

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CHINA’S THREE largest power firms produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than Britain, according to a Greenpeace report released yesterday.

While China’s emissions per head remain far below those of developed countries, as a whole it has surpassed the US to become the world’s largest emitter.

Greenpeace said the top 10 companies, which provided almost 60 per cent of China’s total electricity last year, burned 20 per cent of China’s coal – 590m tonnes – and emitted the equivalent of 1.44 billion tonnes of CO2.

“China is suffering the pains of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, typhoons and floods, worsened by climate change. These power companies can and must help China to prevent climate disaster by rapidly increasing efficiency and the share of renewable energy such as wind and solar,” said Yang Ailun, Greenpeace’s climate campaign manager, at the launch in Beijing of the Greenpeace report, Polluting Power: Ranking China’s Biggest Power Companies.

The report says that in 2008, Huaneng, Datang and Guodian – the top three firms – emitted more greenhouse gases than Britain. But Mr Yang added: “China is ideally placed to … [be] the world’s superpower in terms of smart energy and renewable energy.”

The group said China closed down 54.07 gigawatt of the least efficient coal-fired plants over the last three and a half years. By the end of last year Guodian had installed 2.88 gigawatt of wind power, almost 24 per cent of China’s total and enough to make it the biggest wind energy firm in Asia. – (Guardian service)