PerspectiveEnabling a Rapid and Just Transitionaway from Coal in ChinaGang He, 1,2, * Jiang Lin, 2,3 Ying Zhang, 4 Wenhua Zhang, 1,5 Guilherme Larangeira, 1 Chao Zhang, 6 Wei Peng, 7 Manzhi Liu, 8and Fuqiang Yang 91 Department of Technology and Society,College of Engineering and AppliedSciences,Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA2 Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, Energy Technologies Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA94720, USA3 Department of Agricultural and Resources Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA4 Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing 100028, China5 School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China6 School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China7 School of International Affairs and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA16801, USA8 School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China9 Natural Resources Defense Council China Program, Beijing 100026, China*Correspondence: gang.he@stonybrook.eduhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.012SUMMARYAs the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, China’s transition from coal to cleaner energy sources iscritical for achieving global decarbonization. Increasing regulations on air pollution and carbon emissionsand decreasing costs of renewables drive China’s transition away from coal; however, this transition alsohas implications for employment and social justice. Here, we assess China’s current coal-transition policies,their barriers, and the potential for an accelerated transition, as well as the associated environmental, humanhealth, and employment and social justice issues that may arise from the transition. We estimate that themost aggressive coal-transition pathway could reduce annual premature death related to coal combustionby224,000andreduceannual waterconsumptionby4.3billionm 3 in2050comparedwithbusiness-as-usual.Wehighlightknowledgegapsandconcludewithpolicyrecommendationsforanintegratedapproachtofacil-itate a rapid and just transition away from coal in China.CLIMATE CHANGE AND CHINA’S DEPENDENCEON COALHuman-induced greenhouse gas emissions are the maincause of average global warming of approximately 1 ? C sincethe beginning of the industrial era. The additional warminganticipated to continue in the future represents an imminentthreat to human societies if it is not mitigated. Deep decarbon-ization of energy systems is needed to avoid the catastrophicconsequences of climate change. According to the Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), keeping globalwarming within a 1.5 ? C overall target (approximately 0.5 ? Cwarmer than today) requires global net anthropogenic CO 2emissions to decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by around 2050. 1Coal is the largest source of global energy-related CO 2 emis-sions.Coal accounted for44%of the33GtCO 2 of globalenergy-related CO 2 emissions in 2019, of which two-thirds came fromcoal use for electricity generation. 2 Achieving the 1.5 ? C targetset out in the Paris Agreement requires coal and other fossil fuelsto be phased out in the next 30 years. The scale of this transitionwould be unprecedented given the heavy dependence on fossilenergy at present: 84.3% of the world’s primary energy con-sumption in 2019 came from coal (27%), natural gas (24.2%),and oil (33.1%). 3China’s dependence on coal is a major hurdle to global decar-bonization. In 2019, China accounted for about 28.8% of theglobal energy-related carbon emissions. 3 Coal has been thefundamental fuel behind China’s economic growth and thespread of electricity access to its entire population. 4 China isnow the world’s largest coal producer and consumer—consuming half of global coal production and importing 20% ofthe global coal traded in 2018. 5,6 It is also the world’s main inter-national provider of f i nance for the building of new coal-f i red po-wer plants. 7 Coal accounted for 60% of China’s primary energyconsumption in 2018, contributing 50% of the country’s f i ne par-ticulate matter (PM 2.5 ) pollutants and 70% of its carbonemissions. 8Coal’s dominance in China’s energy mix has created severeenvironmental and public health consequences. 9 Outdoor airpollution has been a leading risk factor for mortality, contributingto an estimated 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2017. 10Dispersed coal combustion from small burners and residentialuses are the main cause of heavy pollution in the Beijing-Tian-jin-Hebei metropolitan area. 11 Burning 1 metric ton of scatteredcoal discharges 10.7 kg of PM 2.5 and 10.2 kg of SO 2 : the emis-sion rates are 49 times and 9 times higher, respectively, thanllOne Earth 3, August 21, 2020 ª 2020 Elsevier Inc. 187
