As China's economic growth has slowed considerably since 2017, Chinese leaders have been increasing seeking to halt its decline by firing up its stimulus engine, where to date, they have achieved mixed results.
But they are clearly having an effect on China's economy, which we can see in the rebound of the rate at which carbon dioxide is accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere:
Where carbon dioxide emissions are concerned, China is "the world's largest emitting country" by a wide margin, where the effects of China's latest series of economic stimulus has not gone unnoticed by environmental analysts:
The country’s sudden, significant increase in carbon emissions could be linked to a wider slowdown in the economy, environmental analysts said.
“Under pressure of the current economic downturn, some local governments might have loosened supervision on air pollution and carbon emissions,” said Yang Fuqiang, an energy adviser to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. environmental organization.
China’s top planning agency said Wednesday that three areas — Liaoning in the northeast Rust Belt and the big coal-producing regions of Ningxia and Xinjiang in the northwest — had failed to meet their targets to curb energy consumption growth and improve efficiency last year.
Other recent headlines confirm that where China's economy is achieving new stimulus-sparked growth coincides with the kind of industrial output that produces large volumes of new carbon dioxide emissions:
- China June aluminum output climbs to daily record - Reuters calculations
- China churns out record daily steel output in June - Reuters calculation
- China June industrial output up 6.3% year-on-year, beats forecasts, retail sales up 9.8%
- China June coal output hits record high as miners ramp up ahead of summer
- China Energy to expand ultra-low emission coal-fired power: executive
In 2014, the most recent year for which it has provided data, China acknowledges it emitted 12.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere, which are believe to have continued to increase in the years since. That is more than double the 5.73 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by the United States in 2017, whose emissions have been declining in recent years.
References
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth System Research Laboratory. Mauna Loa Observatory CO2 Data. [File Transfer Protocol Text File]. 8 July 2019.