  In October of 2020, China announced that it aims to start reducing its carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 20601.
The surprise announcement came in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic which
caused a transient drop in China's emissions in the first half of 2020. Here,
we show an unprecedented de-carbonization of China's power system in late 2020:
although China's power related carbon emissions were 0.5% higher in 2020 than
2019, the majority (92.9%) of the increased power demand was met by increases
in low-carbon (renewables and nuclear) generation (increased by 9.3%), as
compared to only 0.4% increase for fossil fuels. China's low-carbon generation
in the country grew in the second half of 2020, supplying a record high of
36.7% (increased by 1.9% compared to 2019) of total electricity in 2020, when
the fossil production dropped to a historical low of 63.3%. Combined, the
carbon intensity of China's power sector decreased to an historical low of
519.9 tCO2/GWh in 2020. If the fast decarbonization and slowed down power
demand growth from 2019 to 2020 were to continue, by 2030, over half (50.8%) of
China's power demand could be provided by low carbon sources. Our results thus
reveal that China made progress towards its carbon neutrality target during the
pandemic, and suggest the potential for substantial further decarbonization in
the next few years if the latest trends persist.
