The EU has already agreed a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, but the European Commission and some member states have proposed to increase this to 30%.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said the gains from the tougher EU reduction target would roughly equal only two weeks of China's emissions.
"The United States and China are essential for combating climate change globally. We estimate extending Europe's plan to cut emissions from 20 to 30% would roughly equal China's two-week gas output," Birol told Reuters on Monday (22 November).
Last month, EU environment ministers decided to leave a decision on toughening the bloc's target until after the Cancún climate negotiations, which will start thrashing out the outline of a new global climate treaty next week (29 November). The EU has so far argued that it will only make the move to a new target once other countries put comparable pledges on the table.
The IEA's most recent World Energy Outlook estimated that China's energy demand will rise by 75% between now and 2035. It will then account for 22% of world demand, followed by the US and India, whose consumption is set to more than double over the period.
"If China wasn't there, India would be the big story we'd be talking about," said Ian Cronshaw, head of the IEA's Energy Diversification Division, speaking in Brussels yesterday (23 November).
Although China's energy use was only half that of the US in 2009, the IEA's latest estimates suggest that it has now become the world's largest energy user.
China has set itself the goal of cutting its carbon intensity by 40%-45% compared with 2005 by 2020. But its emissions are expected to continue rising along with economic growth, as its per-capita energy consumption is still only a third of the average in OECD countries.
Cronshaw pointed out that although China is set to become a world leader in clean energy technologies, it will also build 600 gigawatts of new coal-fired power capacity by 2035, roughly equal to the current capacity of the EU, US and Japan combined.
He also warned of the market implications of China's increasing coal imports. He described the "dramatic turn" to imports as "a convenience" for a country that struggles to transport coal from distant provinces to satisfy rising demand.
Scaling up China's renewable energy production to make a difference on emissions "won't happen under the current conditions unless energy gets cheaper," Cronshaw argued.
