China’s carbon pollution fell modestly in recent months after the country’s consumers and industries sharply cut their use of oil, according to a new analysis. With oil and gas markets still in turmoil due to war in the Middle East, the trend could translate into a full-year decline for China’s carbon dioxide emissions.
After the United States and Israeli bombing of Iran prompted the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, China responded by slashing its oil imports.
But because China had built massive stockpiles of crude, the big question was whether the country was simply drawing down its reserves or actually using less oil.
New government data now reveals that China’s oil consumption dropped by 9 percent from April through June, with use in the transportation sector plummeting by 16 percent, according to an analysis for Carbon Brief by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent research organization based in Finland.
That decline helped overshadow an uptick in coal consumption to push carbon dioxide emissions down by 1 percent from the same period last year. The trend helped hold China’s CO2 pollution slightly below its 2024 peak.
