The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released a plan requiring 7 carbon-intensive industry sectors to reduce energy consumption with the aim to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030. Indeed, by 2025, companies in the steel, building materials, petrochemicals, non-ferrous metals, consumer goods, equipment manufacturing and electronics sectors with an annual revenue of CNY20m (US$2.9m) or more will have to cut their energy use by 13.5% from 2020 levels.
The industrial sector accounted for 59% of China's final energy consumption in 2021, including 8% of non-energy uses. In 2019, the three largest energy-consuming manufacturing sub-sectors were the steel industry (17% of China's final energy consumption), chemical & petrochemical (9%) and non-metallic minerals (8%).
The country's CO2 emissions from fuel combustion increased by 6% in 2021 to 10.4 GtCO2, with industries accounting for a quarter of the total. China intends to have carbon emissions peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.