OREANDA-NEWS. September 04, 2014. According to economist Mr Ross Garnaut in a lecture presented at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, China’s use of coal for electricity could peak as early as next year, then decline until 2020 in a turnaround of “global importance”.

The shift means the world has a much better chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees – the internationally-agreed guardrail against dangerous climate change. Slowing economic growth, increasing energy efficiency and growth in low-carbon electricity sources are driving the trend. The Chinese economy grew strongly between 2000 and 2011 by 11 % each year, but has slowed to around 7 % each year since. Combined with increasing energy efficiency, this is driving down growth in energy demand to around 4 % each year.

Mr Garnaut said that at the same time, low-emissions electricity sources hydro, wind, nuclear, solar and gas have grown strongly, by around 4 % each year. Because these sources are cheaper to use than coal, this has led to a “dramatic decoupling” of coal from economic growth. Solar energy has recorded the fastest growth since 2010 – generation capacity of solar increased by over 140 % between 2012 and 2013.

But solar is difficult to predict, and Garnaut expects growth to slow up to 2020. Even so, low-carbon sources will continue to grow strongly until 2020. Wind power grew by nearly 40 % between 2012 and 2013, and is forecast to grow by 18 % each year until 2020. Over the same period nuclear grew by 14 % and hydro by nearly 5 %, and both are expected to grow at similar rates each year until 2020.