China driving global energy trends: IEA executive

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The China International Energy Industry Expo opened in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Sunday with nearly 300 companies and institutions from 30 countries and regions participating.

The three-day expo's agenda focuses on energy transformation and innovation. Products and technologies showcased are featuring new and smart energy.

An international low carbon forum is also being held during the expo. The forum is exploring the future trends of energy development around the world and issues of combating climate change and how to achieve sustainable development.

Experts and merchants from around the world are attending the event. /CGTN Photo

David Turk, acting director of the Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks Directorate at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), delivered a speech on the future trends of global energy supply and consumption. He said China's switch to a new economic model and a cleaner energy mix is driving global trends.

David Turk speaks at the Expo forum. /CGTN Photo

“In the future, we'll see a very significant Chinese component to the low carbon energy development. We've already seen with China being a leader on solar PV, wind and other renewable technologies. China really is by its nature, its size and manufacturing capacity, has a very robotic economic development and is a significant driver in global energy trends,” Turk said.

He also said the energy transformation in China and around the world is creating new and massive markets for low carbon and renewable energy technologies. But he emphasized that “the biggest challenge is the scale and scope of the transformation.”

A slide from David Turk shows China's demand for coal energy will drop significantly in the coming 25 years. /IEA Slide

Another slide from David Turk shows China will have a huge growth of electricity generation by 2040. /IEA Slide

In slides presented on the forum, Turk mentioned that China's electric vehicles made a record high increase in 2017 and are responsible for 50 percent of the new electric vehicles that are coming in the market all across the world.

And the number of passenger electric cars on the road passed three million in 2017. But it needs to grow to 240 million by 2030 to make a dent in air pollution globally.

“We find electric vehicles are still about one percent of overall automobiles sold in the world. So even though we've seen very significant increases, including in China, it's still a quite small number. It needs to significantly increase in order to really be a fundamental driver,” Turk pointed out.

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