Shanghai Hopes

China plans even bigger expansion of its clean-energy capacity

China yesterday announced plans to more than double its clean-energy capacity -- from 7 percent of electricity production today to about 15 percent by 2020, up from a previous goal of 10 percent. While this could make the country a leading global player in the hydropower, solar, and wind industries, it still wouldn't offset the country's climate-damaging emissions, say greens. China's heavy reliance on coal to power its economic growth makes it the world's second-largest greenhouse-gas emitter (after the U.S.) and causes an estimated 400,000 premature deaths a year from heavily polluted air. Chinese leaders are increasingly vocal about the serious consequences of reliance on dirty power. "The environmental situation is ... very grim and emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other greenhouse gases are very great," says Zhou Dabing, president of a leading Chinese energy company.