Coal accounts for 70 percent of China’s energy supply, and coal production in the country — where one new coal-fired power plant is built, on average, every week — provides more energy than crude oil production from the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, China passed the United States as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter in 2007, and by 2020, China’s energy consumption could easily double.

How then, to control Chinese — and hence global — carbon emissions?

A new study by the International Energy Agency published today (PDF) offers a few ideas wrapped up in a sobering package.

The main message is simple enough: “China will need to decide for itself how to proceed,” the report says, “but its actions, more than those of any other country, will shape the global approach to the cleaner use of coal that is urgently needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

In recent years, the Chinese government has recognized the threat. In 2007, the government started the National Climate Change Program (PDF), which includes an emphasis on greater energy efficiency, more renewable and nuclear power, and the “vigorous development” of carbon capture and storage technologies. One of the world’s first demonstration projects to capture carbon emissions from a power plant is currently being developed near Beijing.

But the I.E.A., which advises industrialized nations, points out that far more needs to be done to bring down carbon emissions to more manageable levels. Without China, the agency argues, it will be impossible to stabilize carbon emissions around 450 parts per million, the minimal level prescribed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to forestall some of the worst aspects of global warming.

“Without strong action, carbon dioxide emissions in China could rise to an unsustainable level,” the study said. “With more than 80 percent of China’s carbon emissions coming from coal, the Chinese power sector presents the biggest challenge, and will have to carry the biggest share of any reduction in emissions.”

The I.E.A. offers 10 recommendations including improving coal mine safety and establishing a competitive coal market. But the most important ideas address technologies needed to control carbon emissions from China’s coal use.

The agency recommends, for example, developing international partnerships with industrialized countries to bring clean technology to China (something that is already happening), and setting up a global carbon price mechanism to help steer market participants toward cleaner technologies.

“China has an unprecedented opportunity to become a major player in the global market for cleaner, more efficient coal technologies,” the report says. “It has already developed some unique
technologies that other countries should sensibly adopt, and will certainly create more.”