China's three biggest utilities emit more carbon than UK, says Greenpeace

China's three biggest power companies last year emitted more greenhouse gases than all of the UK, according to a Greenpeace report that called on the nation to reduce its reliance on coal.

Utility firms China Huaneng, China Datang and China Guodian consumed the equivalent of 315 million tonnes of coal and emitted 769 million tonnes of carbon dioxide last year, according to the report, Polluting Power: Ranking China’s Biggest Power Companies, which was released yesterday.

An unnamed analyst told the South China Morning Post newspaper that the report was intended to increase pressure on Beijing prior to the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Greenpeace China climate campaigner Yang Ailun said that China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, "is suffering the pains of extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, typhoons and floods, worsened by climate change".

The report noted that China's 10 biggest power companies were not only heavily reliant on coal power, they were also using inefficient coal-fired plants. It calculated that if outdated facilities with a generating capacity of less than 100MW were phased out by 2012, the country's coal consumption could be reduced by 90 million tonnes while cutting CO2 emissions by 220 million tonnes annually.

Only three of China's 10 biggest utilities generated at least 10 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources, noted Greenpeace. Eight of them are not even halfway to sourcing three per cent of their energy via renewables, as legally required by 2010.

Greenpeace urged the government to impose higher taxes on coal, which provides more than 70 per cent of the country's electricity needs, and set a renewable energy target of 30 per cent by 2020.

Last month, Chinese officials said a plan to generate 20 per cent of the nation’s energy from clean sources by 2020 was in the works.