Nation on track to achieve coal consumption targets

China is capable of achieving coal consumption control goals set in the energy sector's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), a senior official of the China National Coal Association said.

The goals are to cap coal consumption at 4.1 billion metric tons by 2020, and to reduce the proportion of coal in primary energy consumption to less than 58 percent by 2020 from 64 percent in 2015, cutting coal's share in the energy mix and making room for clean energy.

Zhang Hong, deputy secretary-general of the association, said at a media conference on Monday that reducing coal's share of China's primary energy consumption is achievable given that it had already dropped 1.7 percentage points year-on year for the first nine months of 2019. Coal's share was 59 percent for last year.