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| Inside and outside a cryptocurrency mine located in Sichuan, China. /Photo=Mide Driver |
As close to 80% of the world’s bitcoin mining businesses are concentrated in China, the carbon emission issue could be an obstacle to China’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. ) Reported.
According to Nature, as of April last year, Chinese companies accounted for 78.89% of the global Bitcoin mining business. This is because labor and electricity costs are low.
Bitcoin miners in China are expected to emit 130.5 million metric tons (MT) of carbon dioxide by 2024. This is equivalent to one year’s carbon emissions in Italy or in oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
According to the Bitcoin Electricity Use Index (CBECI) of the University of Cambridge in the UK, the electricity used to mine Bitcoin this year is expected to reach 0.6% of global consumption. This is more than Norway’s annual electricity consumption.
Bitcoin price has soared more than five times over the past year and is currently approaching the $60,000 per piece (about 67 million won).
In an interview with AFP, Professor Wang Seo-Wooyang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), co-author of a paper contributed to Nature, said in an interview with AFP that “only imposing a carbon tax will not be enough to deter miners” Analyzed. The Chinese government banned all cryptocurrency transactions in 2019 to prevent money laundering, but mining is allowed.
The Neimenggu Autonomous Region, China’s largest mining site, where 8% of the world’s cryptocurrencies are mined, has decided to completely close all cryptocurrency mining sites by the end of this month.
This is the first time that Chinese authorities have publicly ordered a full shutdown of a cryptocurrency mine.
However, the AFP predicted that the closing of the mining site in the Neimenggu Autonomous Region is likely to result in the effect of only relocating the mining site to other regions such as Yunnan Province.