They are doing fantastic with electric car adoption too. Incredibly progressive in that area with other countries still stuck to their antiquated reliance on gas vehicles and still trying to prop up that industry.
I’m all for the electrification of cars in China, but don’t think for a second its because they’re concerned about climate change. China doesn’t have the vast petroleum reserves of most other large nations. This means if they continue to have their energy needs in control by other nations, it will always be a national vulnerability, so they are seeking ways to hedge against decoupling from world energy markets.
If you want to otherwise continue to think China is fully committed to green energy, don’t look at how much domestic coal China has, nor how much China continues to increase its consumption.
Keep in mind, I’m not throwing shade on China. This is geopolitics. If it was the USA in the same situation, I’d be saying the same thing.
Yes china has a lot of coal power. They also have a really fucking lot of solar. They are also currently in the process of installing twice as much as the whole rest of the world combined. The huge amount of renewables they’ve installed has lead to some analysis pointing to the potential that they have now reached peak CO2 output.
Whether the motivation is energy security, reducing costs or green policy it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day the results are the same.
I’m all for the electrification of cars in China, but don’t think for a second its because they’re concerned about climate change. China doesn’t have the vast petroleum reserves of most other large nations. This means if they continue to have their energy needs in control by other nations, it will always be a national vulnerability, so they are seeking ways to hedge against decoupling from world energy markets.
If you want to otherwise continue to think China is fully committed to green energy, don’t look at how much domestic coal China has, nor how much China continues to increase its consumption.
Keep in mind, I’m not throwing shade on China. This is geopolitics. If it was the USA in the same situation, I’d be saying the same thing.
Yes china has a lot of coal power. They also have a really fucking lot of solar. They are also currently in the process of installing twice as much as the whole rest of the world combined. The huge amount of renewables they’ve installed has lead to some analysis pointing to the potential that they have now reached peak CO2 output.
Whether the motivation is energy security, reducing costs or green policy it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day the results are the same.
https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-lead-the-world-in-wind-and-solar-with-twice-as-much-capacity-under-construction-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/
(now if they could just quit the whole genocide and repression of human rights that would be fab)
Well, you are throwing shade on China, just for a reason.