No. of Recommendations: 8
I have a suspician that China's approach to non-fossil electrical generation is far less politically motivated and more pagmatic than the US approach. I remember going down the Yangze River decades ago and marveling at the, yet to be complete Three Gorges Dam project. They displaced over a million people by submerging nearly a hundred large towns and cities - and built replacement cities. They killed off a few endangered species and ended up closing a dozen fossil fuel generating plants. OK, granted that (politically) a project of that scope couldn't be duplicated in the US, but as an interesting rubuttal to the inability of solar/wind to move the needle:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/climate/climate-chi...Chinese solar is now expanding so fast that by the early 2030s, the country will generate more power from the sun than the amount of electricity the US will consume altogether, according to the International Energy Agency.
China is also leading the world in exporting solar panels around the globe — with the majority going to Europe and noticeable growth in Africa. The US, meanwhile, has put restrictions on Chinese solar imports due to forced labor concerns, and is focusing on building out its own domestic supply chain for solar.
While many Western nations make ambitious climate reduction targets only to miss them, China has a tendency to under-promise and over-perform, said John Podesta, White House senior advisor for international climate policy.
The country has 339 gigawatts of utility-scale wind and solar capacity currently under construction, which is two-thirds of the resources currently being built worldwide.
Jeff
It’s tough to forecast exactly when China’s emissions will peak, or if they already have. Recent independent analysis by UK-based climate website Carbon Brief found China’s emissions fell by 1% earlier this year, the first time the country registered an emissions decline since Covid-19 shuttered its economy.
Experts also say it’s too soon to say whether this drop is evidence of a sustained trend. And a 1% drop is not nearly enough to hit the Chinese government’s own climate targets for next year.
But what’s clear is a fundamental shift is underway in China’s economy. As China’s post-Covid infrastructure boom has slowed, so too has demand for heavy industry materials like cement and steel. Manufacturing of solar panels and electric vehicles, meanwhile, is ramping up.
Jeff
