In this article from Carbon Brief, Swithin Lui – China lead at Climate Action Tracker and climate policy analyst at NewClimate Institute – assesses China’s progress towards its climate targets and the implications for global efforts to tackle climate change. Analysing the data in detail, he finds that China is on track to significantly overachieve … Continue reading Why China is set to significantly overachieve its 2030 climate goals
I really wish I could just say that this is good news, but the tragic reality is that it’s still way too slow. Stop investing in fossil fuels, for fuck’s sake.
What would you have China do? They’re dominating production of pretty much every renewable energy source and its still not enough to support China’s industrialization. China also doesn’t really have vast oil and gas reserves that it can use to convert coal plants to natural gas plants.
Meanwhile, the EU is thinking of aggressive tariffs on Chinese EVs because… they’re too cheap and might get too much adoption in the EU.
China is still spending shitloads of money and time on extracting coal, building coal power plants, etc.
Western countries should be doing much more and should also be helping developing countries bear the cost of transitioning to renewables far more than they currently are.
Again, how would you propose Western countries help China with that? China’s the world’s leading producer of renewable energy technologies. It’s not even fucking close, they just don’t have the manufacturing capacity to meet their energy deficit. Meanwhile, the US has their panties in a bunch trying to limit Chinese technological development instead of helping China improve their industrial efficiency and decarbonize their grid.
Most notably, instead of giving China access to more efficient computers, the US basically threw hands and said “just throw more electricity at the problem because we’re not helping”
Again, how would you propose Western countries help China with that?
I literally said in my comment:
“Western countries should be doing much more and should also be helping developing countries bear the cost of transitioning to renewables far more than they currently are.”
By “doing more”, I mean that they should be investing much more into renewables themselves, and ending all fossil fuel subsidy.
By “helping developing countries bear the cost”,
I mean literally provide developing countries with aid in the form of money to fund their renewables projects.
they just don’t have the manufacturing capacity to meet their energy deficit.
They can do more than they are doing, and therefore, they should do more. I don’t think this is a complex argument I’m making!
I really wish I could just say that this is good news, but the tragic reality is that it’s still way too slow. Stop investing in fossil fuels, for fuck’s sake.
What would you have China do? They’re dominating production of pretty much every renewable energy source and its still not enough to support China’s industrialization. China also doesn’t really have vast oil and gas reserves that it can use to convert coal plants to natural gas plants.
Meanwhile, the EU is thinking of aggressive tariffs on Chinese EVs because… they’re too cheap and might get too much adoption in the EU.
China is still spending shitloads of money and time on extracting coal, building coal power plants, etc.
Western countries should be doing much more and should also be helping developing countries bear the cost of transitioning to renewables far more than they currently are.
Again, how would you propose Western countries help China with that? China’s the world’s leading producer of renewable energy technologies. It’s not even fucking close, they just don’t have the manufacturing capacity to meet their energy deficit. Meanwhile, the US has their panties in a bunch trying to limit Chinese technological development instead of helping China improve their industrial efficiency and decarbonize their grid.
Most notably, instead of giving China access to more efficient computers, the US basically threw hands and said “just throw more electricity at the problem because we’re not helping”
I literally said in my comment:
“Western countries should be doing much more and should also be helping developing countries bear the cost of transitioning to renewables far more than they currently are.”
By “doing more”, I mean that they should be investing much more into renewables themselves, and ending all fossil fuel subsidy.
By “helping developing countries bear the cost”, I mean literally provide developing countries with aid in the form of money to fund their renewables projects.
They can do more than they are doing, and therefore, they should do more. I don’t think this is a complex argument I’m making!