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National Observer
10 hours ago
- Business
- National Observer
China charges ahead on climate while the West stalls and spins
You've got to hand it to China. At a time when the US is backsliding on plans to reduce its carbon pollution, the Asian country is promising to join the EU in becoming a world leader in the fight against climate change. China followed Europe earlier this month with a commitment to revamp its climate plan to meet the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The goal, which entails reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to hold the earth's temperature increase to well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, is a tall order for the world's second-most populous country. China is far and away the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, contributing nearly a third of the total. Despite gains from massive investments in renewable energy, China's emissions continued to climb last year. The Climate Action Tracker rates China's progress as ' highly insufficient,' a step worse than Canada, which is also deemed to be ' insufficient.' The problem is the skyrocketing demand for power, which China can't yet meet with renewables. President Xi Jinping announced China would start to phase out coal-fired power plants, one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases, in 2026. So far however, coal mining is still increasing and the construction of coal plants reached a 10-year high last year due to growing energy security concerns. Electricity demand spikes during heat waves when people crank up air conditioning. This is also the time when dam reservoir levels drop, decreasing the amount of available hydropower. That means burning more coal for power and greater carbon emissions. The vicious cycle continues. Amid that avalanche of doom, however, are some very bright lights that could start to glow even brighter. There are indications that China's emissions have peaked and the country is about to turn the corner. There are a lot of Xi skeptics, and for good reason. A cynic might point to Xi's recent pivot back to coal and dismiss his climate leadership aspirations as an empty promise. But the country is a renewable energy juggernaut and in the first quarter of this year, the amount of power from solar and wind for the first time surpassed thermal energy mostly produced by coal. Similarly, the number of electric vehicles sold in China is set to overtake gas-powered vehicle sales this year, 10 years ahead of its target. China's dominance in the EV marketplace won kudos from none other than Ford's CEO Jim Farley who recently returned from China gushing, 'their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West.' Part of China's interest in renewables is pure economics. China manufactures 80 per cent of the world's solar panels at a time when renewables are in hot demand and its rich mineral reserves also allow the country to dominate battery production. But according to Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate publication, a good deal of the credit for China's climate ambition goes to Xi himself, who was concerned about global warming and interested in renewable energy long before he became president. China claims it is ready to take on the role as a leader in the fight against climate change. It just might happen. @ writes As long ago as 2003, Xi wrote a series of articles, some of which touched on 'environmental protection, sustainable development, circular economy, conservation-oriented society and reducing resource consumption and pollution.' In 2005, when he was the party secretary of Zhejiang province, Xi gave a speech to villagers thrown out of work after a highly polluting quarry was shuttered, urging them to support a green transition. His statement, 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets themselves,' has since become his most famous environmental quote. When Xi was elevated to the presidency, Beijing was choked in record-breaking smog from coal, iron, steel, cement and chemical plants. The country's development-at-all-costs mentality after the 2008 recession was sending 7,000 children a day to hospital for treatment for respiratory ailments. In response, a National Air Quality Action Plan was put in place that — among many other measures — capped the number of cars in Beijing and charted a course for investment in renewable energy. Since then, the Chinese public's perception and awareness of the need to combat climate change has shifted. 'It is top-down and driven by Chinese leadership,' Lu Zhi, a professor of conservation biology at Peking University, told Carbon Brief. We should not underestimate the importance of leadership in the battle against climate change. South of our border, the US under former President Joe Biden, set ambitious climate targets to lower emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030 and invested billions in climate-related infrastructure projects. One change in leadership later, and much of it is being undone. President Donald Trump has rolled back the nation's climate strategy, and is doing everything possible to arrest wind and solar energy, and to slow the transition to EVs. The most recent and dangerous blow delivered by the Trump administration this week, was an announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency stating that greenhouse gases will no longer be considered a public health threat, a finding that enabled the federal government to set emissions limits. Here in Canada, environmental policy has taken a hit since the election of Prime Minister Mark Carney. His first move was to blast his predecessor's consumer carbon tax. And he is now musing about building more oil pipelines and contemplating doing away with a planned industrial emissions cap, and seems open to softening EV mandates. China's leadership, for obvious reasons, would not tolerate the bevy of haters and naysayers who elected Donald Trump, and is less prone to capricious directional policy changes. Furthermore, the government sets the direction for industrial and economic development. While this has forced the country to tolerate horrific air pollution in its cities, it also means that when shifts are mandated, such as the transition to renewables or adoption of EVs, they happen a whole lot faster than here in the West. And with less spin from industry defending outdated technology like internal combustion engines when better options are available, Chinese consumers are more willing to switch. If Xi is indeed serious about being a climate leader and wants to trade China's coal reliance for renewables, he's got as good a chance as anyone to make it happen.
IOL News
22-07-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Dire predictions about renewable energy were all wrong
The High Mesa Solar facility is seen on Oct. 10 in Garfield County, Colorado. Image: Matt McClain/The Washington Post David Von Drehle Twenty years ago, former vice president Al Gore was traveling the world narrating a slideshow about the perils of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; in 2006, the presentation reached far more people through the documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth.' Audiences would have been hard-pressed to imagine headlines from two decades later. Such as this one proclaiming, 'Solar is EU's biggest power source.' For the first time, in June, the European Union - one of the world's largest economies - produced more electricity from solar power than from any other source. Three-quarters of E.U. electricity in June came from nonfossil fuel sources. According to energy think tank Ember, solar power accounted for 22 percent of the European Union's electricity output for the month, barely more than Europe's nuclear plants. Natural gas and coal combined did not match either of these. More electricity was generated by wind and water combined than by fossil fuels. Or this headline stating, 'Clean energy just put China's CO2 emissions into reverse.' During the first quarter of this year compared with the year before, again for the first time, total carbon emissions from the industrializing giant fell not because of an economic recession but thanks to rapid advances in renewable technology, especially solar. Analyst Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, published the findings in Carbon Brief: 'The reduction in China's first-quarter CO2 emissions in 2025 was due to a 5.8 percent% drop in the power sector. … Increases in solar, wind and nuclear power generation, driven by investments in new generating capacity, more than covered the growth in demand.' Video Player is loading. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Headlines are not as sunny for the United States, where government enthusiasm for tackling the greenhouse problem is less consistent than in much of Europe. But even here, progress in recent years is striking. Consider: In March 2005, 27 percent of U.S. electricity consumption was supplied by nonfossil fuel sources. Fast-forward to March of this year: 42 percent of U.S. consumption was supplied by nonfossil fuel sources. Solar power, a negligible resource 20 years ago, has surpassed hydroelectric, while wind turbines supply more than twice the power of dams. And the Trump administration's hostility to some renewables is partly offset by its supportive attitude toward next-generation nuclear power plants, without which the world has little hope of getting its arms around the emissions problem. Total consumption of electricity in the U.S. was more than 15 percent lower this March than in the same month of 2005, yet during the past two decades the size of the U.S. economy more than doubled. That's another first: The timeless link between rising wealth and rising energy consumption has been broken; we've proved economies can grow robustly without using more power. I am not suggesting that these headlines add up to Mission Accomplished on the climate. Far from it. Humans continue to create far more carbon and methane emissions through our agriculture, industries, transportation and homes than the atmosphere can store without trapping additional heat. The resulting rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases will have predictable and unpredictable consequences that will challenge humanity for generations. What the headlines clearly show is that progress is not only possible - it is happening. Dire predictions that changes to the global energy supply would destroy economies and plunge civilizations into reverse have been proved wrong. Europe is three-quarters of the way to a green electrical grid. China is, quite possibly, coming down from peak carbon. In neither place have these achievements noticeably disrupted modern life. We're making progress through countless innovations: cheaper solar panels; safer nuclear generators; better batteries; more fuel-efficient cars, trucks and airplanes; smarter appliances; more productive farming; reforestation; and other modes of carbon capture and storage. And we have good ideas for further innovations - the best of which is a tax on emissions to make the hidden costs of greenhouse pollution plainly visible to the marketplace, thus stirring further innovations. Impossible? It seems so now. But so much seemed impossible in 2005 that now has come to pass. A carbon tax has strong bipartisan support because it is a far more efficient way to encourage the next burst of progress, compared with doling out government subsidies and incentives. Greenhouse gas pollution is not free. It comes at a price. Make that price plain to the irresistible engine of American capitalism and watch what the market can do. The heartening progress of the past 20 years will be just a prelude to an explosion of invention and discovery. This is no time to be discouraged. David Von Drehle is a deputy opinion editor for The Post and writes a weekly column. He was previously an editor-at-large for Time Magazine, and is the author of four books, including 'Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year' and 'Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.'
The Hindu
18-07-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
How is China leading the green energy sector?
China installed more wind turbines and solar panels in 2024 than every other nation combined. This statistic alone underlines how China has sped ahead in the global green energy race, cornering the entirety of the renewable supply chain due to firm control over the extraction of key raw materials such as polysilicon and lithium. China also asserts dominance over the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. China's renewable energy revolution is the result of decades of strategic state planning and massive investments in innovation. Starting with modest pilot projects in the early 2000s, Beijing is now leading in solar panel and battery production. In 2024 alone, China allocated a remarkable $940 billion into the renewable energy sector, according to U.K.-based research organisation Carbon Brief, from an initial investment of $10.7 billion in 2006. In comparison, India's renewable energy sector received a combined total investment of $3.4 billion in 2024-25 as per the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water, highlighting the stark gap. Turning crisis into opportunity Apart from climate goals, what mainly inspired China's green revolution was a mounting crisis of extremely high levels of air pollution, coupled with concerns about energy insecurity. By the early 2000s, the country's reliance on coal had made its cities nearly unliveable, resulting in air pollution so bad in Beijing and Shanghai that it was visible from space and had garnered global attention. Importantly, growing public awareness about the adverse affects of air pollution played a key role in pressuring the government to act. Moreover, surging electricity demand left parts of the nation teetering on the edge of blackouts. Also, increasing dependence on foreign oil triggered concerns over energy security. China's oil imports are largely dependent on West Asia and sensitive shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea. Therefore, what began as a survival strategy quickly evolved into a platform for national ambition. In less than two decades, China transitioned from an environmental underdog to a clean-energy driven superpower. The turning point came with the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010), which elevated renewable energy to a national strategic priority. The passage of the Renewable Energy Law in 2005 created legal backing for this vision, offering grid access guarantees and price incentives for wind and solar producers, particularly private enterprises that received generous government subsidies. The state poured billions into infrastructure and R&D, while provinces like Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Jiangsu were identified as early testing grounds for wind and solar farms, in keeping with the Chinese economic practice of starting with pilot projects before scaling up. The role of SOEs State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) and banks had a key role to play in executing plans that were led by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA). Public sector banks provided heavy loans, while industrial giants like State Grid, Huaneng, and Genertec brought wind farms and solar parks online at record speed. As SOEs, these firms didn't face the financial limitations of the private sector. The speed was enabled by a blend of state coordination and market dynamism. While the policy push ensured demand at home, the sheer manufacturing scale drove down prices abroad. From the start, Beijing had a global vision for its ambitions, using programmes such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to push green trade, whether through the export of solar panels, construction of hydropower stations in Africa or building wind farms in Latin America. 'The undertaking of major national projects, quickly integrating funds, technology, and policy resources, and achieving scale effects that private enterprises cannot achieve, that is what led to this growth achieved by SOEs,' explains Li Menghui, representative of Genertec. SOEs translated national climate policy into large-scale action, deploying wind farms, solar parks, and high-voltage transmission lines in remote regions. Due to the substantial support provided by the central government in the form of mandates, low-interest credit, and political backing, these companies could move more quickly and take significantly greater risks to innovate than their private counterparts globally. SOEs were also deployed to focus on niche industries, allowing them to use their vast investments in the development and enhancement of a particular technology. Specialised SOEs were not only involved in building domestic energy infrastructure but also served as ambassadors of China's green agenda abroad. SOEsaccount for 55% of global renewable energy investment, as per Bloomberg Finance. China's SOEs turned clean energy into a tool of statecraft, aligning economic development with global dominance in renewable energy. Without them, China's rapid leap from fossil-fuel giant to renewable superpower with global influence would not have been possible. Lessons learnt China's green energy push wasn't without bumps along the way. For instance, in the mid-2010s, wind and solar installations outpaced the ability of the national grid to absorb their output. This led to the curtailment of energy, especially in northern provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Jilin, and Gansu where wind power curtailment was as high as 20% in 2014. These bottlenecks revealed a critical gap in transmission infrastructure. Although the creation of renewable energy projects was rapid, other aspects of national infrastructure could not keep up with the growth. Beijing responded through heavy investments in ultra-high voltage transmission lines and more focus on better integrating renewables into the national grid. Over a decade, State Grid doubled its investment from $33.31 billion in 2010 to $88.7 billion this year, according to Reuters. Another problem was haphazard subsidy policies to SOEs that encouraged wasteful expansion, without adequate oversight. The vast expansion of projects encouraged a build-at-all-costs mentality, leading to redundant projects and inefficiencies across the sector. To correct those issues, Beijing tightened oversight mechanisms and emphasised planning that favoured efficiency and grid-readiness over capacity. One lesson for Beijing was that in the race for renewable development, speed could not trump structure and organisation. Global influence With a sprawling global network spanning 61 countries and a web of joint ventures, with local state-owned enterprises, from Angola to Hungary to Bangladesh, China's geopolitical presence in the sector has become deeply entrenched. The current focus is on ensuring dominance in the next wave of clean energy technologies. With support guaranteed by the state to firms such as Longi, Goldwing, and CATL, production costs have been slashed due to market dominance, leading to vertical integration and economies of scale. The next wave of advancement in renewable technology will arrive in the form of AI-powered smart grids, green hydrogen, and next-generation nuclear technologies like thorium reactors, all of which Beijing has set its eyes on with the same formula of aggressive state investment, breakneck deployment, and focus on the export of technology and influence. The world now faces a bifurcated energy landscape, as the U.S. and its allies scramble to pump billions into reshoring clean energy industries through mechanisms like the Inflation Reduction Act. The key difference between Chinese SOEs and Western private enterprises is the ability of the Chinese state to mobilise large-scale manufacturing capabilities and properly utilise their vast scale. This enables low-cost, high-speed deployment of renewable tech, while the West grapples with higher costs, slower implementation, and far more complex political considerations on the adoption of green energy within each of their countries. The contest of the future, ultimately, will not be about panels or turbines or climate targets but who sets the rules of the global energy game. Will the future of climate tech follow Beijing's centralised, scale-driven blueprint, or will any other player be able to innovate fast enough and demonstrate a credible counter-model to offer to the world? Kabir Jeet Singh is a student and writer based in Beijing, with a deep interest in global economics, energy policy, and China's ascent.
Sydney Morning Herald
13-07-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump's big toxic bill will cost America
But it will eventually hurt us all because the IRA, had it not been dismantled, would have spared the world around four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Indeed, the total carbon cost of terminating the IRA, supercharging the US fossil fuel industry, and various other Trump executive actions, is now estimated to be around 7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Or, as the specialist climate publication CarbonBrief notes, around the total annual output of Indonesia, the world's sixth-largest carbon emitter. According to an analysis by Princeton University's REPEAT project, US emissions are now set to fall by just 3 per cent by 2030, rather than the 40 per cent required should the US have reached its abandoned Paris Agreement target. This is around four per cent of current total global emissions each year. This is the price we must all pay for Trump's BBB, in both the incalculable increase in the impact and incidence of climate catastrophes over the coming years, and in the cost of offsetting those lost cuts by increasing the burden on other nations. That Trump does not care about the global impact of domestic policies is no surprise. But what is harder to fathom is the costs he is willing to heap upon Americans. Trump's various climate and energy policies, including those in his BBB and the trashing of the IRA, plus his various executive orders, will see Americans paying more for dirtier sources of energy. Loading It will see a decrease in clean electricity generation in 2035 by more than 820 terawatt-hours – more than the entire contribution of nuclear or coal to its electricity supply today. It will increase US household and business energy expenditure by US$28 billion annually by 2030 and over $US50 billion by 2035, according to REPEAT. Average US household energy costs will increase by around $US165 per household per year in 2030. Even more perversely, the initiatives will lock the US out of competition with China for a share of the technologies of the future beyond wind and solar. The burgeoning EV industry is being crippled not just by a loss of incentives and tax breaks for battery development, but by sanctions on the Chinese components the industry will need in the absence of US alternatives. 'We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford,' Ford's chief executive Jim Farley said at a conference last month, describing recent visits to China as the 'most humbling experience' of his life. Tellingly, even as Trump abandons the industries of the future with his BBB, he has propped up not just those of the fossil fuel era, but even one that came before. To secure the crucial support of the Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski Trump found the cash to increase tax deductions for Alaskan subsistence whaling. Loading Indeed, by the time the bill had been forced through Congress, it had gathered so many tax cuts and pay-offs that it failed to pay for itself. Rather, over the next decade it will add US$2.5 trillion to the already eye-bleeding US debt of $US36.8 trillion. Climate advocates have been locked in a debate over whether the only way to save the climate would be to destroy the global economy. Over recent years optimists had begun to toy with the notion that perhaps the revolution in green tech over recent years, such as the 90 per cent collapse in the cost of solar power, might just allow us to preserve both.
The Age
13-07-2025
- Business
- The Age
Trump's big toxic bill will cost America
But it will eventually hurt us all because the IRA, had it not been dismantled, would have spared the world around four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Indeed, the total carbon cost of terminating the IRA, supercharging the US fossil fuel industry, and various other Trump executive actions, is now estimated to be around 7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Or, as the specialist climate publication CarbonBrief notes, around the total annual output of Indonesia, the world's sixth-largest carbon emitter. According to an analysis by Princeton University's REPEAT project, US emissions are now set to fall by just 3 per cent by 2030, rather than the 40 per cent required should the US have reached its abandoned Paris Agreement target. This is around four per cent of current total global emissions each year. This is the price we must all pay for Trump's BBB, in both the incalculable increase in the impact and incidence of climate catastrophes over the coming years, and in the cost of offsetting those lost cuts by increasing the burden on other nations. That Trump does not care about the global impact of domestic policies is no surprise. But what is harder to fathom is the costs he is willing to heap upon Americans. Trump's various climate and energy policies, including those in his BBB and the trashing of the IRA, plus his various executive orders, will see Americans paying more for dirtier sources of energy. Loading It will see a decrease in clean electricity generation in 2035 by more than 820 terawatt-hours – more than the entire contribution of nuclear or coal to its electricity supply today. It will increase US household and business energy expenditure by US$28 billion annually by 2030 and over $US50 billion by 2035, according to REPEAT. Average US household energy costs will increase by around $US165 per household per year in 2030. Even more perversely, the initiatives will lock the US out of competition with China for a share of the technologies of the future beyond wind and solar. The burgeoning EV industry is being crippled not just by a loss of incentives and tax breaks for battery development, but by sanctions on the Chinese components the industry will need in the absence of US alternatives. 'We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford,' Ford's chief executive Jim Farley said at a conference last month, describing recent visits to China as the 'most humbling experience' of his life. Tellingly, even as Trump abandons the industries of the future with his BBB, he has propped up not just those of the fossil fuel era, but even one that came before. To secure the crucial support of the Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski Trump found the cash to increase tax deductions for Alaskan subsistence whaling. Loading Indeed, by the time the bill had been forced through Congress, it had gathered so many tax cuts and pay-offs that it failed to pay for itself. Rather, over the next decade it will add US$2.5 trillion to the already eye-bleeding US debt of $US36.8 trillion. Climate advocates have been locked in a debate over whether the only way to save the climate would be to destroy the global economy. Over recent years optimists had begun to toy with the notion that perhaps the revolution in green tech over recent years, such as the 90 per cent collapse in the cost of solar power, might just allow us to preserve both.
