The article is still biased as hell and couched in the usual “China had” scare language, but here’s a few good quotes.
China’s carbon emissions have either peaked already or will do this winter, seven years ahead of schedule. They may plateau for a year or two but will then go into exponential decline for mechanical and unstoppable reasons.
The country’s target of net zero by 2060 is likely to be achieved a decade earlier than previously assumed, and perhaps earlier than in Europe.
Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, says China has reached a structural tipping point where the roll-out of renewables is outpacing the rise in electricity demand.
“A drop in power-sector emissions in 2024 is essentially locked in. We’re likely to see a fall in total CO2 emitted in the first half of next year,” he said.
At the risk of overtaxing the reader’s appetite for figures, it is worth spelling out the enormity of what China is doing. The China Electricity Council says the country will add 210 GW of solar this year, twice the entire solar capacity installed in the US to date.
It is not going to stop there. Carbon Brief says China’s output of solar panels was 310 GW in 2022; it will be 500 GW in 2023; and 1000 GW in 2025 – four times the total installation of new solar worldwide last year.
Regarding the scare point of new Chinese coal plants:
The regime is approving two new coal plants a week. It does not mean what many in the West think it means. China is adding one GW of coal power on average as back-up for every six GW of new renewable power. The two go hand in hand.
“The more renewable energy used, the more the need for coal peaking capacity. A large number of coal power units will be idle,” says Chinese coal expert Li Ting.
Obligatory Westoid nonsense about how Xi is evil and he just wants to take over the world with his sinister measures to protect the environment.
Xi seeks global supremacy. He was never going to let climate worries alone hold back China’s rise. But today the two are in perfect alignment. Clean-tech has become the spearhead of China’s global economic conquest, and this changes the thrust of Beijing’s climate diplomacy.
It is no longer possible for foot-draggers to hide behind China. As Chinese emissions roll over and go into free-fall, Xi will become an even bigger problem for them than Western preachers.
and they manage to do this despite producing ~15-20% of the USA’s imports lately
I hope that percent grows. The only way the US is going to seriously reduce emissions is by all its junk being made in a country that takes the climate seriously.
nah, if that happens, dems will start rolling coal en-masse out of spite, and eat even more beef.
Well then, it seems the only solution is a PLA ground invasion and mass executions![emoji mao-wave mao-wave](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/568e6581-06b2-45d9-99b8-b40024ef3ff8.png)
Liberate USA from tyrannical capitalist overlords.
That reminds me,
if any of you non-yanks want to hear something cursed, in my seventh grade science class, we discussed climate change and some of its implications, but one of the “challenges” to actually fixing it would be “do we have to say goodbye to our American way of life?”
Even as a kid, I laughed at how anyone would think that American “culture” was worth an ugly, polluted planet.
Might have been a reference to Bush Sr.'s “The American way of life is not up for debate” remark at Kyoto?
a perma-burning coal pit on every street corner, with a truck route dumping additional fuel