As aggressively as they are plastering deserts with solar panels and put windmills everywhere, this is not surprising. They are basically doing their part and more, just because they know and have accepted that renewable energy is cheaper on the long run.
In the US, scientists and engineers know that it would be cheaper, but politics is way too deep in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry to take any action. In Europe, they don’t have the space that China or the USA can provide, and there is way too mich NIMBY involved to actually get somewhere.
There are so many strategic advantages to China’s mass solar adoption.
Let’s say there’s a war, it’s going to be much easier to take out a few coal plants or nuclear plants than masses of solar panels spread out geographically.
They have well defined lifetimes and are easily replaceable.
They’re cleaner, plus good for domestic manufacturing.
The west needs to get our asses into gear.
But on the flip side I feel like it would take far less bombing power to render a field of solar panels inoperable.
Australia was perfectly positioned to take inspiration from China and run with it.
Unfortunately our mining companies have way too many fingers in our politics.
Not just solar, they started building new gen4 reactors 20 years ago.
Guess what forward thinking does for the future?
We seem to want to go only backward though.
Quarterly profits is the only goal? Guess we’ll only think 3 months ahead.
But it costs money to do anything, and using money is the realm of the private sector!
Instead of bombers, you’ll have planes filled with paint to dump on the panels =D
The bombs and planes would cost more than the panels, and it could be countered with plastic wrap.
What about windshield wipers
Turns out, it’s easy to implement policy in an autocratic regime. No pesky democratic decision processes.
That said, this as a win.
Are you under the impression that democracy is the thing holding the West back from a green transition?
Not per se, more like the whole shebang of states, parliamentarism, imperfect elections, economy.
Spent some time with an extraordinarily intelligent young man who worked US Navy SIGINT. That was his exact take. China is going to kick our ass because they plan long term and make shit happen, regardless of shifting public opinion. He had me wondering if democracy isn’t, in fact, a bunch of bullshit. Not working out for America ATM, now is it?
Look at America’s original Constitution. Ah! They only want land owning white males to vote! Ah! But in those times, those were the people who had a stake in governmental policy. It was safe to bet they’d keep the country economically stable and out of costly wars, all in their own best interest.
The irony of modern land-owning white males throwing the country under the bus for short term gains does not escape me. (And I’m one of them, who votes against my own interests.)
Well… if we get to choose a dystopia, I prefer the one were our children aren’t fried alive by our own sins. Good thing a country that is offsetting CO2 from all the fucking world actually managed to flatten it’s emissions.
It’s terrible that we’re in a situation where mere centuries of tyranny sounds less bad than becoming Venus.
At what cost!!?
RIP Chinese Coal industry.
No one will miss you.
Removed by mod
China is playing catch up. There was a great NPR series on American pollution, how we built industry, how we dialed it back and how China is doing the same, but accelerating the dial back.
Now American’s are screaming, “Stop that!” Well, we did it first, got where we’re at. Reminds me of America wiping out malaria with DDT and 2-seconds later telling the rest of the world we’d cut trade if they didn’t also ban it. See how that works?
When I was a kid, the smog in Los Angeles was nationwide news. I was a child and knew about it in Tulsa! Leaving Manhattan in 1992, we all saw a brown cloud over the city. Thought it was rather cloudy until we got across the bridge and into the countryside.
Anyway, China is still building coal plants, still a monster polluter, but I see light at the end of the tunnel.
Carbon Brief made its analysis based on emission data by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, just read the report. This data is skewed and highly biased.
