Why only China’s doubling down matters? Why not accelerate zero carbon to 2026 for US and EU? Bigotry of low expectations? Why is the EU stalling wind farm investments? Why isn’t the EU and US giving China loans to make the “huge investment” needed to save the planet. Why are your expectations of the West so low?
Because the West is a corrupt shithole that is completely controlled by boomers with a masculinity crisis. Both wings view China as a threat to their fragile egos, causing a reflexive hatred of anything China leads in. This includes green energy.
Absent some sort of miracle this will continue to be the dominant mindset in the West. You shouldn't expect anything from insane people.
Reflexivity is the subtext of national climate policies. Chinese and EU carbon markets mechanistically reflect US cap and trade for acid rain - but also reflect a broader expectation for where American energy policy might go. With five-eighths of global equity market cap domiciled in the US - you don't want your companies falling behind theirs. And the whole "biggest historical emitter" thing (remember contraction & convergence) was going to kick in, right? My point is this - while the consequentiality of the CCP decision on decarbonization is as you state - that decision will be reflexive of the fact that a) we didn't adopt the market mechanism we told them to use, b) we became the #1 oil & gas producer while they overinvested in RE and EVs that we won't buy now, even though we need the mitigation, c) the market for premium-priced green commodities, and the goods they are made into, has some traction in the EU but little in the US, and d) the US is selling its LNG to the same customers China had planned to be selling its cleantech to - and doesn't even count the GWP of methane leaks correctly (let alone pay for it)! China's big decision reflects that of its ostrich-like competitor, head buried in science-free sand.
Although emissions are heavily skewed to the wealthy who might live longer than average - and tipping points in the climate system might be hit berore demographics cut emission (think LNG)...
California is not a country with less than half the population of Germany but will have policy issues as it is a part of USA and what California does is & Germany is country but a medium sized one which has 16 times less population.but both are rich. China is not rich country but a big country with large population.
Hence,china offered the best response to climate change
From my reckoning, working with the models and with the actual data, the models are underpredicting... On many indicators (i.e. continuous dry days, we are above the 90th percentile for the worst case scnarios) ...
It's the fat tail of potential outcomes that makes hedging damage risk that makes mitigation prudent and it can be a dynamic hedge adjusted as more is learned
Coal, steel and heavy metal sectors are important employers of the traditional working class in China, as elsewhere, and therefore important to the social balance the Party needs for political stability. Handling the employment transition to a low(er) carbon economy is a major issue of the ruling Party's decision-making. This needs to be included in the analysis of the political economy prospects for reaching global-warming targets.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm skeptical of Zhang's comments that China doesn't have the land mass make solar or wind farms. If there's any country that has an abundance of land its China. And the state has been perfectly willing to ride roughshod over environmental issues so far. I wonder if the scaled back NEA targets are driven by overcapacity concerns...
I'm left puzzled that China's accelerating investment in nuclear power is not mentioned once in an article purporting to be about the green transition.
Hello Adam, great article as always. My reading of Mr Xi is that the Party is at the centre of everything. His commitment to his country is expressed in the purity of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. His thinking will be based on what is good for the Party, and by (his) definition what is good for the Chinese people. Within that dynamic, the notion of "struggle" is key. A Party that holds power without an electoral mandate needs a unifying theme, and for China it has long been the concept of Struggle. It's a struggle to keep the tenets of the Communist system pure, as it's a struggle to weed out corruption, to purify the PLA and so on.
Mr Xi is no fool. He well understands the global context. But his decisions - and it will be his decision ultimately - will be couched in the terms above Deciding what is best for the Chinese people won't be a simple choice of what's best for the environment, but what's best for the Party.
Remember, Mr Xi has three jobs - Secretary General of the CPC is his main gig, while being president of the country and head of the military are his other two jobs. The party will come first.
As a naive person, I understood this good article as implicitly assuming that after oil and gas use diminishes a lot the climate danger will be reduced a lot
However it is not clear to me if EV, solar cells, heat pumps etc . are a free lunch. I read that its fabrication implies not only a lot of pollution but slavery in the cobalt mining. I have never seen in the press a balance of energy and entropy and an estimate of the pollution in a world without oil and gas. To be clear: iI think that oil and gas used for energy production and other arras must be reduced a lot. But in the new world: are we going to be safe or are only kicking the problem to next century? If someone knows about serious sources that discuss this question please write where we can consult them.
Getting riled up over critical minerals…as LFP (no nickel or cobalt) gains huge battery market share and sodium ion (sans critical minerals) starts commercialization…is rear view mirror driving.
"...a faster transition generates momentum. It makes future decisions easier, not harder. It encourages business investment and technological development around the path of advance."
Oh, I wish more people understood this. Rip off the bandaid, it's less painful overall.
A debate with skeptical voices like Doomberg or Vaclav Smil on this topic would be very enlightening.
For one thing, the article bypasses all technical questions, as if the issue were of a political and economical nature only.
For example, it is unclear how intermittency of solar and wind is taken for solved. Another unclear point are the material resources -not just the land- required to deploy such low-density energy sources and the emissions needed to obtain them (cement, mining, manufacturing, etc.).
The total CO2 balance and environmental damage from China's green industry is controversial as well, both during its growth phase but also currently, e.g. lithium refining.
We drive EVs as if they had been produced by photosynthesis.
This is the Chinese Century, just as the 18th was the British, the 19th the American, and the 20th the Russian. The relevant dates do not align perfectly with the turns of the century of course. Thank you for helping us understand this. A country comes to the forefront when its leadership and the wants and needs of the citizens are in harmony.
From what I've seen, China is trying to move to a more consumer-based economy and one less based on heavy industry and government spending. Seems the US model, when consumer spending accounts for most economic activity, is the goal.
Why only China’s doubling down matters? Why not accelerate zero carbon to 2026 for US and EU? Bigotry of low expectations? Why is the EU stalling wind farm investments? Why isn’t the EU and US giving China loans to make the “huge investment” needed to save the planet. Why are your expectations of the West so low?
Because the West is a corrupt shithole that is completely controlled by boomers with a masculinity crisis. Both wings view China as a threat to their fragile egos, causing a reflexive hatred of anything China leads in. This includes green energy.
Absent some sort of miracle this will continue to be the dominant mindset in the West. You shouldn't expect anything from insane people.
Reflexivity is the subtext of national climate policies. Chinese and EU carbon markets mechanistically reflect US cap and trade for acid rain - but also reflect a broader expectation for where American energy policy might go. With five-eighths of global equity market cap domiciled in the US - you don't want your companies falling behind theirs. And the whole "biggest historical emitter" thing (remember contraction & convergence) was going to kick in, right? My point is this - while the consequentiality of the CCP decision on decarbonization is as you state - that decision will be reflexive of the fact that a) we didn't adopt the market mechanism we told them to use, b) we became the #1 oil & gas producer while they overinvested in RE and EVs that we won't buy now, even though we need the mitigation, c) the market for premium-priced green commodities, and the goods they are made into, has some traction in the EU but little in the US, and d) the US is selling its LNG to the same customers China had planned to be selling its cleantech to - and doesn't even count the GWP of methane leaks correctly (let alone pay for it)! China's big decision reflects that of its ostrich-like competitor, head buried in science-free sand.
Seems China's demographic collapse, and much of the world for that matter, will do quite a bit to reduce carbon emissions.
Although emissions are heavily skewed to the wealthy who might live longer than average - and tipping points in the climate system might be hit berore demographics cut emission (think LNG)...
If only west stopped terrorising china with Wars and dismemberment 😏. Won't US bomb those solar farms and plunge china into darkness?
Why are you comparing china with germany and a part of USA i.e., California?
Why can't west allow china green goods now and do the second generation development with tariffs etc.,?
The US would bomb any energy infrastructure. A coal plant is no less a target.
Germany and California represent the best response humanity has offered to climate change.
Germany closed its nuclear powerplants and restarted coal plants and started extracting the worst type of coal.
The US would bomb any energy infrastructure. A coal plant is no less a target.
Germany and California represent the best response humanity has offered to climate change.
Yeah but this is spread over large area.
California is not a country with less than half the population of Germany but will have policy issues as it is a part of USA and what California does is & Germany is country but a medium sized one which has 16 times less population.but both are rich. China is not rich country but a big country with large population.
Hence,china offered the best response to climate change
No issue with this article on China but would be good to get your take on the view articulated in https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/15/the-price-is-wrong-by-brett-christophers-review-why-capitalism-cant-save-the-planet on the reason behind the failure of the West to invest at the scale required by the climate challenge
All this is assuming that the heavily promoted climate models are correct. But how do we know?
From my reckoning, working with the models and with the actual data, the models are underpredicting... On many indicators (i.e. continuous dry days, we are above the 90th percentile for the worst case scnarios) ...
It's the fat tail of potential outcomes that makes hedging damage risk that makes mitigation prudent and it can be a dynamic hedge adjusted as more is learned
Because they are already being proven correct?
Coal, steel and heavy metal sectors are important employers of the traditional working class in China, as elsewhere, and therefore important to the social balance the Party needs for political stability. Handling the employment transition to a low(er) carbon economy is a major issue of the ruling Party's decision-making. This needs to be included in the analysis of the political economy prospects for reaching global-warming targets.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm skeptical of Zhang's comments that China doesn't have the land mass make solar or wind farms. If there's any country that has an abundance of land its China. And the state has been perfectly willing to ride roughshod over environmental issues so far. I wonder if the scaled back NEA targets are driven by overcapacity concerns...
I'm left puzzled that China's accelerating investment in nuclear power is not mentioned once in an article purporting to be about the green transition.
Hello Adam, great article as always. My reading of Mr Xi is that the Party is at the centre of everything. His commitment to his country is expressed in the purity of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. His thinking will be based on what is good for the Party, and by (his) definition what is good for the Chinese people. Within that dynamic, the notion of "struggle" is key. A Party that holds power without an electoral mandate needs a unifying theme, and for China it has long been the concept of Struggle. It's a struggle to keep the tenets of the Communist system pure, as it's a struggle to weed out corruption, to purify the PLA and so on.
Mr Xi is no fool. He well understands the global context. But his decisions - and it will be his decision ultimately - will be couched in the terms above Deciding what is best for the Chinese people won't be a simple choice of what's best for the environment, but what's best for the Party.
Remember, Mr Xi has three jobs - Secretary General of the CPC is his main gig, while being president of the country and head of the military are his other two jobs. The party will come first.
As a naive person, I understood this good article as implicitly assuming that after oil and gas use diminishes a lot the climate danger will be reduced a lot
However it is not clear to me if EV, solar cells, heat pumps etc . are a free lunch. I read that its fabrication implies not only a lot of pollution but slavery in the cobalt mining. I have never seen in the press a balance of energy and entropy and an estimate of the pollution in a world without oil and gas. To be clear: iI think that oil and gas used for energy production and other arras must be reduced a lot. But in the new world: are we going to be safe or are only kicking the problem to next century? If someone knows about serious sources that discuss this question please write where we can consult them.
Try this book. The mining involved in « clean » technology makes all this talk rather useless https://www.alibris.com/The-Rare-Metals-War-The-dark-side-of-clean-energy-and-digital-technologies-Guillaume-Pitron/book/47691513?
Getting riled up over critical minerals…as LFP (no nickel or cobalt) gains huge battery market share and sodium ion (sans critical minerals) starts commercialization…is rear view mirror driving.
Keep driving!
Thanks
"...a faster transition generates momentum. It makes future decisions easier, not harder. It encourages business investment and technological development around the path of advance."
Oh, I wish more people understood this. Rip off the bandaid, it's less painful overall.
A debate with skeptical voices like Doomberg or Vaclav Smil on this topic would be very enlightening.
For one thing, the article bypasses all technical questions, as if the issue were of a political and economical nature only.
For example, it is unclear how intermittency of solar and wind is taken for solved. Another unclear point are the material resources -not just the land- required to deploy such low-density energy sources and the emissions needed to obtain them (cement, mining, manufacturing, etc.).
The total CO2 balance and environmental damage from China's green industry is controversial as well, both during its growth phase but also currently, e.g. lithium refining.
We drive EVs as if they had been produced by photosynthesis.
This is the Chinese Century, just as the 18th was the British, the 19th the American, and the 20th the Russian. The relevant dates do not align perfectly with the turns of the century of course. Thank you for helping us understand this. A country comes to the forefront when its leadership and the wants and needs of the citizens are in harmony.
The 20th century was the Russian century? Did anyone tell the Russians?
And, on behalf of America, thanks for giving us the 19th. Very generous of you.
The Chinese government's repression of consumption, so criticized in the West, is good for the environment or not?
From what I've seen, China is trying to move to a more consumer-based economy and one less based on heavy industry and government spending. Seems the US model, when consumer spending accounts for most economic activity, is the goal.
Look at India’s ❤️ of coal. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-19/india-set-to-see-biggest-jump-in-coal-fired-power-in-a-decade
Good for them. Good to see a country where the people in charge aren’t merely the retarded suckers who kissed ass hard enough to be there.
Such powerful name-calling here.