Well isn’t it sadly ironic that a country run run by a ruthless dictatorship is actually attempting to meet the climate emergency while a nation claiming to be the world’s largest and oldest democracy (at least for a while longer, maybe) is doing all it can to exacerbate the problem.
It is sad that the only thing that this is the only thing you know about China. China is also the world's oldest continuous civilization and has known for thousands of years how to prepare for incoming disasters. It has the capacity to think in the long term and for the collective interest. Otherwise, it could not have survived to this day. Now think about whether Americans have the capacity to think in the long run, and for collective interests?
The CPC rules China on behalf of the Chinese people, that’s why they’re enacting such a massive energy transformation. Meanwhile the US is controlled by capital, especially fossil fuel oligarchs. That’s basically why there’s a lackluster investment in renewables in the US. Also if you call China ruthless, they haven’t been at war in 40 years, what would you call the US with its endless wars and sanctions that have killed millions?
As Winston Churcill, no fan of the Soviets, remarked, "Stalin´s USSR extirpated the testicles to the Nazis´war machine" - at the price of 27 million Soviet lives. History is a master of irony.
This is really important, but it also needs to address China's continuing high consumption of coal: what are the implications of phasing that out. Meanwhile, they win, we lose (regardless of what they do on coal, but they need to address coal too).
IMHO, they ARE addressing their coal problem, and as a major exporter (Australia) we are finding that their coal appetite arguably appears to have peaked. They just need SO MUCH energy, they need to produce it from whatever means possible, and anticipate reducing nasties later, as clean generating capacity comes further on line. They also have pioneered ultra high voltage DC interconnections, which will make the whole thing work.
I love the pathos. And yes, the western leadership are truly, undeniably, midgets. Just look at DJT whinging and whining that the US is treated badly by everyone.
The Chinese clearly can no longer depend on dirty coal if they want to keep growing and bring real improvements to the lives of their citizens. Hopefully we’ll hear more about dismantling the coal plants 🌱
"Given the obduracy of politics and the entrenched political economy of fossil fuels..."
How about the military? And bangs for bucks?
Governance - lets think back to the Quin dynasty BC, commanderies and public service loyalty, admin development. Bureaucracy has its problems as does any mass society for sure, but China it turns out has managed the industrial roll out and urban mass migration in quick time compared with 19thC Europeans and their colonies. (Values? Check-out Chinese poetry.) There are other threats to the biosphere than climate change, and the downslope of the carbon-pulse is real enough. Lets deal with the otherwise inevitable in parallel?
He’s really talking about the entrenched political economy of the United States where it still gets caught in beauracracy and red tape. The book Abundance talks the obstacles to building anything in the US but a capitalist country will listen to an overwhelming price difference favoring renewables especially solar.
Abundance is more neoliberal propaganda of the sort that would exacerbate US problems rather than lead to real development. The main issues are corporate power & entrenched economic hierarchies, not “red tape” or bureaucracy.
I agree that seems likely when it comes to US problems, but feel 'we' need a better more nuanced approach to our ideas of development as well as abundance. To be more pragmatic I would also apply the engineer's concept of risk-assessment to foreseeable time horizons. (The present financial applications seem misleading, and fail as Tooze suggests in strategic sense.)
I don’t really think the “master problem” affecting a wealthy society such as the US is a general lack of ‘abundance’. More McMansions and SUVs isn’t the solution to Trumpism; the kind of apolitical, corporate-friendly manifesto of the abundance movement is categorically different from CCP state-capitalist developmentalism aimed at poor societies.
Trends in many US indicator statistics have not been looking good for a while. A lot of stuff going overboard just now to keep the balloon in the air? Worked last time round, but the real asset base is being spent like income?
I guess the US is not and does not possess an alternative to China? That includes IT if you want to think of it as an arms race? I'm looking from across the Atlantic. The US has still got a lot of cultural assets that it will be sad to lose, but time is getting on.
I personally feel like there is an alternative to China but it will be tough and actually unnecessary to be fully independent of China as a supplier and market for a lot of goods. I think there is getting to be more bipartisan push back against China, both sides have different reasons but I think a lot of people are still mad about the economic China shock that came from normalizing relations with them, and also both sides do not really trust Xi or the Chinese Communist Party in general. I think we see that Taiwan is more and more of an ally, especially as a supplier of chips and chip making gear.
there's nothing inevitable about the "entrenched political economy of the United States": this would be quite different with a traditional business-Republican government: the strong interest of most of the private sector in new technologies and energy transition would push a much stronger focus on climate issues (even if, yes, the fossil fuel industry would not be silent and would be pushing for a long period of dual capacity, probably realistically).
I think that is why Adam Tooze was pointing out that there is going to be a lot of economic/political interests that will only be overcome if renewable technology (especially solar) gets so cheap that everyone cannot resist the economic bargain. I hope we can do it sooner!
No, but neither would the US be the global wrecker destroying green transition knowledge, diplomacy and technology. There would be a pragmatic engagement with the issue of climate change, which a lot of rational Republicans recognize must be dealt with. This would not be the "green new deal", which has done much damage by loading up the climate issue with every other lefty issue (however worthy), but there would be a pragmatic response to the problem, maximizing private-sector participation, of course, but realistically attacking the issues. Nixon set up the EPA, after all.
I mean, the US literally had it’s no. 1 greentech tycoon in the person of Elon Musk in the center of government power circles. How has that worked out?
But sure, just try neoliberalism harder one more time, I’m sure it’ll work out on the 1001th try.
I don’t think it’s apposite to compare 19th century European development to that of present-day China, which has over a century of technological and sociological advancements to draw upon.
I take your point. However, 'we' have had the same century and a half to draw on. There are pluses and minuses, but we lack the earlier Chinese civilisation to draw on?
My point is that China has only managed to ‘catch up’, if that. Sure, in absolute terms and considering the timeframe it’s an astonishing development (one should also keep in mind that China is a single state of over a billion people, unlike the ever-fractured West), but it took us so long because we were pioneering modernity bit-by-bit. But, it’s also our success that has also become our failure, as getting locked into fossil fuels has made the kind of blank slate adoption of a new energy base near-impossible. If anything were to ever replace solar, I don’t doubt a China settled into its solar ways will face the same problems we face now, or that China itself faced when initially coming into contact with the modernizing West.
Can't argue with that, though even on a timeline measured in a few years not decades, the trend lines and strategy are emerging. This is not our industrial civilisation in transition, but just possibly a sustainable one capable of handling limits and likely retraction? (I ponder Art Berman & Hagens, your side of the Atlantic.)
Does anyone know how much of the huge solar installations since 2023 has been grid connected in China and more specifically going to demand centers. I do know they were building the grid out at similarly rapid pace but do not know any good figures. Here's a stupid idea. Solar panel were selling at below manufacturing cost... why didn't the US or Europe buy all that and take advantage of the glut?
Adam Tooze is a smart person but this article has several flaws 1) Zero mention of the grid collapse in Spain with their high usage of solar. Estimated cost of this collapse is $2-4 Billion 2) Use of LCOE is just plain wrong (see https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/debunking-levelized-cost-of-energy/comments) 3) Yes China has great technologists and smart business people. They DO NOT care about GLOBAL warming even though there usage of EVs has improved air in Beijing. They are building in China 90+% of all the Coal power plants in the world and financing/building the others in their client states like Pakistan. 4). You neglected to mention the contribution to global warming of wars, specifically the Ukraine-Russia war. Ukraine is attacking 4-8 refineries or pipelines a week. https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-costs-war-military-emissions/ Looking forward to an update @mjangwin @doomberg
Hi Adam! My blog SUSitOut 🌱🍃 helps people understand everything sustainability: the basics, the new, the innovations, the data in quick 2-minute reads :) Helps you keep up through my perspective! Follow me along on this journey
Well isn’t it sadly ironic that a country run run by a ruthless dictatorship is actually attempting to meet the climate emergency while a nation claiming to be the world’s largest and oldest democracy (at least for a while longer, maybe) is doing all it can to exacerbate the problem.
It is sad that the only thing that this is the only thing you know about China. China is also the world's oldest continuous civilization and has known for thousands of years how to prepare for incoming disasters. It has the capacity to think in the long term and for the collective interest. Otherwise, it could not have survived to this day. Now think about whether Americans have the capacity to think in the long run, and for collective interests?
The CPC rules China on behalf of the Chinese people, that’s why they’re enacting such a massive energy transformation. Meanwhile the US is controlled by capital, especially fossil fuel oligarchs. That’s basically why there’s a lackluster investment in renewables in the US. Also if you call China ruthless, they haven’t been at war in 40 years, what would you call the US with its endless wars and sanctions that have killed millions?
As Winston Churcill, no fan of the Soviets, remarked, "Stalin´s USSR extirpated the testicles to the Nazis´war machine" - at the price of 27 million Soviet lives. History is a master of irony.
But with US technology facilitating the extirpation.
Check the figures; tanks, planes, guns. Yes, the US contributed.
Decisively? I don't think so.
Take the battle of Kursk in the summer of '43. The tanks and the planes were from which country
And the countless dead of the Red Army were from which countries?
Brilliant analysis! Thank you. I will be sharing this to skeptical friends.
This is really important, but it also needs to address China's continuing high consumption of coal: what are the implications of phasing that out. Meanwhile, they win, we lose (regardless of what they do on coal, but they need to address coal too).
IMHO, they ARE addressing their coal problem, and as a major exporter (Australia) we are finding that their coal appetite arguably appears to have peaked. They just need SO MUCH energy, they need to produce it from whatever means possible, and anticipate reducing nasties later, as clean generating capacity comes further on line. They also have pioneered ultra high voltage DC interconnections, which will make the whole thing work.
I love the pathos. And yes, the western leadership are truly, undeniably, midgets. Just look at DJT whinging and whining that the US is treated badly by everyone.
One word: dunkelflaute
another useful one: cope
Socialism with Chinese characteristics may be what saves us from our self-made climate emergency.
I keep returning to Michael Mann's aphorism: China is becoming an electrostate while Trump turns the US into a petrostate.
While it’s great about China and solar it is not so wonderful about China and coal.
The Chinese clearly can no longer depend on dirty coal if they want to keep growing and bring real improvements to the lives of their citizens. Hopefully we’ll hear more about dismantling the coal plants 🌱
This will only happen when solar panels and other forms of renewable energy are used to manufacture more solar panels.
"Given the obduracy of politics and the entrenched political economy of fossil fuels..."
How about the military? And bangs for bucks?
Governance - lets think back to the Quin dynasty BC, commanderies and public service loyalty, admin development. Bureaucracy has its problems as does any mass society for sure, but China it turns out has managed the industrial roll out and urban mass migration in quick time compared with 19thC Europeans and their colonies. (Values? Check-out Chinese poetry.) There are other threats to the biosphere than climate change, and the downslope of the carbon-pulse is real enough. Lets deal with the otherwise inevitable in parallel?
btw. HVDC grew quicker than the rail links?
He’s really talking about the entrenched political economy of the United States where it still gets caught in beauracracy and red tape. The book Abundance talks the obstacles to building anything in the US but a capitalist country will listen to an overwhelming price difference favoring renewables especially solar.
Abundance is more neoliberal propaganda of the sort that would exacerbate US problems rather than lead to real development. The main issues are corporate power & entrenched economic hierarchies, not “red tape” or bureaucracy.
I agree that seems likely when it comes to US problems, but feel 'we' need a better more nuanced approach to our ideas of development as well as abundance. To be more pragmatic I would also apply the engineer's concept of risk-assessment to foreseeable time horizons. (The present financial applications seem misleading, and fail as Tooze suggests in strategic sense.)
I don’t really think the “master problem” affecting a wealthy society such as the US is a general lack of ‘abundance’. More McMansions and SUVs isn’t the solution to Trumpism; the kind of apolitical, corporate-friendly manifesto of the abundance movement is categorically different from CCP state-capitalist developmentalism aimed at poor societies.
Trends in many US indicator statistics have not been looking good for a while. A lot of stuff going overboard just now to keep the balloon in the air? Worked last time round, but the real asset base is being spent like income?
I guess the US is not and does not possess an alternative to China? That includes IT if you want to think of it as an arms race? I'm looking from across the Atlantic. The US has still got a lot of cultural assets that it will be sad to lose, but time is getting on.
I personally feel like there is an alternative to China but it will be tough and actually unnecessary to be fully independent of China as a supplier and market for a lot of goods. I think there is getting to be more bipartisan push back against China, both sides have different reasons but I think a lot of people are still mad about the economic China shock that came from normalizing relations with them, and also both sides do not really trust Xi or the Chinese Communist Party in general. I think we see that Taiwan is more and more of an ally, especially as a supplier of chips and chip making gear.
there's nothing inevitable about the "entrenched political economy of the United States": this would be quite different with a traditional business-Republican government: the strong interest of most of the private sector in new technologies and energy transition would push a much stronger focus on climate issues (even if, yes, the fossil fuel industry would not be silent and would be pushing for a long period of dual capacity, probably realistically).
I think that is why Adam Tooze was pointing out that there is going to be a lot of economic/political interests that will only be overcome if renewable technology (especially solar) gets so cheap that everyone cannot resist the economic bargain. I hope we can do it sooner!
What, if the US only had another Dubya, it would be the green state developmentalist champion of the world? 😂
No, but neither would the US be the global wrecker destroying green transition knowledge, diplomacy and technology. There would be a pragmatic engagement with the issue of climate change, which a lot of rational Republicans recognize must be dealt with. This would not be the "green new deal", which has done much damage by loading up the climate issue with every other lefty issue (however worthy), but there would be a pragmatic response to the problem, maximizing private-sector participation, of course, but realistically attacking the issues. Nixon set up the EPA, after all.
I mean, the US literally had it’s no. 1 greentech tycoon in the person of Elon Musk in the center of government power circles. How has that worked out?
But sure, just try neoliberalism harder one more time, I’m sure it’ll work out on the 1001th try.
I don’t think it’s apposite to compare 19th century European development to that of present-day China, which has over a century of technological and sociological advancements to draw upon.
I take your point. However, 'we' have had the same century and a half to draw on. There are pluses and minuses, but we lack the earlier Chinese civilisation to draw on?
My point is that China has only managed to ‘catch up’, if that. Sure, in absolute terms and considering the timeframe it’s an astonishing development (one should also keep in mind that China is a single state of over a billion people, unlike the ever-fractured West), but it took us so long because we were pioneering modernity bit-by-bit. But, it’s also our success that has also become our failure, as getting locked into fossil fuels has made the kind of blank slate adoption of a new energy base near-impossible. If anything were to ever replace solar, I don’t doubt a China settled into its solar ways will face the same problems we face now, or that China itself faced when initially coming into contact with the modernizing West.
Can't argue with that, though even on a timeline measured in a few years not decades, the trend lines and strategy are emerging. This is not our industrial civilisation in transition, but just possibly a sustainable one capable of handling limits and likely retraction? (I ponder Art Berman & Hagens, your side of the Atlantic.)
Does anyone know how much of the huge solar installations since 2023 has been grid connected in China and more specifically going to demand centers. I do know they were building the grid out at similarly rapid pace but do not know any good figures. Here's a stupid idea. Solar panel were selling at below manufacturing cost... why didn't the US or Europe buy all that and take advantage of the glut?
I hadn't realised the scale of this - thanks Adam.
Adam Tooze is a smart person but this article has several flaws 1) Zero mention of the grid collapse in Spain with their high usage of solar. Estimated cost of this collapse is $2-4 Billion 2) Use of LCOE is just plain wrong (see https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/debunking-levelized-cost-of-energy/comments) 3) Yes China has great technologists and smart business people. They DO NOT care about GLOBAL warming even though there usage of EVs has improved air in Beijing. They are building in China 90+% of all the Coal power plants in the world and financing/building the others in their client states like Pakistan. 4). You neglected to mention the contribution to global warming of wars, specifically the Ukraine-Russia war. Ukraine is attacking 4-8 refineries or pipelines a week. https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-costs-war-military-emissions/ Looking forward to an update @mjangwin @doomberg
Communism really turns out to be CCP power plus the electrification of the whole world.
Hi Adam! My blog SUSitOut 🌱🍃 helps people understand everything sustainability: the basics, the new, the innovations, the data in quick 2-minute reads :) Helps you keep up through my perspective! Follow me along on this journey
If they are not on going to use all that power for AI, what will they use it for?
This is correct on a strategic level but in terms of climate Chinese acquisition of Brazilian soy obviates any progress.