For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.
Headline could be misleading, but it basically means that (according to one independent analysis) China’s emissions have just stopped growing this year. They are still the world’s largest contributor by far. This hilariously optimistic chart from the same site shows them relative to the US and almost all of Europe:
Still, not gonna knock what is good news, or at least “better than the alternative” news
Given that the EU has 3x smaller population than China and the US 4x, the emission numbers aren’t out of proportion. Add to that the fact that both the EU and US have outsourced large parts of their manufacturing industry to China and the picture changes dramatically. If China can manufacture, mine and process what they do, with its current population, and if emissions have peaked, that would be remarkably positive. Given their massive investment in wind, solar, nuclear and EVs, it might just actually be the case.
They are still the world’s largest contributor by far.
I mean yeah because they’re doing all the manufacturing the West offloaded on them. When you read about emissions in America or Europe going down remember that a big part of that is simply them shuttering heavy industry.
Yes, but the point is that someone is going to make that stuff so taking your emissions and putting them in someone else’s backyard isn’t exactly something to brag about.
They keep building coal power plants because the total need of electricity in China is rapidly increasing, but they are also building everything else at an even higher rate so less of the total is actually generated by coal. Also many of them are replacing old obsolete plants with cleaner more efficient ones.
Many of them are also being built specifically because of the increase of renewable sources, to stabilize dips and provide reliability, so the overall usage of those plants has decreased.
And due to their economic system, they don’t have to profit maximize those coal plants or even use them until the end of their lifespan. They’re free to decrease their utilization or even shut them down as the the need decreases.
Headline could be misleading, but it basically means that (according to one independent analysis) China’s emissions have just stopped growing this year. They are still the world’s largest contributor by far. This hilariously optimistic chart from the same site shows them relative to the US and almost all of Europe:
Still, not gonna knock what is good news, or at least “better than the alternative” news
Given that the EU has 3x smaller population than China and the US 4x, the emission numbers aren’t out of proportion. Add to that the fact that both the EU and US have outsourced large parts of their manufacturing industry to China and the picture changes dramatically. If China can manufacture, mine and process what they do, with its current population, and if emissions have peaked, that would be remarkably positive. Given their massive investment in wind, solar, nuclear and EVs, it might just actually be the case.
I mean yeah because they’re doing all the manufacturing the West offloaded on them. When you read about emissions in America or Europe going down remember that a big part of that is simply them shuttering heavy industry.
Thank you, came here to say this.
It’s not like someone is forcing them to manufacture it all
Yes, but the point is that someone is going to make that stuff so taking your emissions and putting them in someone else’s backyard isn’t exactly something to brag about.
Tbf China wants to be the one to pump that garbage out since it helps the line go up.
They (IIRC) intentionally increased coal energy production because it’s cheap and easy to spin up.
But at the same time they’re using that power as a stopgap for renewables.
Kinda what Germany is trying to do
They keep building coal power plants because the total need of electricity in China is rapidly increasing, but they are also building everything else at an even higher rate so less of the total is actually generated by coal. Also many of them are replacing old obsolete plants with cleaner more efficient ones.
Many of them are also being built specifically because of the increase of renewable sources, to stabilize dips and provide reliability, so the overall usage of those plants has decreased.
And due to their economic system, they don’t have to profit maximize those coal plants or even use them until the end of their lifespan. They’re free to decrease their utilization or even shut them down as the the need decreases.
Now that is some high quality projection hahaha
Yeah this headline is extremely misleading.