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China's fossil-fuelled power output may fall in 2025 for first time in decade
China's fossil-fuelled power output may fall in 2025 for first time in decade
11 comments
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Excellent news. If slightly misleading in its subtle suggestion that this is somehow surprising. China's emissions have risen sharply in recent decades, yes, but that is because China has a lot of people and it has been amazingly successful at getting them out of poverty. China's per-capita GDP and per-capita emissions are both still far below the USA's, for example (around 40% lower).
Moreover, China has pioneered the mass roll-out of the technologies that might finally address the climate crisis, especially solar energy, batteries and EVs (now well over 40% of new vehicles there and going up like a rocket). China is the only big country that's taking all this seriously. Europe is dragging its feet by comparison, and the USA is literally still voting for denialists. It's an awkward fact because China has lots of faults and none of us would want to live there, but without China the whole world would be royally screwed right now.
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From the article
The China Coal Industry Association also forecast a 4.5% increase, highlighting the uncertainty in forecasting [thermal power output] (coal, gas).
I'd say it is surprising, considering China is still building coal power stations and Chinese industry bodies are forecasting more coal being needed.
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Sure, Chinese coal is a problem. But (a) these coal forecasts keep getting revised downwards, not least because of the absolute freefall in solar energy prices, which is - to repeat - entirely China's doing, and (b) the USA - which has 4 times China's GDP per capita and is responsible for a huge chunk of the world's historic emissions - is now literally the world's largest oil and gas producer and just elected a leader who promises to double down on that.
So: good news, perhaps even surprising news. But I say we should not lose sight of the larger picture: in the wider story here, China is much more of a hero than a villain.
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Go China! Hopefully others can do the same
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Donald Trump: hold my oil barrel
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MAY fall!
The uplifting news will come when it has fallen.
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China is a fascist state, by the way
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Love me some uplifting news but this is just naive. There is no reason to believe they’ll suddenly do a U-turn on their rise in emissions.
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If they continue on with renewables, why wouldn't there be an expectation that their emissions will go down?
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I imagine Chinese government is really unhappy about importing massive amount of oil and coal to keep their economy running. Especially considering Russia is currently at war with Ukraine, and Russian pipelines might or might not get blown in the process.
Deploying renewables isn't about emissions to them. It's about national security.
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11 comments