China is building more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. At this point there is no “let’s just reduce our emissions by 30% or so and hope things work out” plan that’s compatible with stopping worst-case outcomes, there is only a “let’s replace every single energy and fuel source with non-emitting ones on a ridiculously short timescale” plan. Insofar as we have a chance of doing that, it’s because of what China is doing right now.
To the extent that they’re using fossil fuels to build the infrastructure for this renewable tech, I’m completely fine with that. That’s much better than using it to build iPhones or consumer nonsense. Insofar as they’re building a renewable grid backed by modern dispatchable coal and they’re also building out massive storage manufacturing capability and their emissions are on track to decline, I’m also fine with that.
ETA: China’s emissions appear to be peaking and entering a structural decline. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2453703-clean-energy-ro...
China's emissions are continuing to climb sharply:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=CHN~USA~IND...
The New Scientist article is terribly misleading. It suggests China's emissions have peaked because of a few months of reported stable numbers. What they don't tell you is that such periods have happened many times before. Between 2014-2016 Chinese emissions were stable or even fell slightly, according to their not very reliable data. Then it started climbing strongly again, even as US emissions dropped by a billion tonnes/year between 2008-2023.
So there's no evidence China is turning anything around or is on track to decline. You can't extrapolate a few months out to decades in the future, and the New Scientist should know that.
The analysis in New Scientist isn't based historical trends. It's a causal analysis based on the rapid deployment of new low-carbon generation on China's grid, which is being deployed at rates higher than expected demand. Of course you could be right -- maybe forward demand will be much higher than anticipated, or maybe all of those solar panels will turn out not to be plugged in or something. But you need to make a stronger argument for this than one that just casually glances at a historical time series.
Yes, but such stories have been pushed for many years. If we look at the period before the 2017+ rampup in emissions we can see the same sorts of talk about China's solar ramp:
https://www.google.com/search?q=china+solar+deployment&sca_e...
"China's Solar Surge Presents Future Opportunity"
"China ramps up renewable energy deployment"
"Why China Is Leading The World In Solar Power"
etc. Solar can't replace fossil fuels so it's not unexpected that Chinese emissions would continue to grow.
The difference during those earlier times was that the amount of generation installed was still relatively small. Those articles use the term “future” because the hypothesis was that if exponential trends persisted, eventually generation would start to rival growth in demand. That appears to be actually happening now.
And solar (and wind and nuclear) absolutely can replace fossil fuels. What they can’t do is replace 100% of fossil fuels until storage is cheap and plentiful. With expanded grid capacity and dispatchable fossil generation, a 90%+ low-carbon grid is entirely feasible.
> To the extent that they’re using fossil fuels to build the infrastructure for this renewable tech, I’m completely fine with that.
Building renewable tech is such a small percentage of chinese output. And besides, at a very small ~10-20% premium you can get far more efficient and durable solar panels from South Korea. And by doing so, you can buy your solar panels from a country that is past carbon peak.