China\u2019s state-led investment in clean energy is now the main determining factor in how quickly the world decarbonises, according to a report by London-based think tank Ember.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin China there is a realisation that the old development paradigm centred on fossil fuels has run its course, and is not fit for 21st century realities,\u201d says the report, published on Tuesday. \u201cThe government\u2019s aim to establish an \u2018ecological civilisation,\u2019 which simultaneously delivers on economic, social and environmental goals, is the response, embedded in the Constitution since 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n
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China produces 60 percent of global wind turbines and 80 percent of global solar panels, driving cost reductions for everyone else, Ember\u2019s Sam Butler-Sloss told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 2010, the cost of solar modules has come down over 90 percent \u2026 and China has been responsible for three quarters of the cumulative solar manufacturing in that period,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we\u2019re at a point where solar modules are sub-10 cents per watt. Batteries are coming in at sub-$70 per kilowatt hour. And this is enough \u2026 to profoundly change the economics of energy around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s decisions were partly driven by economic realities, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Its vast manufacturing industry consumes energy, much of which it imports in the form of oil and gas. China sought to remain competitive and energy-secure by becoming autonomous.<\/p>\n
That brought a powerful added benefit. Beijing has financed a domestic market for electric technologies and invested in a growing patent gap with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
In 2020, it was responsible for 5 percent of global energy patent applications. That figure is now 75 percent.<\/p>\n
In bringing about this transformation, it is becoming the hub of a global market supply chain.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, in solar and batteries, China\u2019s manufacturing capacity is greater than global demand,\u201d said Butler-Sloss. Unlike China\u2019s overinvestment in real estate in the last decade, which harmed parts of its financial system, she believes this bet is a winner because batteries and solar panels can be exported.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get some people using language, like oversupply. I think the uptake market is more dynamic and responsive, and we\u2019re seeing that oversupply meets these emerging markets,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
China yet to tackle greenhouse gas emissions<\/p>\n
China helped ensure this uptake by investing beyond its borders.<\/p>\n
\u201cChinese battery and [electric vehicle] firms have invested about $80bn in facilities in emerging markets and around the world. And this is the technology, know-how, and the finance to build up these industries \u2026 in different countries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Last year, China invested almost a third of the global total in renewable energy capacity \u2013 $625bn, while Europe invested $426bn and the US $409bn. Its return was triple the investment.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s clean energy sector \u2013 led by the \u201cnew three\u201d industries of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles \u2013 expanded three times faster than the rest of the economy, adding $1.9 trillion to China\u2019s output.<\/p>\n
The US and Europe have watched on with alarm because China\u2019s state-subsidised industries have undercut everyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n
When dedicating hundreds of billions of dollars to the rollout of solar and wind energy in his Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden, the former US president, marked that money strictly for investments on US soil.<\/p>\n
Even so, said Ember\u2019s lead on the report, Biden was still benefitting from Beijing because its investment stimulated other countries to develop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf China had not made these investments, then where would we be now?\u201d said editor Richard Black. \u201cWould we have seen the same scale of investments in any particular country or region?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own personal opinion is probably that we wouldn\u2019t have done,\u201d Black said. \u201cThe Chinese government, in collaboration with the major companies, realised some time ago that there was going to be an enormous export market here and invested accordingly in a strategic way, bringing together deployment policies \u2026 manufacturing policies and export policies. And I\u2019ve never really seen any other country trying to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Europe remains competitive on some metrics. For example, whereas electricity accounts for a third of China\u2019s energy mix versus one-quarter in Europe, Europe\u2019s electricity is cleaner, with three in 10 gigawatts coming from renewables, compared with China\u2019s two in every 10.<\/p>\n
And for all its investment, China has yet to show a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, which is, after all, the main objective of the energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from the European Union and the US have been falling since the turn of the century.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s and India\u2019s emissions last year were the main drivers of growth to a new record of 37.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equivalent, with China\u2019s accounting for almost a third of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s state-led investment in clean energy is now the main determining factor in how quickly the world decarbonises,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":213587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[13214,438,74,746,50,866,159,67,132,68,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-213586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-business-and-economy","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-renewable-energy","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115175970975190887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}