Some Good News

Did you miss these two pieces of good news?

It didn’t get much attention in the media, but in a joint statement the US and China declared that in the future they would cooperate in the area of climate change. Both countries will make efforts to triple the capacity for renewable energy and would aim to significantly lower Co2 emissions  by 2030. This is a new development because China never before promised  concrete and specific goals in the reduction of emissions.

This joint declaration is significant for three reasons:

– In spite of all the conflicts between the two, both superpowers are so serious about the climate crisis that they are ready to cooperate in this area. It is clear that without cooperation between these two global powers nothing can be achieved by the rest of the world. Maybe this declaration is more significant than what can be expected from COP 28 in Dubai.

– The declaration shows that climate change deniers and those who aim to slow down the fight against it are missing the boat. The Biden administration has realized that China is leaving the rest of the world behind – and doing so fast. Even if Trump should manage to become president again and, as can be expected, should try to turn back the clock on the fight against climate change, he would be unsuccessful because of resistance from the US economy. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will create facts on the ground that Republican politicians won’t be able to get around.

– The declaration reflects China’s growing self confidence in the arena of climate and energy. The reasons for this lead to the second piece of good news:

On the day before the joint declaration, “Carbon Brief” published an analysis that explains China’s confidence (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/). Carbon Brief states that, based on data from diverse sources, it is as good as guaranteed that China’s Co2 emissions will in 2024 in fact go down. Since 2007, China has been the largest emitter of Co2 in the world (since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the US remains by far ahead of all countries in the world in terms of CO2 emissions). It would be a sensation if China actually reached the tipping point of emissions already in 2024, since it had planned and announced to achieve this goal not until 2030! At the current state of affairs, every year counts!

Even though in 2023 China’s emissions had risen further from the previous years, a historic growth in renewable energy production has occurred in China, particularly in the area of solar power installations. In 2023 alone, China added 210 Gigawatt of capacity, “more than double of installed capacity in the US and more than four times as much as China had added in 2020.” Counting added capacity in solar, wind, hydro- and nuclear power, China added 423 gigawatt, equal to the power use of all of France. Furthermore, there has been a boom in investments in industrial capacity for the production of emission reducing technology, such as in solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries. According to Carbon Brief, there is a competition in China between the old, dirty energy sector and clean, renewable energy – and it looks like the former is, at this point, losing out to the latter.

All of this is good news for the planet, even though not for China’s European and US competitors. China will continue to export cheaper solar panels, EVs and batteries, thereby putting pressure on Western economies.

Based on an article in Carbon Brief 11/13/23