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China absolutely dominates in installed renewable energy capacity
(www.statista.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Yes, and no.
As a Canadian, I'll shamelessly plug the Canadian numbers for a minute.
If we do per capita, Canada leads those 3 in renewable energy generated, at:
I didn't do the other countries, so there's possibly a higher country.
Canada is literally the worst out of all G7 countries in terms of per capita emissions https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-contradictory-spending-slow-pace-trouble-trudeau-governments-emissions/
True, but I wanted to highlight that China isn't "far ahead" of the pack, like the post suggested.
In terms of scale and absolute number they absolutely are though. Canada might produce more renewable energy per capita, but that's more than offset by the sheer gluttony of energy consumption per capita. Also worth noting that much of Canadian renewable infrastructure, such as solar panels, was almost certainly produced in China.
No, that's the point. In terms of scale, they are literally behind on this one factor.
** Edit to add: you have very valid points on the Canadians over-consuming
In terms of scale China absolutely dwarfs the entire west. There's no comparison here.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "in terms of scale". Typically, that's what we use "per capita" for, no?
I mean absolute scale in terms of total power production and size of deployment.
Ah, ok. But big heads-up, that's not what "in terms of scale" means. You 're talking about total output.
In terms of scale is generally used it to describe a comparison of something with regard to its size or magnitude. Perhaps you're not familiar with this usage?
You're partly right. It's used to compare things of different sizes, by converting them into a comparable measurement (i.e. scaling them)
They are of a comparable measurement - total wattage. You can divide this by the respective population sizes and you'll get another type of data. You can also divide it by the amount of people living in urban areas, by the total amount of land, by the amount of land utilized for electricity generation, by the amount of time elapsed since the country was industrialized, by the amount of time elapsed since the country started producing renewable energy, or numerous other factors, and you'll get a different type of data every time. "In terms of scale" does not inherently imply that population size is the divisor
No you're 100% right it's not inherently about population, but that's a convenient and common measure.
Again, you're talking about total output here. Where's the scale? "Country" is not a uniform data point. So at best this is categorization.
An example:
There are 3 employees in one group, and they produce 9 widgets in a day. In another group, there are 10 people, and they produce 20 widgets. Fantastic. Group 2 makes more widgets right?!
IN TERMS OF SCALE, group 1's employees make 3 widgets per person. Group 2's makes 2 or person.
That's why talking about total output power is kind of meaningless.
Why is a country not a uniform data point but a person (grouped by country) is?
Also in terms of scale, group 1's employees makes 20 widgets in total. It's only meaningless if all you care about is how much each person produces. If Vatican City had the highest per capita energy production, it would still be insignificant in practice.
Glad you asked. A country is an arbitrary set of lines on a map, isn't it? A person is a discrete object, and for statistical purposes, roughly equivalent. That's why a ratio-scale of per capita is statistically more meaningful.
Why is that insignificant? By what measure?
I would argue that would be an interesting data point.(e.g What would cause that? Why are the people there doing that? How would people in the Vatican who worry about climate change know there's an issue otherwise? Etc?)
A previous poster said (correctly) that Canadians, per capita produce more GHGs. That's important information.
A country is not just its land, it's the people living there and the economic system with which it operates. The per capita energy capacity depends entirely on how the country of the individual in question is run, and the total energy capacity of a country is not primarily determined by the number of people living there, but by its access to the necessary resources (primarily trade in China's case, theft through imperialism in Canada's) and the goals of its government
In terms of stopping the destruction of the planet
That's an interesting take on that comparison. I'm not sure the people of Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Tibet would necessarily agree with that portrayal of China.
Why? Let's say this was still the example... Couldn't the reach of the Vatican and its billions of followers make a meaningful impact?
If you're not sure, then look into the history of those three regions of China before you make any hypocritical remarks, especially as someone from a genocidal settler colony like Canada
It's far from billions, but sure, hypothetically, if all followers of the Roman Catholic Church somehow managed to seize state power in their respective countries and started producing renewable energy, it would be meaningful. Back in reality, that's nothing but a thought experiment, and in case you genuinely didn't realize, my use of Vatican City as an example was because of its size
...and without making it compareable to other countries by "per capita" or "share of renewable in total energy production" the numbers mean nothing at all.
Yes, they do shitton and yes they grow like mad in this field. But dont make yourself attackable by being sloppy with your arguments. Dont need to bend the numbers to make them look good.
I'm not being sloppy with my arguments at all. Here are the numbers for you to chew on:
https://archive.ph/6K069
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-lead-global-renewable-growth-with-record-installations-woodmac-2023-11-28/
Finally, emissions in China have now entered structural decline.
I'm not really sure how I feel about hydroelectric being classified as renewable. On one hand it doesn't emit but when you look at projects like the James Bay plant, it's hard to ignore the massive amount of emissions that went into creating the infrastructure and the permanent impact on the landscape.
I'd suppose this is kind of off-topic and is more of a question of how renewable hydroelectric power generation is on a project by project basis based on environmental and ecosystem impact.
Edit: forgot to mention, the impact on indigenous lands as well in many of the colonized countries.
I've been reading the whole debate with Yog and Grain and I just want to say I generally agree with you on that point. Maybe it's the debate bro in me but it feels hypocritical that we always bring up the per capita ratio except when it looks good.
But overall, the biggest China W is when compared to a comparable capitalist country: India. That's the proof of socialism's superiority
The graph is about energy capacity, for energy production numbers (found https://www.irena.org/Publications/2023/Jul/Renewable-energy-statistics-2023), Canada actually has around 12.0 MWh/person, as opposed to China's 1.7 MWh/person.