this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025

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268

China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months, analysis finds (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 days ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/world@lemmy.world

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30038125

all 29 comments

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 71 points 4 days ago (5 children)

There are so many strategic advantages to China’s mass solar adoption.

Let’s say there’s a war, it’s going to be much easier to take out a few coal plants or nuclear plants than masses of solar panels spread out geographically.

They have well defined lifetimes and are easily replaceable.

They’re cleaner, plus good for domestic manufacturing.

The west needs to get our asses into gear.

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Not just solar, they started building new gen4 reactors 20 years ago.

Guess what forward thinking does for the future?

We seem to want to go only backward though.

[–] Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

Quarterly profits is the only goal? Guess we'll only think 3 months ahead.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago

But it costs money to do anything, and using money is the realm of the private sector!

[–] Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Australia was perfectly positioned to take inspiration from China and run with it.

Unfortunately our mining companies have way too many fingers in our politics.

[–] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago

There’s also the problem of government supported solar only being available to homeowners, which means a vast number of households aren’t in the program. Those renters are the ones that fund it without benefit.

Another one of the points of separation between Australia A and the rest of us.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 days ago

The West is not united on the issue. The EU got a hard lesson from Russia, that fossil fuel dependence is a massive problem. So you see actually quite large investments into the green transition. This is building on some good progress earlier. Obviously Trump doing what he does scares the EU, which currently imports way too much LNG from the US to easily replace. There is push back from the fossil fuel industry, but the laws in place and general direction are good. It is too slow however.

The US as the other large Western power went in the other direction. They elected Trump and currently work on blackmailing the world using oil. This year alone, they bombed Iran, moved a massive fleet towards Venezuela and used sanctions to destroy Russian oil exports. So the three largest oil producers, who deliver a lot of oil to China and are not some sort of vassal to the US.

[–] Defectus@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Instead of bombers, you'll have planes filled with paint to dump on the panels =D

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The bombs and planes would cost more than the panels, and it could be countered with plastic wrap.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

What about windshield wipers

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

But on the flip side I feel like it would take far less bombing power to render a field of solar panels inoperable.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A couple bombs can take out a gigawatt+ generation plant. A couple dozen acres of solar panels will need much, much more, with each individual strike having far less impact and being far easier to repair after. On top of that, solar can be widely distributed and embedded in much smaller footprints, into civilian areas, and so on. Solar also has less infrastructure requirements such as access to water where destroying a dam for example can render one or more power plats inoperable.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

A shit load of bullets would destroy a solar farm.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 38 points 4 days ago

As aggressively as they are plastering deserts with solar panels and put windmills everywhere, this is not surprising. They are basically doing their part and more, just because they know and have accepted that renewable energy is cheaper on the long run.

In the US, scientists and engineers know that it would be cheaper, but politics is way too deep in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry to take any action. In Europe, they don't have the space that China or the USA can provide, and there is way too mich NIMBY involved to actually get somewhere.

[–] Hamartia@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

At what cost!!?

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

RIP Chinese Coal industry.

No one will miss you.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well... if we get to choose a dystopia, I prefer the one were our children aren't fried alive by our own sins. Good thing a country that is offsetting CO2 from all the fucking world actually managed to flatten it's emissions.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

It's terrible that we're in a situation where mere centuries of tyranny sounds less bad than becoming Venus.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

Turns out, it's easy to implement policy in an autocratic regime. No pesky democratic decision processes.

That said, this as a win.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 34 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Are you under the impression that democracy is the thing holding the West back from a green transition?

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Not per se, more like the whole shebang of states, parliamentarism, imperfect elections, economy.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Pretty sure it's the material interests of the ruling class. The fossil fuel companies say we can't do solar power, so we don't. That's not democratic - the opposite, actually!

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Spent some time with an extraordinarily intelligent young man who worked US Navy SIGINT. That was his exact take. China is going to kick our ass because they plan long term and make shit happen, regardless of shifting public opinion. He had me wondering if democracy isn't, in fact, a bunch of bullshit. Not working out for America ATM, now is it?

Look at America's original Constitution. Ah! They only want land owning white males to vote! Ah! But in those times, those were the people who had a stake in governmental policy. It was safe to bet they'd keep the country economically stable and out of costly wars, all in their own best interest.

The irony of modern land-owning white males throwing the country under the bus for short term gains does not escape me. (And I'm one of them, who votes against my own interests.)

[–] Damage@feddit.it 16 points 4 days ago

China is going to kick our ass because they plan long term and make shit happen, regardless of shifting public opinion.

Democracies can plan ahead. It's just that the US is not a real democracy, it's a corporatocracy. Unfortunately it does its best to negatively affect its sphere of influence and beyond.

Government doesn't seem to influence the adoption rate of renewables.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

Democracies can plan ahead and do so all the time. Most laws and system stay in place even with changes in government. In fact you see that a lot in climate policies. Stuff like combustion engine or fossil boiler phase outs, carbon caps, subsidies for green technology and plenty more, which are for a long time. The UK has halved its annual CO2 emissions since 1990 and a good number of European countries are not far behind.

[–] vin@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 4 days ago

Could be fast and wrong too. Like the sparrows.

[–] Sepia@mander.xyz -4 points 4 days ago

Carbon Brief made its analysis based on emission data by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, just read the report. This data is skewed and highly biased.