Editor's note: "In the world climate world, something that was once thought almost unimaginable may be happening. On September 20, United States journalist David · Wallace-Wells published an opinion piece in the New York Times, pointing out that the story of the global green transition has been completely rewritten by China. The 16th issue of the "Speed Reading Top Journals in United States" column (click to view the previous content) specially compiles the core content of this article for readers' reference.
In the world climate field, something that was once thought almost unimaginable may be happening. Preliminary data suggests that while global carbon emissions are still rising, China's emissions may have peaked – and the long-time climate "villain" is now one step ahead of the rest of the world and has reversed the trend.
Predictions like these are not entirely reliable, but the story of the global green transition has been completely rewritten by China. You probably already know the gist of the story: With decades of staggering decline in the cost of solar, wind and battery technologies, as well as a new wave of climate initiatives and dramatically increased policy support, green energy technologies of all kinds are rising in an astonishing exponential curve, with each year of progress making the cautious predictions of old-fashioned industry analysts laugh.
This is often celebrated as a global success, but progress in recent years has come mainly from one country. Excluding China from the rest of the world, the jaw-dropping upward curve is much smoother – green energy is still on the right track, albeit at a much slower pace.
Take solar energy, for example, as the leading force in the current global green transition, giving the world a self-comforting story. In 2023, the installed global solar capacity, including China, will reach 425 GW; There are only 162 GW in the world outside of China. China accounted for 263 GW; The United States has only 33 GW. As recently as 2019, China's installed capacity was still about a quarter of the world's total; Last year, it already had 62 percent more installed capacity than the rest of the world combined. Also after the past five years, China's new installed capacity has increased by more than eight times; If China is not included, the world's growth rate is less than double.
Once China is excluded, the numbers are less impressive: from 2019 to 2023, 90, 93, 100, 133 and 162 GW of new capacity will be added each year. The world outside of China is not without progress – from 2021 to 2023, new capacity additions increased by 62%. But China's growth was 317 percent.
It's not just solar. According to a recent estimate, nearly two-thirds of the world's large-scale solar and wind farms built this year are in China, and the scale of green energy deployment is more than eight times that of the rest of the world. Combined, the G7 – United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom – will add barely a quarter of China's new capacity in 2023. China will add 74 GW of wind power capacity in 2023; The rest of the world combined is 43 GW, while the United States has only 6 GW. In 2023, China sold 8.1 million electric vehicles, compared to 5.6 million in the rest of the world, including 1.4 million in the United States.
Of course, there are encouraging stories elsewhere. (In the first six months of 2024, for example, wind and solar power generation in Europe surpassed fossil fuels, and rooftop solar in South Africa increased by 349% in just over a year.) However, looking at the progress of decarbonization in other parts of the world, there is also a Chinese push behind the transition. In 2022, China produced about 90% of the world's solar wafers and cells – more than double the planned installation in the rest of the world, according to some estimates. Last year, more than 60 percent of the world's wind turbines were produced in China, and 60 percent of electric vehicles sold came from China. In 2004, United States' share of global solar energy production was 13%, and by 2023 it is less than 61%. China's share is now 80 percent, compared to 1 percent.
Just five years ago, climate diplomats in the West often complained that even if a wealthy country miraculously decarbonized, it would be for nothing if China did not cooperate, after all, that country is responsible for nearly a third of its emissions. To this day, there are still those who claim to be climate-conscious who bemoan that global warming is a global problem that can only be solved by countries, on the assumption that a mismatch between local costs and global benefits will discourage undesirable and inactive actors from solving problems, and that we should slow down if this happens.
In fact, the logic of competition is now reversed. In some ways, some countries close to us, as well as Europe's rightful allies, are well ahead of United States in the pace of transformation. Our major geopolitical and geoeconomic rivals have not only failed to slack off on the road to decarbonization, but have left the world behind. This is not to say that China has helped us solve the world's climate problems. But as Brett · Christopus wrote in the Financial Times, "the energy transition is not a single process, but a series of regional transformations that come in different forms, at different paces and in all their breadth." "When we talk about 'global,' there is a confusion," writes Adam · Touz, "because in fact, there is one country that has the absolute advantage in the entire energy transition dynamic, and that is China." ”
Ten years ago, the United States and its allies spent a great deal of intellectual and diplomatic energy on the strategic question of how to encourage China to join our race to decarbonize, then and now, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. However, United States policymakers today are raising tariffs on green technology to protect United States' clean energy industry – suggesting that we have lost the race from a price perspective and, in addition, we are lagging behind in terms of the pace of deployment.
If it's a game, China is far ahead.
As the world's most carbon-intensive economy in history, China has far outpaced its global commitment to transition in emerging energy technologies at a time when economic growth is slowing and it is not yet among the world's "high-income" ranks. This year, for example, China achieved its 2030 renewable energy target six years ahead of schedule. In the United States, we seem to focus more on artificial intelligence.
There are a few ways you can measure this amazing impact. It can be said that electricity is the currency of global transformation, and according to Ember, the net increase in global electricity demand last year totaled 627 TWh; China alone added 606 TWh. (1 terawatt equals 1 trillion watts.) ）
Or look at what the IEA calls "avoiding emissions" – a way to measure the impact of new renewable energy. China's new solar energy reduces emissions by 619 million tons per year, six times that of the United States.
According to the International Energy Agency, China's newly built wind capacity "avoided" 4.87 megatonnes of emissions, while wind power in the rest of the world reduced emissions by only 3.43 megatonnes. In China, electric vehicles reduced emissions by 22 million tons, more than the United States (15 million tons), the European Union (14 million tons) and the United Kingdom (3 million tons), and three times the emissions of new electric vehicles in the rest of the world (7 million tons). The gap in nuclear power is relatively small, but even in this regard, China avoids more emissions (74 million tons) than Korea (20 million tons), the United Arab Emirates (15 million tons), the European Union (9 million tons) and the rest of the world (44 million tons).
Just look at the scale they're building. China has more than twice as much land for solar power as United States.
What does all this mean? What does it mean to put China at the undisputed center of any reporting or analysis of the green transition?
This is a major issue, perhaps as big as geopolitics and as vast as the global possibilities for the future. But at least in the short term, I think there are two fundamental points worth noting.
First, the energy transition is now very much a Chinese project. Progress is being made around the world, but the gap between China and the rest of the world is much wider and more daunting than is widely believed, and once you put China aside, the global picture looks less rosy – and in a way, the greentech trade war waged by the United States is trying to sideline China.
Much of the argument in favor of imposing these tariffs relates to the challenges of Chinese subsidies and "overcapacity," and even the possible measures, if any, that United States and its allies could take to put us on a par with a green economy that produces twice as much solar panels as the world needs. But the other side of this imbalance is perhaps more worrisome, at least for those of us who care about the pace of decarbonization: China is likely to back down and reduce its support for green industries, thereby somehow idling the engine of the global green transition and leaving the rest of us in trouble.
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Established on January 19, 2013, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Chinese University of China (Renmin University Chongyang) is the main funding project donated by Chongyang Investment to Chinese University and set up an education fund for operation.
As a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics, Chongyang has hired dozens of former politicians, bankers, and well-known scholars from around the world as senior researchers, aiming to pay attention to reality, advise the country, and serve the people. At present, the Chongyang National People's Congress has 7 departments and 4 operation and management centers (the Center for Ecological Finance, the Center for Global Governance, the Center for China-US People-to-People Exchange, and the China-Russia Center for People-to-People Exchange). In recent years, the Chongyang National People's Congress has been highly recognized at home and abroad in the fields of financial development, global governance, major-country relations, and macroeconomic policy.