this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024

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Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024 (www.carbonbrief.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Is that header photo a screenshot from No Man's Sky? 😅

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

But at what cost?!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Record low share but still record high(ish) quantity.

Even with everything China is impressively doing its not fast enough to keep up with current power demand growth (hopefully just short-term, decades).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

China already has far lower emissions per capita than most western countries, especially so compared to US.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes, def (tho recent beef & pork ghg emissions have actually closed the gap considerably). Murikan boomers lived reckless lives on account of (global) future generations in so many ways.

I was merely pointing out the scales, how giant absolute numbers both in actual emissions & actual growth we are talking about.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

I mean, it's basically just saying that more people live in China at the end of the day. Not exactly news.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

But the Chinese people have no right to live as Americans. Obama said so.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

So is coal power production going down, or are renewables growing faster?

Edit: looks like they're still adding coal capacity

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

IIRC China does not yet see an easy way to solve the whole "in the winter the sun shines less" problem... So here we are.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Nuclear is pretty good for base load, but they're building may of those too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Yes, that edit.

Im not trying to be hard on renewables at all, just that in terms of greenhouse gases we are still dumping more and more of them into the air. Just the growth of our carbon farts is a bit slower.

The power demand growth is insane, and the cost might be too high.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The proportion of China's electricity produced from fossil fuels (56%) is now lower than it is in the US (60%). What an absolutely MONSTROUS performance.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Yea but the us and most of the west has actually reduced its emission growth while China continues to increase with no signs of stopping.

China hides behind the label of developing nation to avoid taking responsibility for climate change.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

The rapid growth in power generation from solar shows that the solar capacity boom is delivering new electricity supplies at a scale sufficient to cover much of China’s demand growth.

This reinforces the view that China’s CO2 emissions are in a period of structural decline.

"I didn't read the article but I'm a racist fuck who hates yellow people"

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's also largely because the US has outsourced polluting industries to places like China. So reducing emissions while increasing industry and physical production is harder, but it looks like China is working towards it.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

How is that relevant? China accepting polluting industry is chinas problem. The only reason companies want to move to China is because they know China doesn't give a fucj about the environment and are happy to ruin the world for a dollar. That's not other countries fault its chinas fault.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Because other countries give a fck about the environment lol

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Because if China is holding steady on fossil fuels while absorbing polluting industries, other countries like the US have no excuse at all.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No. They are increasing fossil fuel use each year.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

did you read the article

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yes it's a dumb article that is excitedly running propaganda for the largest polluter in the world. They glaze China for doing less than the bare minimum and make claims that are completely contrary to what statistics and the Chinese government openly state. China's emissions have not peaked in 2023 just because they had one small period of declining emissions in the energy sector.

Chinese government shills love to point to any statistics that obfuscates the damage China is doing. For this article its the % share of renewables. Climate change doesn't care if you add 100twh of solar if you also are also adding 70twh of coal and gas.

Once we get the full yearly data for 2024 and compare it to 2023 we will see that total non renewable energy emissions have increased and this articles prediction will be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Hides behind" you say when it is indeed a developing nation lmao

[–] [email protected] -5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Bro they are the biggest economy in the world, they have modern infrastructure, a middle class. If they are still developing then we can call every nation a developing nation.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think you underestimate just how many people are in China and how much development actually needs to happen in order to meet their needs. The urbanization rate of China is still lower than most developed nations despite the massive amounts of construction they’ve done in recent years.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Climate change doesn't care if China has 2 billion people.

We need to reduce emissions and I'm sick of hearing people defend China's year on year exponential increasing of emissions because they're a "developing country" they're wealthy enough to take the economic hit that comes with reducing emissions. The rest of the world is trying and all that effort is for nothing if China doesn't participate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

dude, they very clearly are working on reducing their emissions. they’re rolling out renewables faster than any other country. you are behaving as though you just want any excuse to blame china for what is a global issue, if anything, countries like the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia, NZ, Korea and Japan deserve as much or probably much more of the blame, but seem to be doing relatively little.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Of all the things to turn into a nation-v-nation contest, saving our shared atmosphere is the silliest.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We need more geen contests!! We're already reaching 1.5°C global warming faster than expected.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

We have already reached 1.5°C

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If it drives more investment, I'm all for it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Yea, wish we had a green race just like we had a space race during the 1st cold war, at leadt something useful would come out of it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

oh shit, "we are losing the green race" is excellent propaganda

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

The space race also created all sorts of new materials and technologies, but renewables would be more directly applicable.