Comment by jryan49
6 months ago
Is there a future where China uses this as leverage with the rest of the world to put sanctions on the US if we don't transition?
6 months ago
Is there a future where China uses this as leverage with the rest of the world to put sanctions on the US if we don't transition?
China is doing this for energy independence. Their fossil fuel supply chain is critically vulnerable. They don't care about the climate, but will happily play the optics.
Fossil fuels aren't just bad for global climate, air pollution (which is mostly local) kills 7-8 million people per year.
There's an interesting study that arises from a natural experiment based on coal subsidies in China[0]. It found that life expectancy in otherwise similar locations is 3 years lower where the subsidy is paid, and thus more coal is burned.
0: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1300018110
> They don't care about the climate
I don't think it's that simple.
China is a signatory to Kyoto and Paris.
They do care about reducing pollution, and have managed to do so quite significantly in many cities.
China also has quite a bit to lose: many large cities on the coasts, and worsening water shortage problems.
National security probably plays a large role, and I reckon they would prioritize economy over climate, but the evidence implies that they do also care.
Regarding Paris it’s probably a matter of convenience too. Why not sign on to all this stuff if you’re going to build solar anyway to reduce your commodity dependency exposure as you prep for Taiwan?
You can think about this as if China had access to the same oil reserves or oil markets as the US does, would they behave differently? Absolutely.
Separately I think eliminating pollution is more along the lines of their country just doing good things for their people. Climate change stances and whatnot I don’t think are the same, nor are the intentions.
Water shortage has nothing to do with global warming, just overpopulation in specific regions. The world if anything is getting more precipitous than in the past.
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Oversimplification to single causes is sign of poor thinking.
Solar is also economically better for China.
Secondly, I would strongly guess China ramped up production thinking that there would be more overseas demand. It isn't just low demand from the US; for example my "green" New Zealand is also not buying utility scale solar (oversimplified reason from horse's mouth: it is due to our major electricity generators colluding - the actual blocking reasons are more capitalistically complex).
There are very few situations in the world where cause and effect are clear: facile explanations of cause and effect are usually wrong in important ways.
The comment is succinct, the reasoning in long.
China actually has quite a bit of public debate and discontent around air quality at a minimum. They definitely care in that they don’t want to piss off the populace.
I’m not sure it’s absolutely knowable. These are all just opinions. But I feel that China is far more likely to actually care about the climate than America is.
One of the benefits of being a pseudodemocratic centralized government is that you can kind of decide something is important without worrying how to get reelected in a few years. All it takes is a leadership that decides this is their vanity project to be remembered by, or perhaps to actually care about China in 100 years (the Americans obviously can’t think or see this far anymore). This is possibly helped by having a population with a culture of collectivism. For better or worse you don’t have to actually solve the “what’s in it for me?” question that seems to completely screw climate plans when the plan is, “it’ll suck for you but your grandkids will appreciate it.”
> They don't care about the climate, but will happily play the optics
It is not just optics or energy independence. There is a genuine effort to reduce pollution. People forget in 00s media used to bash the smog in China. It was an unlivable air. They truly wanted to transform it - it just so happens that renewables solve a lot of problems simultaneously.
> They don't care about the climate
Like all the crypto climate deniers and True Bird Lovers* are fond of saying, the climate doesn't care about per capita emissions, only total emissions. And now China's total emissions have reduced.
* they oppose wind power
I'm pretty sure they care. They can afford to think long term.
I'd say they care quite a bit about the climate; China goes in for long-term planning, and their water supply in particular is _already_ precarious. They're likely quite vulnerable to climate change.
Neither the US cares about the climate amd doesn't care about the optics either.
This is capitalism in action: solar is cheaper than anything else per kwh. The obsession with fossil in the West is due to the fossil fuel lobbies, not because of the rational market forces. China doesn't have that.
Has there ever been a polity where your "rational market forces" prevailed over "lobbies" created by market forces?
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China continues to get the bulk of their energy from fossil fuels. 56% from coal. China has double the emissions of the USA and new construction for coal plants reached a 10 year high in 2024:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...
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I'm as big of a proponent on solar as anyone, but to avoid confusion, understand that those cheap solar figures come from using state subsidized Chinese panels on near worthless land in the cloudless remote southwest.
If you are trying to use American made panels near population centers in the Northeast or the Midwest, the economics become much more challenging.
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The US administration currently almost seems like it does care, and that it is _pro_ climate change. Some really bizarre pronouncements on the topic from ol' mini-hands.
I resent them saving the planet in this way.
How is this different from the US?
US Fossil Fuel chain right now is not very vulnerable. Vast majority of oil/gas production is internal or from nearby states that foreign powers would have hard time cutting off and our relations are ok with, recent administration aside.
China gets its oil from Russia and Middle East. Russia is unstable partner and Middle East can get cut off by US Naval power for now.
It's not.
The reply was just explaining the calculus that China, and other nations, are using with respect to renewable energy.
The US is an energy exporter (and its energy imports are mostly hydro and oil from Canada which is a pretty safe trade route). China is a massive importer and they import from countries they aren't especially friendly with
The US also apparently seeks energy independence, but seems unwilling to give up "farmland" (or, you know, household roofs or awnings over parking lots) to do it.
The US farms 60 million acres for corn and soybean biofuels currently. Lots of suboptimal ag land available for more efficient energy production (besides rooftops, irrigation canals, parking lots, etc; California has 4k miles of irrigation canals they can cover with solar PV, and is actively working towards this goal). As _aavaa_ mentions, agrivoltaics are very favorably for solar PV and ag production synergies.
(average age of farmers is ~58 years old, and with the decline in labor for ag, now is an optimal time to lease and lock up this land for renewables for the next 25-30 years [at which point generators can be repowered or the land returned to its previous condition])
There Is One Clear Winner In The Corn Vs. Solar Battle - https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/26/there-is-one-clear-winn... - April 28th, 2025
Ecologically informed solar enables a sustainable energy transition in US croplands - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501605122 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501605122
New study compares growing corn for energy to solar production. It’s no contest. - https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/new-study-compa... - April 25th, 2025
Impacts of agrisolar co-location on the food–energy–water nexus and economic security - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01546-4 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01546-4
HN Search: agrivoltaics (sorted by date) - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Happy to give up farmland if you can install a pump jack.
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Household solar installations are still too expensive to be a reasonable option for many consumers in the United States. The amount of solar generation is also very dependent on where you live. Not to mention, it is becoming increasingly difficult to become a homeowner with people achieving this milestone later than ever. If you rent, it’s not really an option at all.
> On average, it takes between nine and 12 years for solar panels to pay for themselves.
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/art...
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us is very close to net energy independence, if anything the nondesire to retool petrochemical plants for ultrasweet fracked fuel is the blocker for true energy independence.
The EU will introduce "sanctions" via a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) at the end of this year. Currently the US wouldn't be affected much by this -- it only affects cement, aluminium, fertilisers, iron and steel, hydrogen and electricity for now.
It might be extended in the future, though.
With that excuse specifically? Probably not. But we're 100% charging straight into a future where the US ends up being isolated and subject to punitive extortion of some form, yeah. Once we cross the threshold of being "more annoying to bend the knee toward than Beijing", our particular flavor of hegemony is over and the world enters its new era.
Continue on this path and we will look like Russia in 10 years. Sorry aboot the invasion Canada.
Unlikely, China isnt an outwardly hostile nation like the US.
Quit drinking the kool aid. You know nothing about the CCP and its ambitions or its future.
And you do?
Well, the CCP does not hide their ambitions at all: they aim to replace the US as the global superpower, and with Trump as POTUS they actually start looking like a more stable, more reliable alternative.
I mean: Trump is a clown, and the US under his rule is becoming a circus.
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What sanctions are China going to leverage on USA? The Yuan is pegged to the USD at an artificially low exchange rate and America owns little of strategic value in China. Tariff wars are already ongoing as the economies go through a gradual divorce.
China's economy is export-based and U.S. is its largest buyer. If it refused to export to the U.S. its economy would go into a freefall and the Yuan would hyperinflate.
We see how much leverage the US has with current toothless tariffs on China. Remind me what is the tariff and how often was it postponed?
China is taking over as the more stable and reliable partner for so many counties - I don't like it really but what can you do
We need to transition. It's a disgrace the way we are moving backwards
Is there a future where you want an authoritarian government on the other side of the planet to bully you into shutting down all your industry to reach some nebulous "carbon" goals? Cutting ties with China could have lots of benefits though.
China emits a full 1/3 of the entire planet's CO2 emissions, emits three times as much as the US does, and emits more than any other country on Earth.
The country with most people emit the most... Cmon HN...
Chima is also the country that produces a big chunk of what western countries consumes. The emissions from China are also our emissions.
And how much of the world's goods are they manufacturing?
GP no doubt complaining about Chinese emissions via their made in China smartphone.
Wrong. India is the most populous country, and the third highest emitter.
People who still make these arguments are fundamentally dishonest and don't give a shit about the climate. They just want nothing to change for them.
I'd have more respect if they were honest about this.
Rising temperatures and sea levels don't care about per capita emissions.
If you _actually_ think climate change is an existential threat, you cannot think in per capita measurements.
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FYI, India has surpassed China for the largest population.
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India is the most populous country.
I wonder who the end users of all those emissions are?
US Noped out of Paris Accords and is on the path to unregulate greenhouse gas emissions while the article talks about the INCREASING US emissions while China's falls.
The US outsourced massive swaths of its manufacturing to China and with it, the emissions from those industries.
Talking in absolutes without context, nor the trajectories is rigorous at best and disingenuous or worse.
From the article
> International Energy Agency (IEA) figures show Chinese coal consumption falling 2.6% in the first half of the year, largely due to a boom in solar that saw the country add 92 gigawatts of capacity—that’s 92 billion watts—in a single month in May, compared to all-time U.S. installations of 134 GW.
So in one month, China added 68% of our total solar capacity to its grid.