China's share of of electricity production from coal is at 60% as of 2023[1] compared to 16% for the US[2]. That's down from 80% in 2005.
It currently generates 35% of its electricity from renewable sources as of 2023 compared to 41% in the US.
The US has been replacing coal with gas - gas was 19% in 2005 and 42% in 2023.
China first exceeded the US's annual carbon emissions in 2006 with both outputting about 6 billion tons. Since then the US has declined to a bit under 5 billion tons in 2023 while China has doubled to a bit under 12 billion tons[3] making it by far the largest emitter in notional terms per year.
While the Western world's carbon emissions have been in decline for years (with the US still the highest ex-China), China and India's emissions continue to climb at significant rates. It's true that China is building enormous amounts of renewable energy, but that can be further generalized to China is building enormous amounts of energy production across all sources, dirty and clean.
To manufacture products exported to the west. It's always this argument... You need to look at emissions by country of final destination of the products, not by country of manufacture. In an age where a simple t-shirt is made in Bangladesh with cotton from Afghanistan it's ridiculous to use the latter measure.
> If we stopped buying shit we don't need, they could easily turn off a good portion of their coal powered electricity plants if they wanted.
If they wanted. China has a policy of overproduction, especially in raw materials like steel. While the US subsidizes consumption, China subsidizes production. It is not clear they would elect to scale back (and take the economic hit) even if Western consumers decided to voluntarily cut back (which also seems unlikely).
epistasis|11 months ago
merely-unlikely|11 months ago
China's share of of electricity production from coal is at 60% as of 2023[1] compared to 16% for the US[2]. That's down from 80% in 2005. It currently generates 35% of its electricity from renewable sources as of 2023 compared to 41% in the US. The US has been replacing coal with gas - gas was 19% in 2005 and 42% in 2023.
China first exceeded the US's annual carbon emissions in 2006 with both outputting about 6 billion tons. Since then the US has declined to a bit under 5 billion tons in 2023 while China has doubled to a bit under 12 billion tons[3] making it by far the largest emitter in notional terms per year.
While the Western world's carbon emissions have been in decline for years (with the US still the highest ex-China), China and India's emissions continue to climb at significant rates. It's true that China is building enormous amounts of renewable energy, but that can be further generalized to China is building enormous amounts of energy production across all sources, dirty and clean.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...
andrepd|11 months ago
themaninthedark|11 months ago
The argument was always that the labor and regulations cost too much but the labor abuse and pollution are costing us more.
barbazoo|11 months ago
If we stopped buying shit we don't need, they could easily turn off a good portion of their coal powered electricity plants if they wanted.
merely-unlikely|11 months ago
If they wanted. China has a policy of overproduction, especially in raw materials like steel. While the US subsidizes consumption, China subsidizes production. It is not clear they would elect to scale back (and take the economic hit) even if Western consumers decided to voluntarily cut back (which also seems unlikely).