“The war on coal is over.” So declared Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, as he announced plans to repeal the Obama-era law limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. China, meanwhile, is moving in completely the opposite direction. That country, which suffers more than a million deaths a year because of poor air quality, is putting all its efforts into developing clean alternatives to coal. It invested $78.3bn in renewable energy last year, according to a recent UN report – almost twice as much as the US. China is home to one of the world’s top wind turbine-makers and the top two solar panel manufacturers, and is now making a big push into electric cars. It’s already in a strong position: it sold more than twice as many electric cars as the US last year – “an astonishing catch-up for a country that had almost no such technologies ten years ago”. There are now no fewer than 3.6 million people working in the renewable sector in China, compared with 777,000 in the US. Beijing is out to dominate the industries of the future; the US, under Trump, is engaged in a “quixotic quest” to revive the flagging industries of the past. “Who do you think will win?”. (Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post)
I am personally very suspicious of China and the Party, and everything they stand for. They are obviously going to be the super-power of the 21st Century, and the United States has had its day – a self-inflicted injury in my opinion. However, despite the Chinese power play and the preposterous idea that only the Party can know best, one has to give them credit for renewable energy and actually doing something, not just for themselves, but for the planet.
Ten out of ten, Xi, for that one! I wish we had something in America better than the bunch of hokey backwoodsmen, corruptly raising millions of dollars and denying science, all in the name of re-election. That is something else Xi does seem to be addressing – corruption. I wish we could start by even discussing it, but thanks to the Supreme Court corruption is now built into the whole political system.
A great consequence of the rise of Chinese clean energy is that climate change sceptics in America can no longer say, “There’s no point in doing anything because of Chinese pollution.” There is no excuse for inaction now. Trump often criticises China, and not always unjustifiably so. But if he is serious about challenging China’s rise as a global superpower, he should take clean energy seriously- America’s environment, economy and respectability on the world stage would be greatly enhanced.