How Politics and Pollution Could Push China Into the Climate Leader Role the US Is Giving up

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Earlier this month China halted more than 100 coal-fired power projects. Scrapping these projects, with combined installed capacity of more than 100 gigawatts, may have more to do with Chinaโ€™s current overcapacity in coal production than its commitment to mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, Chinese leaders are likely happy that the move is framing their nation as a green energy leader, according to experts in Chinese and environmentalย policy.ย 

Thatโ€™s because, they say, the Chinese government is now eager to fill the vacuum in climate change leadership that is being left by the U.S. And, they say, China is poised to eat Americaโ€™s lunch in the renewable energyย sector.ย 

Pollution Fuels Chinaโ€™s New Energyย Priorities

Saying that China is doing nothing on climate change has long been a right wing talking point used to stop U.S. regulations such as carbon taxes. While that may have been true a decade ago, it certainly isnโ€™t trueย now.ย 

Already, China is both the worldโ€™s leading producer of renewable energy technologies and its biggestย consumer.ย 

A recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance report showed that China invested $287.5 billionย in clean energy in 2016, while the U.S. spent $58.6 billion. And in January it announced plans to invest an additional $120 billion a year in renewable power beforeย 2020.

Chinaโ€™s five-year plan on energy and climate is ambitious, calling for an 18 percent reduction in carbon intensity from 2015 levels. It aims to reduce coal to 55 percent of total power by 2020, down from 69 percentย now.ย 

But Chinaโ€™s most urgent need is not reducing greenhouse gases, or even cashing in on the burgeoning green tech market, but eliminating the smog choking its cities, which is caused by burning coal, oil, and biomass. Over the past decade, Chinaโ€™s degraded air quality has caused millions of premature deaths, hurt its economy, and has become a primary cause of social unrest.ย 

John Chung-En Liu, a professor of sociology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, told DeSmog that, despite positive stories about scrapping coal plants, these actions donโ€™t mean an imminent end to Chinaโ€™s use of fossil fuels. And they donโ€™t mean China is doing this for the worldโ€™s benefitย either.

โ€œThe media have been talking about closing down 100 coal powered plants, but the real reason is that China has overbuilt from a massive expansion of coal over the past 20 years,โ€ he said. โ€œThe Chinese government is committed to green tech but canโ€™t make the move quickly because of theย infrastructure.โ€

Nevertheless, Chinaโ€™s ambitious plans are bound to help reduce emissions that lead to global warming in the long run. And scholars say the country is planning to use its investment in green tech to its advantage, and at the expense of the United States.ย ย 

Smog in Beijing, China, in 2003
Smog in Beijing
ย and elsewhere in Chinaย has led to an urgency to move away from coal and other polluting industries. Credit:ย Kevin Dooley,ย CC BYย 2.0

China Poised to Benefit From Investment inย Renewables

Chinaโ€™s dominance in wind, solar, and hydro energy is growing as the U.S. is falling behind, experts haveย said.ย 

A paper released in December by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) made the case that, even before Donald Trump took office, the U.S. was forfeiting its chance to capitalize on the growing clean energyย market.ย 

โ€œThe United States is losing this race because Asian countries are out-investing the United States and dictating the terms of competition, often flooding the market with low-cost, unimaginative products,โ€ the ITIF reportย concluded.

In 2016, China was by far the leader in producing solar energy. At the end of 2014, China made one out of every three wind turbines in the world and last year a Chinese wind energy company bested American companies in producing wind power. In fact the country is producing more wind power than it can use, at least until the central government finds a way to move energy from where itโ€™s produced to where itโ€™sย needed.ย 

Last year China led the world in sales and manufacture of electric vehicles.

America, too, could benefit from similar growth in green tech if the current administration werenโ€™t so committed to fossil fuels, according to Angel Hsu, a professor of environmental studies at the Yale School ofย Forestry.

โ€œThe U.S. economy stands to suffer with Trumpโ€™s denial of clean energy,โ€ said Hsu. โ€œIf Trump wants to create jobs like he says he does, ignoring the potential of green jobs would be a hugeย oversight.โ€

Chinaโ€™s Climate Change Asset: A Lack ofย Kochs

Scholars of Chinese energy policy say the country benefits from having no climate denying lobby or equivalent to the Kochย brothers.ย 

โ€œA critical difference is that there is no private oil and gas lobby in China,โ€ Liu said, adding that climate skeptics are a fringe group within the Communist Party and largelyย ignored.

Energy interests are state-owned in China, and while they are not puppets of the state, they have much less relative power on the stateโ€™s official policies. Right now, the official state policy is to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases as quickly asย possible.

โ€œWhen the central government says, โ€˜Set up the policy,โ€™ the companies must follow,โ€ Liu said. โ€œYes, they will try to exert their influence within the government but not to the extent as oil and gas companies do in the U.S. In the U.S., industry will try to block any carbon regulation that hurts their opportunities, so they fight vehemently to slow down any regulation.โ€ย ย 

Will U.S. Cede Climate Leadership toย China?ย 

Unlike President Obama, who urged the U.S. to show leadership in curbing climate change, the Trump administration has made clear that it plans to double down on dirty energy. While China has promised to expand its climate commitments, the new U.S. president has threatened to pull out of the Paris Agreement. That could allow Bejing to fill the leadership void left byย Washington.ย 

State-run newspapers are already boasting of Chinaโ€™s potential to exploit its leadership on globalย warming.ย 

In a speech at the most recent World Economic Forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a vigorous defense of multilateral cooperation, the kind of speech that U.S. presidents used to give, observersย noted.

โ€œCountries should view their own interest in the broader context and refrain from pursuing their own interests at the expense of others,โ€ Xiย declared.

China still has issues of huge inequality and provincial needs that are often at odds with the edicts of the central government. And for all its ambitious goals, the central government still doesnโ€™t have a plan to address how it will meet them without economic pain for some coal-dependent provinces in the shortย term.ย 

Liu points out that China is stuck with dirty industries, in addition to dirty means of powering them, and any tightening of regulations could come at the expense of much-needed jobs that may support an entireย region.ย 

Hsu told DeSmog that Chinese colleagues she spoke with at the Marrakech climate conference in November 2016 were optimistic about their countryโ€™s prospects in seizing not only economic opportunities in green tech, but the nationโ€™s ability to claim the moral high ground on climateย change.ย 

โ€œThey said worldwide pressure would be put on the U.S. because theyโ€™re the second largest emitter of carbon and theyโ€™re not doing anything,โ€ Hsu said. โ€œSo it deflects attention away from China and allows them to consider how to decarbonize to 2050 and put a long-term strategy in place. They donโ€™t necessarily seek this role on climate change but theyโ€™re willing to take it in the absence of U.S.ย leadership.โ€ย 

Itโ€™s been little more than a week under the new Trump administration, but all signs so far point to the U.S. government trumpeting discredited views on climate science and getting left behind in the burgeoning clean energyย sector.ย 

Main image: Wind farmย inย Xinjiang, Chinaย Credit:ย ๆž— ๆ…•ๅฐง / Chris Lim,ย CC BYSAย 2.0

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