Challenging. If you look strictly at progress in green energy adoption as a societal good, then we should be cooperating and buying Chinese products to encourage them to make more. But while it’s a trope that I hate to agree with, China IS only concerned about China, and fuck the rest of the world. Everything is a zero-sum game to them, and they WILL take any opportunity to force a “win” at anyone else’s expense. Look at the fuckers in the South China Sea, or their position on Taiwan if you have any doubts.
The US is still outspending them, and most of the planet on military. That is about a trillion a year taken straight out of the economy that isn't being used to fund alternatives to fossil fuels. Why? Because the fossil fuel industries will never lose to anyone. They want a country invaded? It's invaded. They want to pay no taxes? No taxes. They destroy a pristine environment to get at oil? Suck it up tree-huggers.
(a) Absolutely the US needs to refocus spending away from the military and toward society as a whole. And I say this as a 24-year USAF vet, plus 5 years as a DoD civilian employee. However relative levels of military spending are only clearly critical if you are in a face-to-face fight. If anything happens in the Pacific it will be asymmetric, and China is developing the relevant capabilities.
(ii) I choose to believe that the statement should be “the fossil fuel industry HAS NEVER LOST to anyone.” Because this is a fight they aren’t going to win - there’s enough visibility now on the effects of their ratfucking that they can’t sweep it under the rug or greenwash it anymore. IF we survive as a free(-ish) country, and we don’t wind up as the Confederate States of Assmouth, we will transition to a non-carbon society. The oil companies have been and will fight it, but they are also starting to climb reluctantly onto the bandwagon.
Haven’t read the linked article yet, but I hope it’s right. In the past, China’s numbers for this kind of progress have been entirely fraudulent. They’ve installed acres of fake solar panels (cheaper), painted hillsides green to look lile farming… color me skeptical.
At the risk of sounding like an old Cold War hawk (I'm old, but none of the rest): A big reason China was able to orient its grid toward solar is that it is, not to put too fine a point on it, a dictatorship with a centrally managed economy. If the Party decides something must be done, that's how it will get done.
That approach works fine when the decisions are sound, as they are here. When they're not, well, hello, Great Leap Forward (a famine that took some 20 million lives in 1959-61).
As for EVs, I hope Detroit gets its shit together and starts actually making affordable ones during the respite we're giving it through that huge tariff. AFAICT, they're still just pumping out all the high-margin monster SUVs and pickups they can, because that's where the quarterly profit is, and as we all know, that's all that counts. (Hello, capitalism.)
Why yes, I am feeling especially cynical today. Why do you ask?
All of this is true, and is partly why I'm ambivalent about the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
If any US auto manufacturer was actually attempting to build small affordable EVs, I'd be in total support of the tariff, to give them a chance to get up and running. But as far as I've been able to tell, none of them have shown the least interest in small affordable EVs. Ford is cranking out Mustang EVs and Lightning EV trucks, but not a peep about any attempt to design anything that costs less than $45k. Same with the others. If none of the American companies is making any effort at all to develop an affordable EV, then the tariff is kind of pointless, and arguably even counterproductive.
The Chinese also have a much longer time horizon when they make these dictator driven decisions. The CCP is a de facto follow on to the 5,000 years of the Chinese Emperors and Dynasties. They see the last 150 years as a dip in their otherwise high status as a world power and economic leader. They are looking 50+ years down the road not 5 quarters.
China has a huge infrastructure problem of its own making. They built too much too fast and guess what? Domestic and commercial buildings, dams, etc. are crumbling and falling down because contractors were cutting costs to maximize profit. They call it "tofu-dregs".
And the right wingers in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Coal will pivot effortlessly from "We'll sink the US Economy for no reason because China is polluting the hell out of the world we share - so we should do nothing" to "We can't prop up the Chinese economy by pivoting to green on the back of their industrial production - so we should do nothing".
"And that’s where the happy climate news starts crashing into the fraught territory of international economic competition: China is producing far more solar panels and EVs than can be absorbed by its domestic market, and the US and Europe are trying to protect their own developing green industries through tariffs, like the 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs that Joe Biden imposed in May; the EU is set to vote later this month on a new 35 percent tariff on Chinese EVs, which would be on top of the existing 10 percent tariff on cars imported from outside the EU."
China is propelled by more than fears of climate risk. They lead the world in air-pollution deaths. And probably in early deaths caused by pollution to water and soil, etc.
They're also facing a demographic "bomb" in which what was the most populated nation on Earth will, in less than a century, be host to a rapidly declining populace that is mostly elderly people.
What the economic commanders in China have is fear -- fear of a future in which the choices of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, engineer a China that is polluted, old, sick and shrinking. So they are trying, desperately, to engineer something different. They also see that their hated rival, India, is set to emerge over the next half century as a larger, healthier, cleaner and more competitive —— and maybe (maybe), also freer and more just nation than China.
China is hoping renewable electrification is the key tactic to give their nation a future. Of course, through it all, they haven't even considered abandoning the very thing that has put them in this pickle and is the cause of their economic successes and of all their many social failures -- their violent authoritarian government.
Well we definitely need to expand this capacity here or we'll get outcompeted. And we have a whole lot of retrogrades who are all about effectively rolling coal.
"Just five years ago, it was commonplace to hear Western climate diplomats complain that even the most miraculous decarbonization in the wealthy world would be worth little if the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose country single-handedly produces nearly a third of all emissions, didn’t play ball."
Those were the fossil fuel industry propaganda mouthpieces doing what they were paid to do, and continue to this day. David didn't mention there is no fossil fuel industry in China to obstruct the growth of solar power and alternative energy overall. It's not surprising that China has dwarfed the progress made in the US in solar power. Now the new problem is , what if China get's tired of making solar panels? Hmmmm, it's a bit early to start worrying about that I think.
Challenging. If you look strictly at progress in green energy adoption as a societal good, then we should be cooperating and buying Chinese products to encourage them to make more. But while it’s a trope that I hate to agree with, China IS only concerned about China, and fuck the rest of the world. Everything is a zero-sum game to them, and they WILL take any opportunity to force a “win” at anyone else’s expense. Look at the fuckers in the South China Sea, or their position on Taiwan if you have any doubts.
The US is still outspending them, and most of the planet on military. That is about a trillion a year taken straight out of the economy that isn't being used to fund alternatives to fossil fuels. Why? Because the fossil fuel industries will never lose to anyone. They want a country invaded? It's invaded. They want to pay no taxes? No taxes. They destroy a pristine environment to get at oil? Suck it up tree-huggers.
(a) Absolutely the US needs to refocus spending away from the military and toward society as a whole. And I say this as a 24-year USAF vet, plus 5 years as a DoD civilian employee. However relative levels of military spending are only clearly critical if you are in a face-to-face fight. If anything happens in the Pacific it will be asymmetric, and China is developing the relevant capabilities.
(ii) I choose to believe that the statement should be “the fossil fuel industry HAS NEVER LOST to anyone.” Because this is a fight they aren’t going to win - there’s enough visibility now on the effects of their ratfucking that they can’t sweep it under the rug or greenwash it anymore. IF we survive as a free(-ish) country, and we don’t wind up as the Confederate States of Assmouth, we will transition to a non-carbon society. The oil companies have been and will fight it, but they are also starting to climb reluctantly onto the bandwagon.
So China's EV at 100% tarriff STILL cheaper than my used fossil fuel Kia. Sign me up.
China isn't infested by Big-Oil-owned Republicans$.
Score one for authoritarianism.
Now we just need to get the American oligarchy out of the way.
Fuck Trump, let's buy 'em lunch!
Haven’t read the linked article yet, but I hope it’s right. In the past, China’s numbers for this kind of progress have been entirely fraudulent. They’ve installed acres of fake solar panels (cheaper), painted hillsides green to look lile farming… color me skeptical.
Ta, Dok. I've spent decades and decades living lightly on Earth. Now it appears I have company.
Here's an article about some of the legislation that encourages US automakers to produce huge trucks https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution
I bet a Democratic president and congress could roll some of this shit back. Ford and GM would holler, let the piggies squeal.
At the risk of sounding like an old Cold War hawk (I'm old, but none of the rest): A big reason China was able to orient its grid toward solar is that it is, not to put too fine a point on it, a dictatorship with a centrally managed economy. If the Party decides something must be done, that's how it will get done.
That approach works fine when the decisions are sound, as they are here. When they're not, well, hello, Great Leap Forward (a famine that took some 20 million lives in 1959-61).
As for EVs, I hope Detroit gets its shit together and starts actually making affordable ones during the respite we're giving it through that huge tariff. AFAICT, they're still just pumping out all the high-margin monster SUVs and pickups they can, because that's where the quarterly profit is, and as we all know, that's all that counts. (Hello, capitalism.)
Why yes, I am feeling especially cynical today. Why do you ask?
All of this is true, and is partly why I'm ambivalent about the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
If any US auto manufacturer was actually attempting to build small affordable EVs, I'd be in total support of the tariff, to give them a chance to get up and running. But as far as I've been able to tell, none of them have shown the least interest in small affordable EVs. Ford is cranking out Mustang EVs and Lightning EV trucks, but not a peep about any attempt to design anything that costs less than $45k. Same with the others. If none of the American companies is making any effort at all to develop an affordable EV, then the tariff is kind of pointless, and arguably even counterproductive.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
The Chinese also have a much longer time horizon when they make these dictator driven decisions. The CCP is a de facto follow on to the 5,000 years of the Chinese Emperors and Dynasties. They see the last 150 years as a dip in their otherwise high status as a world power and economic leader. They are looking 50+ years down the road not 5 quarters.
With the right leadership here we can do it.
China has a huge infrastructure problem of its own making. They built too much too fast and guess what? Domestic and commercial buildings, dams, etc. are crumbling and falling down because contractors were cutting costs to maximize profit. They call it "tofu-dregs".
And the right wingers in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Coal will pivot effortlessly from "We'll sink the US Economy for no reason because China is polluting the hell out of the world we share - so we should do nothing" to "We can't prop up the Chinese economy by pivoting to green on the back of their industrial production - so we should do nothing".
"And that’s where the happy climate news starts crashing into the fraught territory of international economic competition: China is producing far more solar panels and EVs than can be absorbed by its domestic market, and the US and Europe are trying to protect their own developing green industries through tariffs, like the 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs that Joe Biden imposed in May; the EU is set to vote later this month on a new 35 percent tariff on Chinese EVs, which would be on top of the existing 10 percent tariff on cars imported from outside the EU."
Hey look! That's how tariffs work.
China is propelled by more than fears of climate risk. They lead the world in air-pollution deaths. And probably in early deaths caused by pollution to water and soil, etc.
They're also facing a demographic "bomb" in which what was the most populated nation on Earth will, in less than a century, be host to a rapidly declining populace that is mostly elderly people.
What the economic commanders in China have is fear -- fear of a future in which the choices of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, engineer a China that is polluted, old, sick and shrinking. So they are trying, desperately, to engineer something different. They also see that their hated rival, India, is set to emerge over the next half century as a larger, healthier, cleaner and more competitive —— and maybe (maybe), also freer and more just nation than China.
China is hoping renewable electrification is the key tactic to give their nation a future. Of course, through it all, they haven't even considered abandoning the very thing that has put them in this pickle and is the cause of their economic successes and of all their many social failures -- their violent authoritarian government.
Soylent green is the answer.
Well we definitely need to expand this capacity here or we'll get outcompeted. And we have a whole lot of retrogrades who are all about effectively rolling coal.
"Just five years ago, it was commonplace to hear Western climate diplomats complain that even the most miraculous decarbonization in the wealthy world would be worth little if the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose country single-handedly produces nearly a third of all emissions, didn’t play ball."
Those were the fossil fuel industry propaganda mouthpieces doing what they were paid to do, and continue to this day. David didn't mention there is no fossil fuel industry in China to obstruct the growth of solar power and alternative energy overall. It's not surprising that China has dwarfed the progress made in the US in solar power. Now the new problem is , what if China get's tired of making solar panels? Hmmmm, it's a bit early to start worrying about that I think.
Can't you just mothball your car factories for a while?