China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, in a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions for securing a global agreement on phasing out coal at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.
In a statement after a meeting of Beijing’s National Energy Commission, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, stressed the importance of regular energy supply, after swathes of the country were plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts that hit factories and homes.
Yes and no… one of the reasons why the west has moved production to China is because Chinese companies offered to produce cheaper, mainly due to much laxer environmental regulations and subsidized energy costs in China. So while the west certainly has part of the blame, so does China as they very intentionally exploited the environment for a competitive advantage over western production sites.
It’s pretty clear that westerners didn’t care about environmental impact since they were comfortable with western companies doing manufacturing in China. Ultimately, access to cheap commodities is the only thing that matters, and nobody cares about environmental cost behind that.
Today, China is pretty much the only major country with any serious plan for transitioning off fossils that is currently being enacted. As a result China leads in both solar and nuclear. Most of reforestation efforts in the world are also happening in China. So, it’s quite bizarre to focus there instead of looking back home.