China is now the good guy in climate change

China draws flak in the West for seemingly everything it does. However, it’s the end of the year and we shouldn’t be so down on China, at least not all the time. So let me draw attention to a major development in the country that’s making the world a better place: clean energy.

That is a major “China shock” if ever there was one, but no one is putting it that way. Critics like to cite the stats that China burns as much coal as the rest of the world combined. That is true, but the country burns it to produce energy mostly to make the things the rest of the world buys cheaply.

In any case, China is so committed to weaning itself off coal that in the process it is creating world-beating technologies and industries in clean energy. This epochal energy transition is pushing many other countries to move away from coal, gas and fossil fuels, especially those in the developing world.

That is according to a recent report by the British clean energy think tank Ember. The non-profit research group concludes that China’s transition is “fundamentally reshaping the economics of energy across the world” by making clean energy and its infrastructure affordable to developing economies, not only within China.

The country is moving towards a peak in energy-related fossil fuel use by accelerating investments in renewables, grids and storage, along with the electrification of transport, buildings and industry.

Consider some stats cited by Ember. China is the world’s biggest investor in clean energy, spending US$625 billion in 2024, or almost a third of the global total of US$2.03 trillion. The volume of installed battery storage tripled in the three years to 2024. Grid investment rose to an all-time high in 2024 of 608 billion yuan (US$86.3 billion), up 25 per cent from 486 billion yuan in 2019.

  

​Read More