China added as much new clean energy generation in the first half of this year as the UK produced from all sources in the same period last year, data shows, as wind and solar power generation continued to surge in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Electricity generation from coal and gas dropped by 5% in China in July, year on year, according to an update from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) thinktank, basing its analysis on data released by the Chinese government on Thursday.
The latest figures reinforce a clear trend – China is racing ahead in renewable energy, adding record-breaking amounts of solar and wind generation, eclipsing the rest of the world. It is a transformation that analysts are saying could be the world’s best hope yet of staving off climate catastrophe.
“China is leading against all of its competitors, when it comes to green technology,” said Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute in Washington DC. “China has a real advantage, and has established a huge green industry.”
Last year, China installed a record 293GW of wind and solar generating capacity. Last month, solar and wind capacity outstripped China’s coal-fired electricity capacity. By 2026, solar power alone will surpass coal as China’s primary energy source, with a capacity of more than 1.38TW, or 150GW more than coal, according to forecasts by Rystad Energy.
Electric vehicles production is surging ahead, with hybrids and fully electric cars making up more than half of all new models sold in July, and the steel industry is also changing, with no permits for coal-fired plants issued in the first half of this year.
This continuing boom in clean technology has led some analysts to suggest China’s greenhouse gas emissions may have already reached a peak, perhaps as early as February this year. This would be momentous.
For China, the world’s second biggest economy behind the US, to reverse its decades of almost unbroken rapid growth – nearly tripling from about 3.6bn tonnes of carbon emitted in 2000 to 11.4bn in 2022 – would have seismic implications for the global climate emergency.
Source: The Guardian
