China is on track to reduce their electricity production from fossil fuel sources by next year. They never bought into the natural gas hype for energy security reasons, and that’s a good thing. Whereas other countries have used the claims of clean natural gas to increase electricity produced from fossil fuel sources at astonishing rates, China does not have the luxury of domestic natural gas sources and so has opted to move towards plateauing fossil fuel use as a whole.
As is fairly well known, fugitive methane emissions from natural gas are a huge and largely underreported source of GHGs. Moreover, methane is somewhere on the order of 80x worse than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period (methane decays more quickly than carbon dioxide, though, so over a 100-year period it’s only about 30x worse). Based on all-in estimates, natural gas might only become emissions-equivalent to coal after 100 years.
The Chinese are also pretty cognizant of their emissions. Might be weird to hear, but I’ve been working on a painful research project for the last few months and see a lot of very frank discussion of it in the research. Example, which starts with a pretty matter-of-fact statement about the “unsatisfactory” state of recycling and carbon emissions in the Chinese construction industry.
Clearly, this kind of frank writing doesn’t get you in trouble with the authorities. They know they have a problem that will need to be addressed. They aren’t bullshitting about it. Their officials aren’t pretending the problem of climate change is made up woke propaganda they can ignore. And they have a command economy, so they can simply order businesses, labs, and universities to focus efforts on developing solutions.
Lot of bad things to say about China. It’s an authoritarian state led by a dictator. They definitely put the economy ahead of addressing climate issues. But the also see the harsh reality – failing to address climate will destroy their economy. Failing to address climate will result in anyone else who does out-competing them on the global stage. And soon.
They’re cognizant and have been caught multiple times outright fabricating stats.
E.G. the hole in the ozone layer is growing because they’re still using CFCs.
It’s an authoritarian state led by a dictator.
I dont know how you could say that out of any place but ignorance? If they are a dictatorship, they are putting on a massive act of civic democratic engagement, and if they were, there would be leaks because you can not keep something like that secret when the scale is a country of 1.4 billion people.
They have a different style of democracy which prioritizes a different set of rights over western bourgeois democracy.
I would encourage you to try to talk to Chinese people about their government without putting assumptions into your questions or asking leading questions. Actual Chinese people, who live in China. Thanks to the internet this is very easily done.
I would also encourage you to research how Chinese theorists have looked at making stronger democratic mechanisms, and to generally learn the differences between proletarian and bourgeois democracy.
95 percent of Chinese people are satisfied with their government https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
I tried asking some Uighurs but they never answered.
Literally a bunch of muslim delegations from governments that don’t like each other all went to investigate and found all was well.
I am guessing you did not actually trying asking them, I am guessing you read some atrocity propaganda from a corporate newspaper whos owner is terrified of the implications of socialist China.
And the United Nations (of Earth) investigated and found all was not well.
I know who I trust more.
Did you actually read the report? They literally cite CIA front groups like VoCMF.
Also, just look at it from a historical basis. Has any anti-terrorism program that revolved around repression ever worked, and not just created more terrorism? Does China have a reality altering device that lets them do repression without creating more terrorism, or have you been lied to, given that terrorism has precipitously declined as China has invested in their counterterrorism program primarily based around improving the material conditions in the region?
I have, and they use many multiple sources (including their own) to reach their conclusion, of which the ‘Xinjiang Police Files’ are but one part and backed up by other documentation.
I assume your talking point regurgitation is done without you having the foggiest clue about the actual contents of the report.
Also just take a look at historical basis, genocide has happened many times throughout history. Do you assume genocide has never “worked” and only creates more resistance?
Right, the governments with financial incentive to agree with china agreed with china
I bet you think america is telling the truth about checking israels self reported war crime statistics too, huh?
Those countries also have economic and otherwise incentive to agree with the world hegemon, the US.
The anglophone corporate media that is pushing out the atrocity propaganda (well, was, China reopening put a real damper on their stories) also has financial incentive to produce propaganda about the main rival of the US.
Or an economic incentive to agree with china, the major world power challenging the US on its position on the world stage. In fact, even more incentive to side with china over the US, as those specific nations all have multiple direct monetary conflicts with US enterprise and military pursuits. Pursuits they would gladly like to take over, and have reason to do business with whomever sides with them over the US on said enterprises.
Youre being played, and letting people die because of it. Just like whats happening in gaza.
Grade A tankie shit is taking advice on how to respect religious freedom and human rights from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
These countries probably care more about the religious freedom of Muslims then the US though, which loves killing Muslims and has killed millions of muslim civilians in recent history in their own “war on terror”
Also literally 30 countries sent delegations
Strongly doubt that.
I’m sure they care more about the religious freedoms of their own sects freedom, but I’d say that concerns ends at their border.
Because taking advice from the country of “don’t say gay”, “oops I invaded Iraq”, “hundreds of thousands murdered in the Middle East”, “oops I couped another democratically-elected government”, “rape on foreign military bases”…
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Impossible to take you seriously calling solar panels greenwashing
They are also the only nation having the balls to put money into r&d for TMS reactors, hopefully making nuclear even safer in the future.
It’s been great for people like me that go off grid at times for travel and their efforts in the solar areas has seen dramatic drops in the cost of solar panels for many. They are possibly at their lowest prices ever now due to their investment in these areas.
This is not say they are perfect and everything is great but it is kind of disturbing with all of their issues (and some would say there are many) they get that living in the 1600’s with coal mining isn’t perhaps the best practices for everyone on a massive scale.
Many of our western local governments fight against alternative sources and even stop projects as they have guzzled the oil, gas, and coal are the only ways to go Kool-Aid. It’s great for jobs and business they say.
There is no “possibly” about it. Right now, solar is the cheapest form of electrical generation ever, in human history, and it is still getting cheaper. It has literally seen price drops of more than 2 orders of magnitude in my lifetime. It is, without a doubt, going to be the primary means of energy generation for the future of our species, assuming our species is to have a future.
It’s hardly something the Chinese can claim as their achievement, though. There’s a large economy for solar panels – and frankly, the Chinese production ramped up in response significantly to Californian demand under their (now besieged) rooftop solar policies. A lot of players are involved from research to production to demand and any one country that claims it’s all thanks to them is sweet-talking you.Solar getting cheaper does worry me from an enviromentalist position.
Too many people, governments, and corporations are sticking panels over top of ecosystems that rely on that sunlight, rather than bother with the hassle of installing them on top of existing human infrastructure.
Cheaper panels is gonna lead to more techie investors turning deserts into wastelands, and we dont have any real safeguards against that yet.
ooh! now do India!
Natural gas as staying on topic. Good to see.
The regime is approving two new coal plants a week. It does not mean what many in the West think it means.
Does anyone else think this is annoying?
Their economy is in trouble, so this is not unexpected. Concrete production for their absurd ghost towns finally goes down.
