One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
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One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
If China is to doing nothing, then we should do nothing, or very little, because Chinese leadership is very smart and strategic
If China is doing a lot, then we should do nothing, or very little, because renewables are Communist foolishness
Is that about the size of it?
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@kathhayhoe Curious: What are you hearing about China starting up more coal plants at the same time? I'm wondering if what I've read is correct, and if so how their clean energy initiatives compare to that.
It seems like there's less coal than clean energy, but still.
@StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe they are building coal-fired plants, yes, but they are building so much more PV that their emissions actually aren't rising. At the same time they're reducing pollution by tearing down older and dirtier coal-fired plants.
China is treating domestically "produced" energy as a strategic lever. They want to become independent of exports to be less extortable. Less pollution is a nice side effect to them.
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@StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe they are building coal-fired plants, yes, but they are building so much more PV that their emissions actually aren't rising. At the same time they're reducing pollution by tearing down older and dirtier coal-fired plants.
China is treating domestically "produced" energy as a strategic lever. They want to become independent of exports to be less extortable. Less pollution is a nice side effect to them.
@Laird_Dave Aha. The article I read didn't mention the new plants vs the old ones. This makes a lot more sense, thank you.
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@Laird_Dave Aha. The article I read didn't mention the new plants vs the old ones. This makes a lot more sense, thank you.
@StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-coal-backup-power
Moving coal into the backup-when-neither-wind-nor-sun-work role helps as well, but with recent breakthroughs in battery storage I guess this will become less relevant and may see plants closing.
Again, China sees renewables as a path to energy independence, an important strategic goal. If you own your energy sources you can tell all kinds of people to fuck off.
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One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
A key factor here is that the Chinese public is fed up with pollution. It hurts the legitimacy of the government.
The country may not be a democracy, but public opinion still matters. In mega-cities like Beijing the issue has become something the regime simply cannot ignore.
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One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
@kathhayhoe
We are the baddies. (let’s change that) -
@StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-coal-backup-power
Moving coal into the backup-when-neither-wind-nor-sun-work role helps as well, but with recent breakthroughs in battery storage I guess this will become less relevant and may see plants closing.
Again, China sees renewables as a path to energy independence, an important strategic goal. If you own your energy sources you can tell all kinds of people to fuck off.
@Laird_Dave @StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe I see 3 things at the same time:
-increased total energy consumption, unlike the western world
-electrification of tranportation
-construction of low-carbon electricity generationThe first aspect won't keep going forever. The second aspect is key, it takes decades to change, so it's a leading indicator. Once you build electricity demand, the third aspect then takes over.
Personal opinion, not an expert.
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One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
It's a lie that China's emissions have peaked. Their annual emissions are a vertical line. How are people suppose to take this argument seriously? Their coal production has outpaced even that of the US.
It's pure wishcasting by people who want there to be a "good guy" who will save us.
CO₂ emissions
How much CO₂ does the world emit? Which countries emit the most?
Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org)
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One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
China is also adding nuclear energy at a fantastic rate. In addition to having the third-most operating power plants by country (59), they have about 30 additional plants in construction and should overtake France (in second place) this year.
Every watt of that is carbon-free.
Funny the folks concerned about climate action seem to always forget to mention nuclear energy.
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@StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe they are building coal-fired plants, yes, but they are building so much more PV that their emissions actually aren't rising. At the same time they're reducing pollution by tearing down older and dirtier coal-fired plants.
China is treating domestically "produced" energy as a strategic lever. They want to become independent of exports to be less extortable. Less pollution is a nice side effect to them.
@Laird_Dave @StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe
I think that less pollution is more than just a nice side effect. China is grappling with terrible smog problems, which is driving up health care expenses.
https://www.iqair.com/ca/newsroom/november-5-2025-beijing-among-top-10-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world -
@Laird_Dave @StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe
I think that less pollution is more than just a nice side effect. China is grappling with terrible smog problems, which is driving up health care expenses.
https://www.iqair.com/ca/newsroom/november-5-2025-beijing-among-top-10-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world@Laird_Dave @StaceyCornelius @kathhayhoe
Interesting... The live ranking puts Beijing below Houston, Washington DC, and Toronto! Maybe all that solar is paying off already!
https://www.iqair.com/ca/world-air-quality-ranking -
It's a lie that China's emissions have peaked. Their annual emissions are a vertical line. How are people suppose to take this argument seriously? Their coal production has outpaced even that of the US.
It's pure wishcasting by people who want there to be a "good guy" who will save us.
CO₂ emissions
How much CO₂ does the world emit? Which countries emit the most?
Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org)
@contrasocial @kathhayhoe
Zooming in on the data you are linking to, you can see that China has slowed down their emission increase
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It's a lie that China's emissions have peaked. Their annual emissions are a vertical line. How are people suppose to take this argument seriously? Their coal production has outpaced even that of the US.
It's pure wishcasting by people who want there to be a "good guy" who will save us.
CO₂ emissions
How much CO₂ does the world emit? Which countries emit the most?
Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org)
@contrasocial @kathhayhoe the article talks about 2024/2025 numbers. This graph ends at 2024. Also if you zoom into the last 10 years in the graph you can see that the growth is leveling off in 2024. So the data you're presenting is agreeing with the article so far as they overlap.
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@thegarbagebird @TorbenI @contrasocial @kathhayhoe
"Their annual emissions are a vertical line" (1950 to 2024) -
One of the most common objections I hear to climate action is: “But what about China?”
The person making this argument usually goes on to claim that China is doing nothing, while everyone else is making sacrifices. But that’s not what the data show.
Here’s the reality:
* As the U.S. doubles down on fossil fuels and blocks new wind and solar projects, its emissions are ticking up.
* In contrast, China’s emissions appear to have peaked — and may now be starting to decline.
* Last year, China installed a full half of all the world's new wind and solar energy.
* Over the past two years, China installed more new solar power each year than the U.S. has installed in total across its entire history.
* China's clean exports alone are cutting CO2 outside its borders by 1% year on year.
Of course no country can fix climate change on its own. But just as it's a global problem, progress in one place helps everyone.
Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months - Carbon Brief
China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.
Carbon Brief (www.carbonbrief.org)
@kathhayhoe China also changed a desert into a CO2 recipient - by planting plants.....
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@thegarbagebird @TorbenI @kathhayhoe
Because it's not a normal country and the regime has a long history of lying and manipulating information to save face. They have fleets of heavily armed, illegal fishing vessels stripping the oceans right off the coasts of countries as far as South America.
A better question to ask is how people have been massaged over the past 20 years into accepting that China is normal and pretending that they are a friend to the environment or human rights.
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@contrasocial @kathhayhoe the article talks about 2024/2025 numbers. This graph ends at 2024. Also if you zoom into the last 10 years in the graph you can see that the growth is leveling off in 2024. So the data you're presenting is agreeing with the article so far as they overlap.
So I'm to weight a single year over the clear trend of unabated rise in emissions?
Every other nation shows the same pattern of rise and decline over the last decades except China. The scale to which China has spiked their emissions means that even if they have started declining the damage is still catastrophic and will take decades to stop. There's a reason China left the Paris accords, they decided they were entitled to an extra 40 years of emissions in their own goals
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It's a lie that China's emissions have peaked. Their annual emissions are a vertical line. How are people suppose to take this argument seriously? Their coal production has outpaced even that of the US.
It's pure wishcasting by people who want there to be a "good guy" who will save us.
CO₂ emissions
How much CO₂ does the world emit? Which countries emit the most?
Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org)
@contrasocial @kathhayhoe you are not wrong, but I reckon this take is over simplistic.
even in the Our World in Data you can see the per capta emissions and, and here is the important bit, the historical progression.
take Europe (and the regions of Africa and others places it used to control) and the US and analise it with this question in mind: is it fair the rich countries, that got rich by exploring everything and everyone, now demands countries that are getting richer and making life for its people better to curb that because said rich countries now developed a conscience?
I'm not saying we should follow the destruction method or not care for environment, I'm just pointing out the complexity.
western rich countries need to be held MORE accountable.
and yet, places like China and Brazil, places that were harmed by colonialism and power play for such a long time and are, now, getting richer and prosperous (I'm not talking about just numbers, I'm talking taking people from the hunger map and etc), are developing it's industries and technology I a way more green way then the western world did. China is emitting a lot os CO2 but is aware and has a huge decrease plan for it - but to develop green tech, you need traditional industrial ways first... -
@contrasocial @kathhayhoe you are not wrong, but I reckon this take is over simplistic.
even in the Our World in Data you can see the per capta emissions and, and here is the important bit, the historical progression.
take Europe (and the regions of Africa and others places it used to control) and the US and analise it with this question in mind: is it fair the rich countries, that got rich by exploring everything and everyone, now demands countries that are getting richer and making life for its people better to curb that because said rich countries now developed a conscience?
I'm not saying we should follow the destruction method or not care for environment, I'm just pointing out the complexity.
western rich countries need to be held MORE accountable.
and yet, places like China and Brazil, places that were harmed by colonialism and power play for such a long time and are, now, getting richer and prosperous (I'm not talking about just numbers, I'm talking taking people from the hunger map and etc), are developing it's industries and technology I a way more green way then the western world did. China is emitting a lot os CO2 but is aware and has a huge decrease plan for it - but to develop green tech, you need traditional industrial ways first...I don't believe the atmosphere distinguishes between per capita and national, so I've never really bought that justification.
I also don't believe in the idea that any nation is entitled to an empire. Yes, China was once a great imperial power who colonized their region and then fell, and was subsequently abused by another imperial power. But to say they are therefore entitled to a new empire is the same logic the zionists use for what they are doing in occupied Palestine.
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China is also adding nuclear energy at a fantastic rate. In addition to having the third-most operating power plants by country (59), they have about 30 additional plants in construction and should overtake France (in second place) this year.
Every watt of that is carbon-free.
Funny the folks concerned about climate action seem to always forget to mention nuclear energy.
@cazabon @kathhayhoe mostly because you can get a gigawatt of solar+batteries online in a few years but it takes like 15-30 to get a nuclear plant online. It also happens to be a lot more expensive.
We absolutely should not have killed nuclear power in favor of coal in the 70s. But we don’t have time now to focus on it as a solution.
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