Can we fix the climate without China??

China's President Xi Jinping recently announced that his country will be reach net zero carbon by 2060. China is installing more renewable energy than any other country in the world, but they also added the equivalent of one large coal power plant to their electricity grid every single week in 2020. So how can these apparently contradictory policies possibly square up?

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[catandtheostrich]

I look forward each week to your videos. Thank you!

[zetajolyne]

As a Chinese, I'm rationally skeptical about the goals set our centre, but optimistic and supportive from a macro perspective. Anyway, my lifestyle is low-carbon enough: EV bus and metro, solar heater, smart AC, private solar panel on the roof even can sells power to the company sometime.

[richardgoldsmith]

I’ve never had cause to doubt the seriousness with which China’s central Government takes decarbonisation and climate change mitigation. Understanding that they don’t have ultimate power over all the regional decision makers comes as a surprise but explains the contradictions between new coal plant commissioning in some parts when new coal plants have been abandoned before completion in other parts.
I think they stand a better chance of success than we do, frankly because the top leadership is so committed, whereas ours is only committed to APPEAR to be acting.

[sunspot]

I assume China’s old coal fired plants are horribly inefficient and polluting, and that newer ones will operate more cleanly in comparison. If excess capacity becomes a big issue, presumably they’ll just decommission their older plants.

[MrMineHeads.]

> 40 MtCO2 are captured through CCS
Wow that's a lot
> one tenth of one percent of annual CO2 emissions
😔

[polanve]

Great job as always! I was unaware of China's internal political dynamics. Amazing how little actual useful information makes it's way into the corporate media. Thank goodness for independent media!

[johnm]

China only has 3 or 4 decades worth of (their own) coal reserves left. If true, and knowing China values social stability above all, meaning minimizing import dependency, maybe the effort to go green makes sense on more than just the climate level.

[thomasgeorgecastleberry]

I'm a retired electrical engineer who has worked in both coal fired power plants and nuclear plants. Coal is absolutely filthy;- nuclear much cleaner, however my solution to the electrical power crisis is to develop Thorium Reactors no containment dome needed! A Thorium reactor can't go critical and there's a lot more Radioactive Thorium laying around then Uranium.

[daggerdan]

Excellent content as always - keep up the great work!

[Alex-igxr]

The reason why China continue to build more coal power plants is because national security concerns. Sea routes that ship oil and natural gas is controlled by American. Any conflict could disrupt the supply completely. So China needs coal power plants as backup in case there is no oil or natural gas supplies.

[crazyhank]

Thank you for the great research and reporting.

[theseeker]

Majority of the CCP members are engineers, they love numbers and predicted outcomes. They can also follow through on long term targets without the need to fight for terms. Very likely to achieve this goal.

[weetuber]

Dave... waiting whole week for next video is making me very restless. Anticipation of what is coming is very suspenseful for me... it is worth the wait. BEST CANNEL ON YOUTUBE...

[fehzorz]

I'd be interested in a round up of the renewable technologies that can be retrofitted around old coal plants

[Borishal]

Thanks for including the plight of the Uighur people. They need all the support they can get.

[abhishektandon]

Make a video on India's solar park in gujrat which will be larger than Singapore and will generate 30 GW of energy

[nikolatasev]

Thank you for pointing out the difficulties in crafting national policies. I often hear that this nation or that nation is doing something deliberately, as if it is a single person. People forget that a vast country always has different interest groups that try to pull it in their own direction.
I sincerely hope China will reduce their coal consumption. More centralized government means they can more easily do whatever they plan. On the other hand, this means the economy is not exposed to pure market forces, the ones that reduced US coal consumption by 60% in the last 13 years.

[EarthCreature.]

Refreshingly critical of China without any inappropriate gusto. All governments should be held to this standard

[weltwind]

An excellent video on a serious macro topic!

Governments everywhere tend to overpromise on their 10+ year goals, knowing that by then they won't be there to be held accountable. Subsequent governments will blame their predecessors, or simply change those goals. My Florida government is no different in talking renewables while speeding up natural gas installations. CCGT is of course better than coal but by far not enough to make the type of change required. If the UN were an apolitical global organization, it could create a world body of independent scientist to examine each country's plan and hold them accountable. It is not. Some serious research and science-based journalism are urgently necessary to critically evaluate every nation's plan and try to hold their current governments accountable.

Regarding China, adding coal capacity is not only wasteful but adds to emissions due to production of unnecessary metal and concrete and removal of vegetation for those unnecessary coal plants, mines and infrastructure. I am also quite skeptical about the cited 670 g/kWh energy-specific emissions figure (btw, I assume it is incorrectly labeled as "coal emissions", should be "CO2-equivalent emissions"), given that U.S.'s figure is 418 g CO2-equiv/kWh and that a 2017 UK research paper* projected China's 2020 emissions at 821-860 g/kWh. {*"China’s electricity emission intensity in 2020 – an analysis at provincial level", 9th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE2017, 21-24 August 2017, Cardiff, UK.}

[rajivpokharel]

Excellent video. Always looking forward to these type of topics. Keep up with it sir!