The Truth About China's Renewable Revolution

Sources:

[theonlynoob]

Its not just Carbon, when I was in China, their cities are so much less noisy, it felt wierd. Electric cars are so quiet it made me realise that most of the noise in the city are cars.

[Solstice]

The truth is china, bearing in mind it's population is actually doing better in greenhouse gases than any of us, and it's truly a proof of where western dirigent's interests lie when the answer to this isn't "we need to step up and so better" but "uhm they still use coal we are only second so until China no longer has emissions we won't do anything" it's depressing

[eimaipapasou]

That's very well said. As a Chinese who studied in Europe, some people in the West and the media always like to emphasize that China is the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. This is right, but what they don't see in the news is that the per capita emissions in Europe and the United States are several times or even dozens of times that of China. This means, to put it bluntly, the disappearance of one European and American can offset dozens of Chinese. Of course, I don’t mean to mean anything bad, but sometimes in life, just save a little bit of energy if you can. Northern countries such as Norway, Sweden, and Russia have reason to have higher emissions, but what reason do the United States， France， etc have? In many cases, it is just a matter of habits. Global warming concerns everyone, and everyone should change and work hard for it. Come on, everyone, with cooperation and honesty, we can do it.

[nucklepuckk]

I always get annoyed at the "China is the largest polluter" bit. Like, yeah, the entire west shipped their manufacturing there between the 1970s and now, why wouldn't they have more pollution? It was more profitable to export all that manufacturing and pollution to China. Maybe profit, and the class and systems that seeks it are real the problem.

[solkels_z]

As a Chinese living in the north west part (Qinghai provinve) of the country. Mountains near the provincial city had more sand than grass, but in recent years, they became much greener with more grass, and trees like pines that people have been planting.

[ZachariahJ]

The pollution thing is relative - I was born and grew up in an area of the UK so polluted (from the time of the Industrial Revolution) it is called the Black Country. When I was young, during the 1960s, there were sheet metal factories next door to the Infant and Junior schools I attended. God only knows the type of heavy metals we were breathing in.

So, when I went to Beijing, and travelled around China a few times in the early 2010s, I honestly never noticed the pollution I'd read about. In fact I can say for sure that Beijing was a lot leafier than the environment I grew up in! Tree-lined avenues were everywhere, and most people seemed to ride electric scooters which are quiet and non-polluting (traffic in China is awful, but those scooters make a difference).

Some of the disturbing pictures we used to see in the 90s, with huge orange clouds hanging over Beijing, were a meteorological issue - sand gets blown in from the Gobi Desert when conditions are right.

Like any industrialised nation, China has huge environmental problems it must solve. Just wanted to put things in perspective. Where I come from, we've had heavy pollution since the 1700s!

[greenlach]

Hope my nation of Australia keeps working with China on climate change and not follow USA on sanctions against them

[SSG_RenAstray]

I can confirm China's rapid transition to clean energy and the clearing up of air quality. I went there as a tourist in 2017 and just recently, and I've noticed a huge difference in air quality. Back then, I couldn't see the stars in the sky at night, but now you can. Also, a fun fact about EVs in China I learnt while holidaying there - EVs are so common that they standardised the placement, installment, and model of batteries. Registered users are entitled to get 4 free battery replacements per month at automated battery replacement stations, which is essentially an instant full charge.
And yes, the west is green with envy because China routinely continues to outperform them in places they made to look hard to achieve

[desmondbrown]

That makes me genuinely angry. China, even with all of it's regulations (which I don't think are a bad thing at all, btw) somehow manages to produce SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper cars for it's citizens... yet the US blocks that shit with tariffs so we have to pay our BS inflated prices for worse features. It's even so bad that some car manufacturers are basically implement microtransactions into their vehicles for basic features. That says just about everything you need to know about how inefficient and ineffective the US is right now.

[severdislike]

For those shouting "But china's building most of the worlds coal plants" - No shit, a population of ~1.43 billion people is staggering and requires a power supply that can be rapidly built and then transitioned away from. Coal plants unfortunately fit that requirement at this point in time, going from nothing to operational in ~2-3 years which is stupidly fast in terms of power plants.

Are there experimental plants that can be built faster? Yes. Are they experimental for a reason? Also yes.

[Boysif_]

Currently living in China and am from the US, it’s interesting how renewable energy is just a part of daily culture. This at least of true for Hangzhou, public transportation isn’t just cleaner than the US’s but is so cheap. I take the metro basically everyday for 1.5~5 RMB a day which is less than a dollar USD. For a city larger than New York and arguably more dense I’ve never seen fewer cars on the streets. Speaking of streets, the roads are really nice here, intersections are very nice and bike lanes aren’t just paint on the road. Most of the time there is a physical barrier protecting the cyclists. China has invested a lot in rentable bikes and electric scooters, it honestly had made needing a car so unnecessary.

[ZxZ]

West: I believe in capitalism, free market and competition!!!!
















But ONLY IF I Win, otherwise 100% tax for you.

[tempacc]

A big part that is never mentioned is that China does not have oil. Meaning solar and renewables are crucial in staying independent from other countries. Whereas Western countries own the OPEC and cling to their oil profits.

[Limmakesyoufly]

"United States Lite, fewer calories ....same support for Genocide"😭😭

[JohnnyTheWolf-dp]

They do not tell you that on Kurzgesagt...

[yesitsreallyOtter]

The comments already have people talking about the nonexistent 'social credit score' and this video has only been up a couple of hours. It's amazing how effective just making stuff up is, apparently.

[BigBadWolframio]

China has been for so many years doing amazingly in tackling climate change, not only in the green energy department, but also in reforestation, fighting desertification, revitalizing the countryside... Not all is perfect and it faces many challenges, of course, but it really highlights that planned economy can lead to gigantic transformations that bring about hope for the future.
However, it's key to point out that green energy is not a magic solution to the climate crisis: if not handled correctly, it comes with its own set of environmental problems: solar farms create biodiversity deserts, wind turbines decapitate birds and have some other potential problems, and let's not even talk about lithium mining for batteries. That's not to say that they're bad and that we should just give them up, but it just makes even more necessary for Government non-profit research and planning to counter climate change. There needs to be a change in the global economic model, we simply cannot keep producing and producing, creating and creating.
In my own country, since the capitalist logic is everpresent, many solar farms are being built in what used to be food farms since landowners see it as a fast cashgrab that produces more money for them faster that growing (allegedly monoculture) vegetables. Since they're buddies with managers in the companies that assess if they're following the normative regarding the measures they should take in the solar farms to avoid soil degradation, lack of biodiversity, etc., we now have an increasing amount of uncontroled, unchecked seas of metal that make everything around them extremely hot and unlivable for plants and animals and put workers at risk because of poor conditions and management of those terrains.
Since energy companies are not state owned, the general population keeps paying higher and higher prices for electricity and green energy even comes with premium costs despite being cheaper to produce. Individuals who own houses and can afford solar panels on their roofs can benefit from them, but it's an individual solution for a global problem.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Climate change has so many angles and a wide arrange of ever-evolving measures and permanent changes need to be put in motion NOW. I hope that China can keep on leading by example, finding even better solutions and that many nations follow the lead, but I don't see that happening in the capitalist regimes.

[awesomebearaudiobooks]

I can already imagine some people clicking on the video, hoping to relish in China's, "failures", only to see it actually disproves their claims, but instead of just realizing the reality could be different from what the propaganda says, they would just go into defense mode and comment:
"Oh but have you heard about Cubic Vuvuzela? It's so bad!!!".

[waxoman]

I live in puerto rico and the solution since hurricane maria in 2017 is a bunch of private solar companies, it wouldn't surprise me if these companies disappear in like 2 years from now since they rely on predatory practices.

[geoffreymartin]

I can't not hear Trump goin CHYNA every time I hear about it now, the internet has ruined me