While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed rollout of solar and wind power, China is going all in on renewables.
New figures show the pace of its clean energy transition is roughly the equivalent of installing five large-scale nuclear power plants worth of renewables every week.
A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early.
It’s installing at least 10 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity every fortnight.
By comparison, experts have said the Coalition’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants would add fewer than 10GW of generation capacity to the grid sometime after 2035.
Energy experts are looking to China, the world’s largest emitter, once seen as a climate villain, for lessons on how to go green, fast.
“We’ve seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy],” CEF director Tim Buckley said.
“China’s response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast.”
To add a touch of perspective, China has spent 70% more than the EU and the US combined on their renewable infrastructure.
It’s odd how politicians only seem to point out China’s current position of largest annual carbon emitter, and use that as an excuse not to lift a finger in the way of reducing domestic emissions. It goes entirely ignored that those numbers are a result of China being the world’s factory.
Despite this, they still have close to half the carbon emissions per capita compared to the runner up in annual carbon emissions - the United States of America - despite all that manufacturing.