China is winning in the battle for fresh power.
Over the past five years, it has spent ten days more on clean power than either the US or Europe. It dominates the rapidly growing renewables manufacturing market, producing 90 % of all solar panels, over 70 % of all lithium batteries and 65 % of all wind turbines.
That’s a pretty wise move. There is no evidence, according to our new research, that solar and wind cannot maintain their current impressive growth rates. Renewables may be a multi-trillion-dollar worldwide market in the near future.
The eye-watering investments of the US’s Inflation Reduction Act ( IRA ) and the European Green Deal, which will each cost US$ 1 trillion over the next ten years, could close the gap in terms of their clean energy deployment, but they are unlikely to reverse China’s dominance.
China now processes the majority of the materials used in clean energy sources and has a sophisticated manufacturing center that is more suited to increase production in response to the rising demand. China’s Tongwei thermal production plant, for instance, was single-handedly meet 10 % of the 2023 worldwide solar market demand.
And some of the newest Foreign factories are flexible. Another one or two of these factories may be constructed fairly quickly if demand increases, increasing costs and increasing scale.
To know what is driving this amazing growth in China at a city levels, we canvased expert opinions from officials, scientists, economy and natural parties in two leading Chinese places: Beijing and Hong Kong.
As one participant in our study summarized, in both cities the choice of renewables policies is influenced by factors including “alignment with the regional plan, economic costs, simplicity of application, and the accessibility of co-benefits”.
China’s commitment at the 75th UN General Assembly to reach net zero emissions or carbon neutrality by 2060, a position where any carbon pollution are equal to the amount of carbon being emitted from the environment.
This top-level mandate is accelerating cities toward their personal carbon neutrality goals, including Hong Kong’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
Solar appear to be popular in China across all levels of government. High-priority techniques at the city level were deemed to be utilizing the worldwide cost reductions of solar energy and accelerating the electrification of transportation.
In contrast, for Beijing and Hong Kong at least, alternatives like capturing carbon from fossil fuel usage and storing it underground were seen as decisions for state officials, and only necessary for the “last 8 % to 10 % of hard-to-abate emissions”.
Biofuels are among China’s net zero methods, along with significant investments in alternative clean systems like carbon capture on fossil fuel plants and atomic energy.
The US is building numerous multi-billion money facilities to generate hydrogen from renewable energy and carbon capture, and it has low gas, much of it. Additionally, both the US and Europe have a respectably longer history of nuclear power.
China is investing in these other systems, but no almost with the same vigour as solar.
In addition to our previous research, we discovered that renewable energy and electricity of transportation are becoming increasingly attractive investments for capital decision-makers in China because they are low cost, comparatively low risk, and have the potential to produce consistent emissions reductions at a rapid rate. These characteristics enable them to be potent agents of change.
Runaway decarbonization
Our socio-economic systems have sensitive intervention points ( Sips ) that can stop runaway decarbonization, just as the climate system has tipping points that can cause runaway climate change.
Sips enable a moderate policy intervention to generate transformational change and outsized results via “kicks” ( actions that trigger a positive feedback dynamic, such as learning-by-doing with renewables ) and” shifts” ( fundamentally altering the system to generate dramatic change, such as the UK Climate Change Act ).
Our prior research on Sips demonstrated that renewable energy and electrification of transportation are highly valued as “kick” Sips because they have high learning rates: the cost savings are lower and the demand is higher.
Why some technologies have such high learning rates while others do n’t, according to an illogical magic. These learning rates, once established, turn out to be persistent and quite predictable. We think that modularity, mass production, and mass appeal are all crucial elements in high learning rates.
All of these ingredients are present in solar, wind, and batteries, but particularly solar. You can put a single cell on your wristwatch, build a large solar farm, and everything in between. Their technological progress lies in manufacturing and mass production, after which it is virtually plug-and-play to deploy them.
And most people view solar and wind favorably more than alternatives like nuclear or carbon capture.
Lessons from two cities
What could countries like the UK, that do n’t have China’s manufacturing base, do to stay in this clean energy race? The research group on climate econometrics at the University of Oxford has demonstrated how five policy changes could help the UK return to its climate pledges.
These proposals include triggering both kicks and shifts to promote a sizable expansion of renewable energy, such as utilizing electric vehicles as a network of storage units and establishing more vertical and underground farms in inner cities.
There are currently less than 26 years until net zero by 2050. We think that the most effective green transition policies will make use of” Sips-thinking” to accelerate progress as urbanization quickly increases and more cities reveal their net zero plans.
Matthew Carl Ives is senior researcher in economics, University of Oxford and Natalie Sum Yue Chung is PhD candidate, Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, Princeton University
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