> China is increasing greenhouse emissions until around 2030 and won’t be net zero until 2060. No, China has not promised to be "net zero" in the sense of prod

> China is increasing greenhouse emissions until around 2030 and won’t be net zero until 2060. No, China has not promised to be "net zero" in the sense of producing no new net carbon emissions, rather China has promised they will generate at most 20% of their power needs from fossils by 2060. They also promised to stop increasing the percentage of power from fossil fuels by 2030. This is covered in the recent guardian piece: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-fossil-fuel-use-to-below-20-by-2060#:~:text=China%20is%20targeting%20a%20clean,plan%20published%20by%20state%20media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-f.... But given that their economy is growing at 6-8% per annum, that's 20% of an economy much, much bigger than today's. In other words, by 2060, even if they meet the 20% goal, that's much more energy from fossil fuels than China is using today as their energy usage will be 10-20 times higher in 2060. This is what they are labelling as "carbon neutral" just as Germany lobbies for natural gas to be labelled as "clean energy". That should tell you how politicized all of this is. OTOH, China has failed to meet their annual intermediate goals, which led the government to discourage coal mining this year, which in turn led to significant power outages across the nation, in response to which China stood down and encouraged more coal production again. So I'm not sure whether China will be able to meet that 20% goal. OTOOH, they are working hard at nuclear and who knows, they may succeed in transitioning to a nuclear grid, I wouldn't bet against them doing it. They are certainly taking a leadership role in next gen nuclear power, and being a party dictatorship helps with not dealing with the pesky green crowd. What China has discovered -- which is what unfortunately many in the West still need to discover -- is that it is not "pledges" that reduce emissions, but the actual deployment of cost effective and reliable alternate power sources. If you just make the pledge and leave it to individual power utilities or consumers, then you create a situation in which there are high energy prices and blackouts, and then you get kicked out of office and replaced with those who have no interest in pursuing the pledge. What you need to do is go on a mass building nuclear spree, like China. After all, a pledge is just a "pledge" by whichever political party is in charge. It's not even a treaty. It can be ignored or abandoned if the domestic population sees energy prices rising or reliability dropping.