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Agree, China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it. Personally this is making me trust them more than the USA because, facts.

Agree, China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it. Personally this is making me trust them more than the USA because, facts. I mean lesser of two evils thinking, if one is intentionally leading us towards climate disaster, while the other isn't then yeah. What else can be said? Should I trust the authoritarian country who believes in engineering and science, or the one that doesn't?

petcat 3mo ago
USA and Europe are basically equal in terms of yearly production of renewable energy. Texas + California alone rank 6th in the world.
sarchertech 3mo ago
China emits 3x more co2 than the US and last year their rate of increase was 2.5x that of the US. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
- ralferoo 3mo ago
  "big number bad" isn't a great way of analysing the data, because China has a massively larger population. The US emits 49% more CO2 per capita than China. And even with the much larger rate of increase, 0.79% to US' 0.3%, it'll still require 81 years to catch up to the US per capita rate [0]. The US aren't the good guys here, not by any means. Compared to my country, for instance, the US' emissions are 3x per capita that of the UK. If you want to argue that we shouldn't be using per capita (although we absolutely should), then that's 45x the UK's CO2 emissions. [0] log(13.59/9.13) / log(1.0049) = 81.4 years
  - sarchertech 3mo ago
    In absolute numbers China produces 1/3 of the total worlds CO2, and they are still growing the amount of CO2 they are producing. That is not the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”. China’s CO2 per capita is ahead of every large developed country except for the US, Australia, and Russia.
    - ralferoo 3mo ago
      You seem to think China is the evil polluter here. Just sort by per capita, and you'll see it's not even in the top 10% most polluting per capita. There are plenty of large (depending on your definition of large) countries above it. Not just US, Australia and Russia that you are excluding for some reason, but also Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada all have significantly developed economically important countries. And they all have GDP per capita much greater than China's. What's your rationale for excluding them? There's a whole host of smaller countries with higher GDP per capita than China between those I listed above and China on the CO2 per capita results. We should agree that ALL countries should be working to reduce CO2 emissions. But it sounds like you have a strong US bias and given Trump not only denies that climate change is even a thing, has withdrawn from international agreements on reducing emissions and even tries to pressure other countries to burn oil instead of investing in windfarms, it seems a bit disingenuous to try to make out that China is the only country that needs to improve. Before commenting on the speck in someone else's eye, first remove the plank from your own, yadda yadda...
      - sarchertech 3mo ago
        > There are plenty of large (depending on your definition of large) countries above it. Not just US, Australia and Russia that you are excluding for some reason, but also Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada None of those countries have more than 50 million people. Most of them have fewer than 10 million. None of them are going to move the needle on climate change. The US is clearly not a country to emulate when it comes to co2 emissions. I don’t think China is any more “evil” than the US when it comes to climate change. But their actions are clearly no the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”.
        ralferoo 3mo ago
        > But their actions are clearly no the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”. I'd be willing to bet that you've not been to China. Shenzhen is a very green city, I'll go into that later, but also Beijing and Shanghai have historically had serious problems with smog in summer, and this has got significantly better in recent years as local government pushes companies towards renewable energy sources and close down coal power stations. For example in Shenzhen, all buses and taxis have to be EV, and around 80% of all new privately owned cars are also EVs. That seems like a city that believes in climate change. You've got vast swathes of desert covered by solar panels providing electricity further east (although sadly, a lot is waste due to transmission inefficiencies). That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that produces 80% of the world's solar panels, and has over 1/3 of the worldwide installation of solar panels. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country with massive windfarms and a net exporter of wind turbines. Combined, over 1/4 of all electricity in China comes from renewables. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that uses a lot of battery storage to smooth power demand, and exports these units to pretty much everywhere because they're about the best you can get. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that built the massive three gorges dam project, started in the 1990s and finished nearly a quarter of a century ago. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. Sure, there's still a long way to go, and due to the massive energy demands, it still has coal power stations providing about half it's electricity generation needs. That needle is shifting over time, but you know what? It's still half coal and yet it still only has 2/3 the emissions per capita compared to the US. But even if it still has a long way to go, its actions clearly ARE the actions of a country that believes in climate change.
  - onetimeusename 3mo ago
    I don't think per capita emissions is the only metric that should be used. Environmental impact is not measured per capita. Also it blames people in the US for energy consumed here to manufacture which includes exports for people abroad. The US's per capita emissions are not even far away from other similar nations. It's a data point, sure. It's comparable to Canada and Australia and even South Korea. Where did you get that the US emits 45x the UK? Another point is there is evidence[1] China has cheated and manipulated their data[2]. I don't like this "who are the good guys" game. Anyone playing this game is just looking to create a narrative about good and bad guys. [1]: https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/energy-transition/031822-chinas-emissions-fraud-cases-signal-challenges-in-carbon-market-rollout https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... [2]: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-new-carbon-metric-leaves-germany-sized-gap-in-its-emissions/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-new-carbon-metri...
    - ralferoo 3mo ago
      > Where did you get that the US emits 45x the UK? From the GP [1], US emits 4,632,164,876 and UK emits 292,419,359 tonnes CO2. Which, sorry my bad, is actually only 15x. Looks like I did the ratio of China to UK which is 45x. But either way, it shows that comparing total emissions is stupid because it's biased against bigger countries. Emissions per capita is a far more sensible metric. > Also it blames people in the US for energy consumed here to manufacture which includes exports for people abroad. Sure, but the same can be said about China, in fact I'd argue even more so. As a resident of the UK, the majority of things I buy is made in China, almost nothing from the US. > The US's per capita emissions are not even far away from other similar nations. Sure, but they are higher than China's, which was the point I was making to refute the GP. The only reason China's total emissions is 3x US is because its population is 4x US. > Anyone playing this game is just looking to create a narrative about good and bad guys. If you re-read what I wrote that you're replying to, you'll see that we agree on that. It was the GP post that tried to compare China and US in terms of emissions, and deliberately chose total emissions to portray China as significantly worse than the US and getting worse year-on-year, while conveniently ignoring the population size differential and that the increase in emissions is still negligible compared to the overall difference, because it'd take 81 years for China to catch up with the US on emissions per capita. I then compared the US to the UK to show that comparing total emissions instead of per capita is stupid, because the population size matters. But, as I said in the post you replied to - both countries can and should do much better, but as China isn't even in the top 10% of emissions per capita, this is a worldwide problem and trying to pin it all on China is disingenuous. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
  - iso1631 3mo ago
    You need to account for carbin import/exports in manufactured goods and services If the UK imported all its electricity from Poland, it would reduce on a per-capita basis but would increase global
- Ekaros 3mo ago
  USA emits 2165574,97709 times more than Faroe Islands. Sounds like they should be forced to limit that to some reasonable level say 2x of that of Faroe Islands. Don't think it would be too big ask right?
  - sarchertech 3mo ago
    China produces 1/3 of the world’s CO2. They already produce more per capita than all other large developed countries except Australia, the US, and Russia. And their rate of growth is higher than all of those countries except Russia. There’s no way to force them to do anything, but this is not that action of a nation that “believes in climate change”.
    - nixon_why69 3mo ago
      That's while being the world's factory, having lots of green energy, electric cars and an ACUTE motivation to reduce oil imports. Coal is a problem but at least they're not canceling half-finished green energy products when administrations change.
      - 1234letshaveatw 3mo ago
        are you advocating for not changing administrations?
        nixon_why69 3mo ago
        Is that a good faith question? Please check the site guidelines.
        1234letshaveatw 3mo ago
        It is, and certainly relevant (although perhaps inconvenient) considering the recent elections in China. Aren't shifting priorities a side effect of free elections?
- beepbooptheory 3mo ago
  Kind of a meta point but for those who don't know, its fun to track this comment and its responses through time. I want to nominate it for the hall of fame in classic HN post genre. It will be two decades soon! https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=21&prefix=false&query=china%20emits&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=21&prefix=false&q... One interesting thing would be to see how the numbers change over the years alongside the otherwise identical debates.
  - linkregister 3mo ago
    Can you refine that search term a bit more? I followed the link but it brings up many marginally related comments.
- drop_star 3mo ago
  "Clean coal"
- bamboozled 3mo ago
  They make literally everything, including all the pieces for a renewable / low emission economy.
MaxHoppersGhost 3mo ago
>China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it I've got a bridge to sell you!
WarmWash 3mo ago
>Agree, China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it. China brought 80GW of new coal power online last year. The US added 0, and plans to add 3GW next year (we all know why). China doesn't care about climate change, they care about energy independence, and conveniently have very little natural fossil fuels besides coal. Which they heavily mine and utilize.
- speedstyle 3mo ago
  They commissioned 78 GW of new capacity in 2025, but actual coal-fired generation fell slightly (by 90 TWh, ie 10 GW). It might rise again, but it's expected to peak by 2027–28. And of course they added 440 GW of renewable capacity, 64% of global installations. I certainly agree there's other motives (renewables even net them significant trade, like EVs) but it's not as though 'caring about' climate impacts requires selfless virtue, they stand to lose $trillions/year like everyone else.
  - throwaway2037 3mo ago
    Woah, I am blown away by these numbers. I did some research using ChatGPT. A coal power plant called Guoneng Qingyuan Power Station is 4GW in total size. (It added 2GW of capacity last year.) Normally, 1GW is considered a large coal power plant by itself. This is a massive plant! Geolocated here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/24%C2%B024'57.0%22N+113%C2%B032'20.0%22E/@24.4176884,113.5401127,1089m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d24.4158333!4d113.5388889?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/24%C2%B024'57.0%22N+113%C2... I asked ChatGPT how many coal train cars are required per year to fuel this 4GW plant: About 200 coal train cars per day. That is staggering! It is about 5.25 million tons of coal per year. Multiple that by twenty and that only covers new capacity added last year. It is depressing to see these numbers.
    - SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
      Don’t worry I believe AI will figure out how to get fusion energy working any day now and we won’t need these coal plants any more

petcat 3mo ago

USA and Europe are basically equal in terms of yearly production of renewable energy. Texas + California alone rank 6th in the world.

sarchertech 3mo ago

China emits 3x more co2 than the US and last year their rate of increase was 2.5x that of the US. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

ralferoo 3mo ago
"big number bad" isn't a great way of analysing the data, because China has a massively larger population. The US emits 49% more CO2 per capita than China. And even with the much larger rate of increase, 0.79% to US' 0.3%, it'll still require 81 years to catch up to the US per capita rate [0]. The US aren't the good guys here, not by any means. Compared to my country, for instance, the US' emissions are 3x per capita that of the UK. If you want to argue that we shouldn't be using per capita (although we absolutely should), then that's 45x the UK's CO2 emissions. [0] log(13.59/9.13) / log(1.0049) = 81.4 years
- sarchertech 3mo ago
  In absolute numbers China produces 1/3 of the total worlds CO2, and they are still growing the amount of CO2 they are producing. That is not the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”. China’s CO2 per capita is ahead of every large developed country except for the US, Australia, and Russia.
  - ralferoo 3mo ago
    You seem to think China is the evil polluter here. Just sort by per capita, and you'll see it's not even in the top 10% most polluting per capita. There are plenty of large (depending on your definition of large) countries above it. Not just US, Australia and Russia that you are excluding for some reason, but also Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada all have significantly developed economically important countries. And they all have GDP per capita much greater than China's. What's your rationale for excluding them? There's a whole host of smaller countries with higher GDP per capita than China between those I listed above and China on the CO2 per capita results. We should agree that ALL countries should be working to reduce CO2 emissions. But it sounds like you have a strong US bias and given Trump not only denies that climate change is even a thing, has withdrawn from international agreements on reducing emissions and even tries to pressure other countries to burn oil instead of investing in windfarms, it seems a bit disingenuous to try to make out that China is the only country that needs to improve. Before commenting on the speck in someone else's eye, first remove the plank from your own, yadda yadda...
    - sarchertech 3mo ago
      > There are plenty of large (depending on your definition of large) countries above it. Not just US, Australia and Russia that you are excluding for some reason, but also Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada None of those countries have more than 50 million people. Most of them have fewer than 10 million. None of them are going to move the needle on climate change. The US is clearly not a country to emulate when it comes to co2 emissions. I don’t think China is any more “evil” than the US when it comes to climate change. But their actions are clearly no the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”.
      - ralferoo 3mo ago
        > But their actions are clearly no the actions of a country who “believes in climate change”. I'd be willing to bet that you've not been to China. Shenzhen is a very green city, I'll go into that later, but also Beijing and Shanghai have historically had serious problems with smog in summer, and this has got significantly better in recent years as local government pushes companies towards renewable energy sources and close down coal power stations. For example in Shenzhen, all buses and taxis have to be EV, and around 80% of all new privately owned cars are also EVs. That seems like a city that believes in climate change. You've got vast swathes of desert covered by solar panels providing electricity further east (although sadly, a lot is waste due to transmission inefficiencies). That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that produces 80% of the world's solar panels, and has over 1/3 of the worldwide installation of solar panels. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country with massive windfarms and a net exporter of wind turbines. Combined, over 1/4 of all electricity in China comes from renewables. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that uses a lot of battery storage to smooth power demand, and exports these units to pretty much everywhere because they're about the best you can get. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. You've got a country that built the massive three gorges dam project, started in the 1990s and finished nearly a quarter of a century ago. That seems like a country that believes in climate change. Sure, there's still a long way to go, and due to the massive energy demands, it still has coal power stations providing about half it's electricity generation needs. That needle is shifting over time, but you know what? It's still half coal and yet it still only has 2/3 the emissions per capita compared to the US. But even if it still has a long way to go, its actions clearly ARE the actions of a country that believes in climate change.
- onetimeusename 3mo ago
  I don't think per capita emissions is the only metric that should be used. Environmental impact is not measured per capita. Also it blames people in the US for energy consumed here to manufacture which includes exports for people abroad. The US's per capita emissions are not even far away from other similar nations. It's a data point, sure. It's comparable to Canada and Australia and even South Korea. Where did you get that the US emits 45x the UK? Another point is there is evidence[1] China has cheated and manipulated their data[2]. I don't like this "who are the good guys" game. Anyone playing this game is just looking to create a narrative about good and bad guys. [1]: https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/energy-transition/031822-chinas-emissions-fraud-cases-signal-challenges-in-carbon-market-rollout https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... [2]: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-new-carbon-metric-leaves-germany-sized-gap-in-its-emissions/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-new-carbon-metri...
  - ralferoo 3mo ago
    > Where did you get that the US emits 45x the UK? From the GP [1], US emits 4,632,164,876 and UK emits 292,419,359 tonnes CO2. Which, sorry my bad, is actually only 15x. Looks like I did the ratio of China to UK which is 45x. But either way, it shows that comparing total emissions is stupid because it's biased against bigger countries. Emissions per capita is a far more sensible metric. > Also it blames people in the US for energy consumed here to manufacture which includes exports for people abroad. Sure, but the same can be said about China, in fact I'd argue even more so. As a resident of the UK, the majority of things I buy is made in China, almost nothing from the US. > The US's per capita emissions are not even far away from other similar nations. Sure, but they are higher than China's, which was the point I was making to refute the GP. The only reason China's total emissions is 3x US is because its population is 4x US. > Anyone playing this game is just looking to create a narrative about good and bad guys. If you re-read what I wrote that you're replying to, you'll see that we agree on that. It was the GP post that tried to compare China and US in terms of emissions, and deliberately chose total emissions to portray China as significantly worse than the US and getting worse year-on-year, while conveniently ignoring the population size differential and that the increase in emissions is still negligible compared to the overall difference, because it'd take 81 years for China to catch up with the US on emissions per capita. I then compared the US to the UK to show that comparing total emissions instead of per capita is stupid, because the population size matters. But, as I said in the post you replied to - both countries can and should do much better, but as China isn't even in the top 10% of emissions per capita, this is a worldwide problem and trying to pin it all on China is disingenuous. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
- iso1631 3mo ago
  You need to account for carbin import/exports in manufactured goods and services If the UK imported all its electricity from Poland, it would reduce on a per-capita basis but would increase global
Ekaros 3mo ago
USA emits 2165574,97709 times more than Faroe Islands. Sounds like they should be forced to limit that to some reasonable level say 2x of that of Faroe Islands. Don't think it would be too big ask right?
- sarchertech 3mo ago
  China produces 1/3 of the world’s CO2. They already produce more per capita than all other large developed countries except Australia, the US, and Russia. And their rate of growth is higher than all of those countries except Russia. There’s no way to force them to do anything, but this is not that action of a nation that “believes in climate change”.
  - nixon_why69 3mo ago
    That's while being the world's factory, having lots of green energy, electric cars and an ACUTE motivation to reduce oil imports. Coal is a problem but at least they're not canceling half-finished green energy products when administrations change.
    - 1234letshaveatw 3mo ago
      are you advocating for not changing administrations?
      - nixon_why69 3mo ago
        Is that a good faith question? Please check the site guidelines.
        1234letshaveatw 3mo ago
        It is, and certainly relevant (although perhaps inconvenient) considering the recent elections in China. Aren't shifting priorities a side effect of free elections?
beepbooptheory 3mo ago
Kind of a meta point but for those who don't know, its fun to track this comment and its responses through time. I want to nominate it for the hall of fame in classic HN post genre. It will be two decades soon! https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=21&prefix=false&query=china%20emits&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=21&prefix=false&q... One interesting thing would be to see how the numbers change over the years alongside the otherwise identical debates.
- linkregister 3mo ago
  Can you refine that search term a bit more? I followed the link but it brings up many marginally related comments.
drop_star 3mo ago
"Clean coal"
bamboozled 3mo ago
They make literally everything, including all the pieces for a renewable / low emission economy.

MaxHoppersGhost 3mo ago

>China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it I've got a bridge to sell you!

WarmWash 3mo ago

>Agree, China believes in Climate change and are at least taking steps to address it. China brought 80GW of new coal power online last year. The US added 0, and plans to add 3GW next year (we all know why). China doesn't care about climate change, they care about energy independence, and conveniently have very little natural fossil fuels besides coal. Which they heavily mine and utilize.

speedstyle 3mo ago
They commissioned 78 GW of new capacity in 2025, but actual coal-fired generation fell slightly (by 90 TWh, ie 10 GW). It might rise again, but it's expected to peak by 2027–28. And of course they added 440 GW of renewable capacity, 64% of global installations. I certainly agree there's other motives (renewables even net them significant trade, like EVs) but it's not as though 'caring about' climate impacts requires selfless virtue, they stand to lose $trillions/year like everyone else.
- throwaway2037 3mo ago
  Woah, I am blown away by these numbers. I did some research using ChatGPT. A coal power plant called Guoneng Qingyuan Power Station is 4GW in total size. (It added 2GW of capacity last year.) Normally, 1GW is considered a large coal power plant by itself. This is a massive plant! Geolocated here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/24%C2%B024'57.0%22N+113%C2%B032'20.0%22E/@24.4176884,113.5401127,1089m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d24.4158333!4d113.5388889?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcxOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/24%C2%B024'57.0%22N+113%C2... I asked ChatGPT how many coal train cars are required per year to fuel this 4GW plant: About 200 coal train cars per day. That is staggering! It is about 5.25 million tons of coal per year. Multiple that by twenty and that only covers new capacity added last year. It is depressing to see these numbers.
  - SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
    Don’t worry I believe AI will figure out how to get fusion energy working any day now and we won’t need these coal plants any more