Will China Lead the World in Halting Global Climate Change?
China has emerged as the foremost rival to the United States, according to both sides of the political aisle. The latest shockwave was caused by DeepSeek, the AI tool that challenges the most advanced developments in the USA by being equally good but much cheaper and using many fewer chips.
China is wielding increasing power across the world. Although its ambitions have been curbed somewhat due to the relative decline of its economy, China is still a formidable force. Althought its expansion has slowed down, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — sometimes called the New Silk Road--spreads Chinese influence through Asia and all the way to Europe. As the US disengages from multilateral organizations, China’s sway has increased. It has positioned its diplomats into high-level positions in the United Nations system and is quick to fill any void America shortsightedly leaves. China is attempting to spread its soft power as a champion of the developing world that does not preach to other countries about their internal politics and issues such as democracy or human rights. It is a central partner in the BRICS grouping and has established a number of organizations that are increasingly influential, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to the New Development Bank.
Not all of China’s expansionism is benevolent, as witnessed by its actions around the South China Sea and its threats against Taiwan. China invests huge sums into building up its military and its failure to condemn Russia in the latter’s war against Ukraine bothers many observers. The trade war between China and the US, started by President Donald Trump during his first term and continued under President Joe Biden’s watch, and certain to deepen during Trump II, hurts both countries.
China’s rise internationally has been made possible by the unprecedented economic growth that the country experienced since opening its economy after the death of Mao Zedong. Much of this growth has been on the back of environmental pollution and China has now overtaken the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
Now the growth has slowed due to structural problems in the economy (notably overreliance on real estate) and the policies of Xi Jinping who has turned back the clock on reforms, prioritizing political dominance of the CCP over economic growth. Following decades of a restrictive one-child policy, China’s population is now aging and declining. Despite all of this, China’s economy remains the second largest in the world following the United States.
Although China still lags far behind the US both in its economic development and military prowess, there is one area where China is leading: the environment. Its leadership can be observed on several fronts, not least the expansion of environmental technologies, such as renewable energy and electric vehicles (EV).
This by no means implies that China’s environmental record is impeccable or that it is anywhere close to a pristine paradise. The country is still building more coal-fired power plants than any other in the world.
What it means, though, is that China and its leaders take environmental degradation seriously and have started to address it in a way that is only possible in a centrally controlled country. This central control, however, is often misunderstood in the West. In her new book, The New China Playbook, the Chinese economist Keyu Jin, at the London School of Economics, explains that while Beijing exerts unquestionable political power in the country, the economy itself is highly decentralized. She calls this the ‘mayor economy,’ because economic development is driven by local officials under the direction of central authorities. The mayor model allows for a quick spread of innovation across the vast country, as local officials compete with each other for prestige and all the perks that come with it. Unlike in the USA where most technological innovations come from the coasts, and especially the Silicon Valley, in China technological innovations emerge from most parts of the country, except its underdeveloped inland west.
This model has been at work for a long time and has been one of the drivers of pollution in the country, as local authorities focused exclusively on economic growth with scant regard to the environment. This resulted in China’s well known struggles with air and water pollution, as clearly documented by Western researchers such as Vaclav Smil and Elizabeth Economy. This situation has a long history in China before the current post-Mao era of relative openness. During the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the ideology pitted man against nature, how hard work and faith in the party would conquer any obstacles posed by the environment to the benefit of the new Communist human, as explained by Judith Shapiro in her classic work Mao’s War Against Nature.
Today, air pollution remains a serious scourge, as China continues to rely on coal-fired power plants and dirty industry, and as its fleet of private cars has grown exponentially. Similarly, water pollution from untreated waste from industry and urban centers, as well as agricultural runoff, affects coasts, rivers — including the major waterways of Yangtze and Yellow Rivers--and groundwater. Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity and leads to losses in both the economy and biodiversity. Soil erosion and salinization caused by deforestation, unsustainable agriculture and overgrazing, and pollution affect ever larger areas, especially in the north and northwest of the country, posing a threat to domestic food security. Some 27% of China’s land is affected by desertification.
These are tremendous challenges, which have direct consequences to people’s lives. Pollution has been demonstrated to lead to significant numbers of premature deaths from respiratory and other diseases. For a long time, these were seen as the unfortunate but necessary cost of development, as I’ve heard Chinese contacts say. As these problems have increased and as people have become richer, their attention has increasingly turned to environmental issues. In fact, environmental pollution has been the focus of many civil protests in the country, although such protests have been clamped down by the current leadership. A study conducted by my friend Sulan Chen and myself suggested that the focus on environmental issues expanded the scope of civil society participation in China, given that the environment is not equally sensitive politically as other issues, like human rights.
And as mentioned above, the central government takes the environment seriously. China is today the world’s leader in renewable energy technologies, producing more solar panels and wind turbines than any other country.
It is also the largest market for EVs, with domestic companies (like BYD and CATL) producing top-of-the-line cars and batteries at affordable prices. As part of the trade tensions between China and USA, the latter has kept these out of its markets, fearing the Chinese models would easily outcompete Tesla and other American brands. As pointed out by Keyu Jin, with the encouragement of the central government, China has now established 4 million EV stations around the country, compared with just 160,000 in the whole of USA, thus removing a major barrier to the adoption of EVs.
China has also the world’s most extensive network of high-speed rail with bullet trains, like those in Japan before it, shuttling large numbers of passengers from one place to another without burning fossil fuels (although much of the needed energy is still produced by coal). The train trip from Shanghai to Guangzhou in the south takes about 7 hours for the distance of some 1,500 km (940 miles) — less than half it would take by car (minus the trouble and stress). Similarly, smart and eco-friendly transportation systems are increasingly employed in cities.
What the Chinese model enables is change that is so rapid it would be unthinkable elsewhere. Once the government identifies a problem and tests solutions, the successful ones can be rolled out quickly. The Global Environment Facility where I previously worked had many projects over the years in China piloting new approaches and technologies ranging from energy efficient appliances to desertification control. Once they were found to be effective, the government would create conditions that would ensure their rapid diffusion through the market mechanisms and the private sector.
Some may also remember how Beijing was cleaned up ahead of the 2008 summer Olympics. Effective pollution controls were established and dirty industries were moved out of the city (partially transferring the problems to other areas). The Olympics also resulted in a huge and fast expansion of the city’s subway and rail network.
As a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement, China has committed itself to reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 after which they would decline to net-zero by 2060. This is to be achieved largely through a massive energy transition whereby the share of energy produced from non-fossil sources would rise to 80% of the total. The plans also have quantified targets for “green buildings” and clean energy vehicles.
These are huge challenges that will require a concerted effort from the whole of society. The Chinese model of using central government guidance and support to encourage scientific and technological development through the private sector and local and provincial level innovations seems to me to be the most feasible way of reaching these ambitious goals.
In the meantime, the US is drastically cutting federal spending on science and technology. It has also withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and is shunning international cooperation in general, even in areas, such as climate change and pandemics, were such cooperation is a must. We only have to hope that these developments do not reduce the sense of urgency in China (and the rest of the world) to tackle the most pressing global problems of climate change and environmental degradation. For our common future, it is essential that at least one of the two of the world’s top polluters will clean up its act.
Originally published at https://juhauitto.substack.com.
