In a recent article, New York Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells poses the question “What Happens if China Stops Trying to Save the World?” Wallace-Wells was referring to China’s performance on climate change.
The question particularly piqued my interest because in my part of the world (Alberta), China is the preferred climate change scapegoat. Our greenhouse gas emissions don’t matter, the refrain goes, China’s the big problem.
It’s true that China emits more greenhouse gasses than any other country, but it isn’t the big problem. Countries don’t emit, people do. And it turns out that we, not the Chinese, are the biggest problem. The average Canadian is responsible for twice as many emissions as the average Chinese.
In fact, the three major emitting peoples among the advanced countries are the Americans, the Australians and us. We emit far more per capita than any of our peers—the Brits, the Germans, the Japanese, any of them. We even emit far more than the Norwegians and they, like us, have a thriving oil industry. And, of course, we Albertans are the champion emitters among Canadians.
As for China, let’s look at some stats. Last year China installed over 60 percent of the world’s new solar power. (China has 18 percent of the global population.) Nearly two-thirds of all big solar and wind plants being built globally are in China. The G7 countries—United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain—built only one-quarter as many plants in 2023. Last year China also installed over 60 percent of the world’s new wind capacity. While the Chinese bought 8.1 million electric vehicles, the rest of the world bought 5.6 million.
China is also the leader in powering the green transition elsewhere. In 2022, 90 percent of the world’s solar wafers and solar cells were produced in China and last year over 60 percent of the world’s wind turbines as well. Sixty percent of the world’s electric vehicle sales came from China.
We should also keep in mind that, unlike us, China doesn’t have major reserves of oil and gas, and thereby has by necessity a high dependence on coal.
The fact is one country has dominated progress on dealing with climate change. As Wallace-Wells says in his article, “The energy transition is, at present, to a large degree, a Chinese project.” They are doing better than the rest of us and deserve credit for it, not the blaming they so frequently receive. As Wallace-Wells concludes, we should all hope China doesn’t take their collective foot off the climate change gas.