The Green Transition: We need to talk about China
Weekly analysis of the shift towards a new economy.
Dear Reader,
Happy Friday – it’s Jonny Ball here. I write on economic growth for the New Statesman’s Spotlight team, reporting on the nitty gritty of the policy world for all the assorted public policy obsessives out there. We got you. You can find our coverage here.
This will be the last email coming to you before we move to Substack next week. No need to panic – just sit back, relax, and The Green Transition will continue to update you on the progress (or lack thereof) of building a new, green economy (except next time we’ll be doing it through a new and improved format and platform).
Please do look out for the results of some exclusive polling for the New Statesman by Redfield and Wilton Strategies – in our 'In Brief' section below.
As usual, do get in touch with any tips, comments, corrections or suggestions. Let’s get right into it.
Jonny Ball
We need to talk about China, apparently.
As wildfires raged this week in the Algarve, and now in Hawaii, the UK naturally got stuck into a very healthy debate about a Greenpeace protest. Specifically, the question was asked, were the campaign group’s members right or wrong to drape the Prime Minister’s house in black tarpaulin in response to the granting of new oil and gas licences? It’s not for The Green Transition to judge – but the plot thickened when it was revealed that Labour’s candidate for Mid Bedfordshire had also protested outside the Home Office with the climate activists while dressed as a zombie in a separate event last year (although this seems to have been little more than a lightly-attended photo opportunity on a drizzly Westminster afternoon).
“Eco-zealot”, cried the Daily Mail, while Energy Secretary Grant Shapps – fresh from granting a hundred new oil and gas licences in the North Sea – called for Keir Starmer to “ban members of the eco-mob” from Labour’s candidate list. Meanwhile, political commentator Iain Dale wondered aloud on Good Morning Britain “when we’ll see [Greenpeace] protest outside the Chinese embassy, because China is still building coal-fired power stations and nobody seems to mind”. And, in a similar vein, a Spectator column also bemoaned us talking “all the time” about “the enormously expensive goal of net zero” when we’re “not particularly bothered” about the carbon footprint from the People’s Republic.
But are they right? Are environmentalists targeting their righteous indignation in the wrong place? The UK has, after all, made more progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions than many of its OECD competitors, while China has become the world’s biggest polluter. Indeed, it was one Tony Blair who told The New Statesman last month that “one year’s rise in China’s emissions would outscore the whole of Britain’s emissions for a year” (although he did caveat this by saying this shouldn’t be used as an excuse for inaction).
China emits more carbon dioxide than any other country. But, funnily enough, China also happens to have a lot of people. Its total carbon footprint has grown exponentially in recent years, mostly fired by the dirtiest of fuels (coal), as the country has been transformed from a poor, mainly agrarian economy to the world's primary exporter of manufactured goods. The Chinese government defends its sticky reliance on coal by claiming that the country is still at an early stage of its development journey, compared with the advanced economies of the Global North.
In per capita terms, which seems like a fairer measure of contribution towards climate change, China is still dwarfed by the US and many other countries. When listed in rankings per person, China loses the dubious honour of being World’s Number One Polluter, to become merely the world’s 41st biggest, according to the Worldometer statistics website.
And this doesn’t tell the full story. While many in the UK’s climate policy scene swoon over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – and the admittedly transformative effect it is projected to have on boosting domestic supply chains and renewable energy generation – China is adding as many renewables to its grid as the rest of the world combined. The Asian powerhouse produces three-quarters of the world’s solar panels and around 60 per cent of the core components of wind turbines. Even as the US forges ahead with unprecedented investment in green energy projects, and Europe tries to mimic this with its Green Deal, the International Energy Agency projects that China will install “almost half of new global renewable power capacity” between 2022 and 2027.
Last month, John Kerry, the US climate envoy, visited Beijing for climate talks. The US wanted to “move beyond the real differences we have,” Kerry said. “Of all the topics in the world, there can’t be differences on this.” The purpose of the IRA was to create a homegrown industry that was less dependent on China, he added. “It’s creating a new supply chain here in our country… That is the entire purpose… and it’s working,” he said.
Back in Britain, urgent debates rumble on, discussing the relative merits and ethics of protestors walking slowly down a road and throwing material over a mansion in Yorkshire. Our politicians, meanwhile, fall over themselves to play down their green credentials and disassociate themselves with anyone or anything deemed too eco-zealot-y. Extraction licences are pushed through, pundits point the blame at China, and the Chancellor says we won’t go “toe-to-toe” with the US in a “distortive subsidy race” for renewable energy. Anyone get the feeling we’re being left behind?
In Brief
Green and pleasant land?: Exclusive polling for the New Statesman by Redfield and Wilton Strategies has revealed that the public is overwhelmingly concerned about climate change. 82 per cent said that climate change mattered personally to them in the last month. Zoë Grünewald reports that despite overwhelming public support for the green agenda, only a third (35 per cent) said they believed Rishi Sunak was committed to the UK’s environmental targets. Zoë has the write-up here.
Ulez-vous coucher avec car?: More on that exclusive polling from Redfield and Wilton Strategies – the majority of voters are still in favour of prioritising public transport over car use, with 51 per cent of respondents saying the government should spend more on public transport than private car use. Less than a quarter of respondents (24 per cent) said the opposite.
As Rachel Cunliffe wrote for our politics section last week, Sunak’s anti-green pivot isn’t the electoral dynamite he might have hoped for. Our polling found that 35 per cent of respondents supported Ulez schemes in general in the UK (are you listening, Sir Keir?), while 29 per cent opposed them. In a similar vein, 40 per cent supported low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) and 23 per cent opposed them.
Out of the blue: The Financial Times has this excellent long read on the alarming news about the rapid warming of ocean temperatures. This is essential, but worrying, reading.
Water way to go: Last but certainly not least, we’ve republished this excellent piece on river and sea pollution, and the failures of the UK’s water industry, from Green Times/Green Transition originator, India Bourke. If you’re missing India’s excellent writing, this is where to find it.
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Thank you for reading.
Please send any news or comments to: jonathan.Ball@newstatesman.co.uk
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