China is doing a lot of shit to undermine hegemony, but this is going to be the biggest and most important in the long run, imo. Fossil fuel imperialism and the petrodollar are absolutely fundamental to keeping countries trapped in underdevelopment. If countries can develop on the basis of renewable energy, they avoid the imperialist subscription fee of fossil imports that cripples nations all over the world and funnels massive wealth back to the imperialist fossil capitalists. They get power for cheap and forever without ever depending on the global north. And they do so without the infinite list of disastrous externalities fossil fuel burning produces.

Thank you comrade Xi Jinping

“Thanks to this capacity—and a tendency to set itself easy targets—China has exceeded, or is on course to exceed, most of the pledges it has made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change since signing the Paris agreement ten years ago. The politicians, negotiators, lobby groups and hangers-on gathering in Brazil for the 30th UNFCCC’s COP summit will do so in a context shaped by China’s latest pledges to more than double the country’s renewable-energy capacity and make a modest but quantified cut in emissions by 2035. (Both targets may well be exceeded.)”

This paragraph is so fucking funny

Edit: holy shit it gets funnier: " This anti-emissions machine is powered by self-interest. More clean tech elsewhere lowers China’s own climate risks by reducing global emissions."

The Solar + Battery combo is so, so valuable to many people with unreliable and/or expensive power. It really is the first time that households and small communities can have control over their own energy, when people can just stand up and do something about their power needs. The bottom-up solar boom in Pakistan is a prime example of this, and at least in this area I’m really hopeful.

imagine how sick it would be to live in a country where the leaders have literally any foresight at all or give a damn about their people, let alone both

Green energy machine go brrrr

Not even the journal which speaks for British millionaires can deny the reality of the Chinese millennium.

“Capitalism means innovooooshunz” MFs when the situation calls to innovate how to get energy instead of pig-headedly sticking to old tech. (But please please please make an exception for AI slop)

Even with the few silly jabs, this is one of the most positive articles I’ve read on China in The Economist.