China, USA and decarbonization
Empires fall, and as they fall, new empires emerge. The eternal story.
the prestigious newspaper The New York Times has published this autumn a striking headline: China is the engine, driving Nations away from fossil fuels. In other words, China is the real engine that drives the flight from fossil fuels. For him, the country that is leading the change in the energy field at the moment is China. There are many voices that agree with this idea, in the US itself. It is not an idea that comes to them from outside.
And this idea is not based on the chaos that the Trump administration has caused in recent years. This does not help either, of course, but the authorities change from one legislature to another and in general the effect does not change. The reason is deeper. In the simplest terms, it can be said that it doesn’t matter what kind of government they have in the US. In any case, the Chinese are causing a change in the world in terms of energy.
When I read the report, I thought of a book in full swing: Breakneck by Dan Wang. Compare China and the US. Their societies, as well as the philosophies of their initiative. The writer was born in China, but as a young child he moved with his family to Canada, where he later lived in the United States and returned to China. He has spent the same time in the United States and China and has made a comparison on the ground.
China is great. The United States as well. Large, not only in surface, but also in number of people and money. Both are economic leaders and drivers of change in today’s world. For good and for bad. Technologically, environmentally, in research and socially, they are in everyone’s eyes.
The Chinese and Americans are very similar. The way it works is very practical. They invest money when they need to invest. It’s similar to people’s thinking. But there is a clear difference between the two when it comes to implementing new projects.
Wang’s thesis is summed up in one sentence: America is led by lawyers and China is led by engineers. In the United States, among authorities and citizens, there is a tendency to have many lawyers. In China, the culture of engineering is widespread. It’s a controversial idea, but it seems like an interesting starting point for reflection.
It is evident in many engineering issues and in many environmental projects, among others. An example is electrification. We want to electrify everything, so the batteries will take on a lot of importance. The problem is that they are made of lithium, and lithium is scarce in the world, and the control of lithium sources would create geopolitical problems. One solution is to replace lithium with sodium. It is less effective, but it can be used, and sodium would be available to most countries if a good method of extraction from the sea is developed. Well, in this area, China is ahead. Although it is at the research level in Europe and the US, China already has vehicles on the street that work with sodium batteries.
It’s just an example, but thanks to them, China is leading decarbonization in the US, and perhaps even in Europe.
China’s leadership is very clear on many levels, and in the West we are debating why this is happening. In any case, the reality today is that China is pushing, even in the field of decarbonisation, and that the US and Europe are not competitors for them.
In any case, it is significant that neither China nor the US have sent representatives to the beginning of the United Nations climate summit COP30, which is being held in Brazil. And they are still the biggest polluters on the planet.
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