cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31583668
China’s failure to meet a key carbon emissions target has raised concerns about its ability to achieve carbon neutrality, a potentially decisive factor in global efforts to avert the worst effects of climate change.
China’s carbon intensity – a measurement of carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) – fell 3.4 percent in 2024, missing Beijing’s official target of 3.9 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
China is also behind its longer-term goal of slashing carbon intensity by 18 percent between 2020 and 2025, as set by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its most recent five-year plan.
Under China’s “dual targets”, President Xi Jinping has pledged to reach peak emissions before the end of the decade and carbon neutrality by 2060.
China’s progress is being closely watched around the world due to its paradoxical position as the world’s top polluter – responsible for about 30 percent of global emissions – and the world’s leader in renewable energy investment.
The country’s success or failure to meet its emissions targets will have major implications for the international community’s efforts to keep average temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a benchmark set by the United Nations to avert “catastrophic” effects of climate change.
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There are two ways to look at it.
That being said, China isn’t the one slapping tarrifs on any car company that isn’t in big oils pocket and shouting “Drill baby, drill” at the top of their lungs. China also makes all the products for the rest of the world, so half their pollution is on the behalf of others.
We would all be driving electric vehicles if it wasn’t for political corruption buy I guess China is an easy scapegoat.
And no one has said that China is the only problem. Practically none of the big emitters (China, Russia, India, the U.S., EU, … just click on the links and look yourself for other countries you are interested in) is on the right track to combat climate change. This article is on China, the world’s biggest polluter.
And as you raise the tariff issue: We must not forget that China is the one using forced labour to manufacture these cheap EVs you are talking about. Exploting a certain group of people by forcing them to work under slave-like conditions, and then arguing that it saves the world is disingenuous.
The tariffs aren’t there because of slave labor, they are there because the oil industry feels threatened. If slave labor had anything to do with it, Apple and Nike wouldn’t exist.
Car companies don’t want to compete and don’t want to offer cheap evs.
I’m bringing up the fact because I think it’s disingenuous to call them the world’s biggest polluter since they aren’t on a per capita basis, and that basis is already skewered because of their position as a global supplier.
First world nations pollute a lot more if you take into account how they export over half their pollution to third world countries.
If China wasn’t being used as a scape goat when climate change gets brought up, I wouldn’t be here. You aren’t posting in a vacuum.