• naturalgasbad@lemmy.caOP
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    1 year ago

    China is on track to reduce their electricity production from fossil fuel sources by next year. They never bought into the natural gas hype for energy security reasons, and that’s a good thing. Whereas other countries have used the claims of clean natural gas to increase electricity produced from fossil fuel sources at astonishing rates, China does not have the luxury of domestic natural gas sources and so has opted to move towards plateauing fossil fuel use as a whole.

    As is fairly well known, fugitive methane emissions from natural gas are a huge and largely underreported source of GHGs. Moreover, methane is somewhere on the order of 80x worse than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period (methane decays more quickly than carbon dioxide, though, so over a 100-year period it’s only about 30x worse). Based on all-in estimates, natural gas might only become emissions-equivalent to coal after 100 years.

    • admiralteal@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The Chinese are also pretty cognizant of their emissions. Might be weird to hear, but I’ve been working on a painful research project for the last few months and see a lot of very frank discussion of it in the research. Example, which starts with a pretty matter-of-fact statement about the “unsatisfactory” state of recycling and carbon emissions in the Chinese construction industry.

      Clearly, this kind of frank writing doesn’t get you in trouble with the authorities. They know they have a problem that will need to be addressed. They aren’t bullshitting about it. Their officials aren’t pretending the problem of climate change is made up woke propaganda they can ignore. And they have a command economy, so they can simply order businesses, labs, and universities to focus efforts on developing solutions.

      Lot of bad things to say about China. It’s an authoritarian state led by a dictator. They definitely put the economy ahead of addressing climate issues. But the also see the harsh reality – failing to address climate will destroy their economy. Failing to address climate will result in anyone else who does out-competing them on the global stage. And soon.

      • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        They’re cognizant and have been caught multiple times outright fabricating stats.

        E.G. the hole in the ozone layer is growing because they’re still using CFCs.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It’s an authoritarian state led by a dictator.

        I dont know how you could say that out of any place but ignorance? If they are a dictatorship, they are putting on a massive act of civic democratic engagement, and if they were, there would be leaks because you can not keep something like that secret when the scale is a country of 1.4 billion people.

        They have a different style of democracy which prioritizes a different set of rights over western bourgeois democracy.

        I would encourage you to try to talk to Chinese people about their government without putting assumptions into your questions or asking leading questions. Actual Chinese people, who live in China. Thanks to the internet this is very easily done.

        I would also encourage you to research how Chinese theorists have looked at making stronger democratic mechanisms, and to generally learn the differences between proletarian and bourgeois democracy.

        95 percent of Chinese people are satisfied with their government https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            https://muslimmirror.com/eng/islamic-delegation-visiting-chinas-xinjiang-region-says-all-is-well-here/

            https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220810-diplomats-from-30-muslim-countries-visited-chinas-xinjiang-region/amp/

            Literally a bunch of muslim delegations from governments that don’t like each other all went to investigate and found all was well.

            I am guessing you did not actually trying asking them, I am guessing you read some atrocity propaganda from a corporate newspaper whos owner is terrified of the implications of socialist China.

              • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Did you actually read the report? They literally cite CIA front groups like VoCMF.

                Also, just look at it from a historical basis. Has any anti-terrorism program that revolved around repression ever worked, and not just created more terrorism? Does China have a reality altering device that lets them do repression without creating more terrorism, or have you been lied to, given that terrorism has precipitously declined as China has invested in their counterterrorism program primarily based around improving the material conditions in the region?

                • Quokka@quokk.au
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                  1 year ago

                  I have, and they use many multiple sources (including their own) to reach their conclusion, of which the ‘Xinjiang Police Files’ are but one part and backed up by other documentation.

                  I assume your talking point regurgitation is done without you having the foggiest clue about the actual contents of the report.

                  Also just take a look at historical basis, genocide has happened many times throughout history. Do you assume genocide has never “worked” and only creates more resistance?

            • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
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              1 year ago

              Right, the governments with financial incentive to agree with china agreed with china

              I bet you think america is telling the truth about checking israels self reported war crime statistics too, huh?

              • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Those countries also have economic and otherwise incentive to agree with the world hegemon, the US.

                The anglophone corporate media that is pushing out the atrocity propaganda (well, was, China reopening put a real damper on their stories) also has financial incentive to produce propaganda about the main rival of the US.

                • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
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                  1 year ago

                  Or an economic incentive to agree with china, the major world power challenging the US on its position on the world stage. In fact, even more incentive to side with china over the US, as those specific nations all have multiple direct monetary conflicts with US enterprise and military pursuits. Pursuits they would gladly like to take over, and have reason to do business with whomever sides with them over the US on said enterprises.

                  Youre being played, and letting people die because of it. Just like whats happening in gaza.

            • admiralteal@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Grade A tankie shit is taking advice on how to respect religious freedom and human rights from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

              • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                These countries probably care more about the religious freedom of Muslims then the US though, which loves killing Muslims and has killed millions of muslim civilians in recent history in their own “war on terror”

                Also literally 30 countries sent delegations

                • Quokka@quokk.au
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                  1 year ago

                  Strongly doubt that.

                  I’m sure they care more about the religious freedoms of their own sects freedom, but I’d say that concerns ends at their border.

              • naturalgasbad@lemmy.caOP
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                1 year ago

                Because taking advice from the country of “don’t say gay”, “oops I invaded Iraq”, “hundreds of thousands murdered in the Middle East”, “oops I couped another democratically-elected government”, “rape on foreign military bases”…

  • WashedOver@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    It’s been great for people like me that go off grid at times for travel and their efforts in the solar areas has seen dramatic drops in the cost of solar panels for many. They are possibly at their lowest prices ever now due to their investment in these areas.

    This is not say they are perfect and everything is great but it is kind of disturbing with all of their issues (and some would say there are many) they get that living in the 1600’s with coal mining isn’t perhaps the best practices for everyone on a massive scale.

    Many of our western local governments fight against alternative sources and even stop projects as they have guzzled the oil, gas, and coal are the only ways to go Kool-Aid. It’s great for jobs and business they say.

    • admiralteal@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      There is no “possibly” about it. Right now, solar is the cheapest form of electrical generation ever, in human history, and it is still getting cheaper. It has literally seen price drops of more than 2 orders of magnitude in my lifetime. It is, without a doubt, going to be the primary means of energy generation for the future of our species, assuming our species is to have a future.
      It’s hardly something the Chinese can claim as their achievement, though. There’s a large economy for solar panels – and frankly, the Chinese production ramped up in response significantly to Californian demand under their (now besieged) rooftop solar policies. A lot of players are involved from research to production to demand and any one country that claims it’s all thanks to them is sweet-talking you.

      • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
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        1 year ago

        Solar getting cheaper does worry me from an enviromentalist position.

        Too many people, governments, and corporations are sticking panels over top of ecosystems that rely on that sunlight, rather than bother with the hassle of installing them on top of existing human infrastructure.

        Cheaper panels is gonna lead to more techie investors turning deserts into wastelands, and we dont have any real safeguards against that yet.

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Their economy is in trouble, so this is not unexpected. Concrete production for their absurd ghost towns finally goes down.