Quote of the day…
…The proposal from China:
China calls for a cease-fire in Ukraine while warning Moscow against using nuclear weapons, and insists that "dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out in Ukraine," according to the Asian superpower's government.
The Chinese bid on Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked much debate and suspicion... However, China, the East's forgotten ally during WWII, has taken a cautious stance toward the Kremlin... Mr. Quin Gang, the newly appointed Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, has been tasked with driving the challenger..
GERMÁN & CO Most read…
As Oil Companies Stay Lean, Workers Move to Renewable Energy
Solar, wind, geothermal, battery and other alternative-energy businesses are adding workers from fossil fuel companies, where employment has fallen.
NYT Clifford Krauss
Special China…
Who is China's new foreign minister in charge of finding —a glimmer of hope— for Russia-Ukraine peace talks?
"You can't hide an elephant," Martin said, referring to a refrain he heard several times in Beijing. In other words, China's international standing has now reached a point where a low-key approach to diplomacy is inappropriate, if not impossible."
NEWSTATESMAN/GERMÁN & CO China’s coal plant approvals highest in seven years, research finds
“The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months,” said Flora Champenois, research analyst at GEM.
WASHINGTON POST BY CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD 
…”We’ll need natural gas for years…
— but can start blending it with green hydrogen today, AES CEO, Andrés Gluski says
CNBC.COM, ANMAR FRANGOUL PUBLISHED MON, JAN 23 AES chief says we’ll need natural gas for next 20 years
From the United States to the European Union, major economies around the world are laying out plans to move away from fossil fuels in favor of low and zero-carbon technologies.
It’s a colossal task that will require massive sums of money, huge political will and technological innovation. As the planned transition takes shape, there’s been a lot of talk about the relationship between hydrogen and natural gas.
During a panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the CEO of energy firm AES offered up his take on how the two could potentially dovetail with one another going forward.
“I feel very confident in saying that, for the next 20 years, we need natural gas,” Andrés Gluski, who was speaking Wednesday, said. “Now, what we can start to do today is … start to blend it with green hydrogen,” he added.
“So we’re running tests that you can blend it up to, say 20%, in existing turbines, and new turbines are coming out that can burn … much higher percentages,” Gluski said.
“But it’s just difficult to see that you’re going to have enough green hydrogen to substitute it like, in the next 10 years.”
Change on the way, but scale is key
The planet’s green hydrogen sector may still be in a relatively early stage of development, but a number of major deals related to the technology have been struck in recent years.
In December 2022, for example, AES and Air Products said they planned to invest roughly $4 billion to develop a “mega-scale green hydrogen production facility” located in Texas.
According to the announcement, the project will incorporate around 1.4 gigawatts of wind and solar and be able to produce more than 200 metric tons of hydrogen every day.
Despite the significant amount of money and renewables involved in the project, AES chief Gluski was at pains to highlight how much work lay ahead when it came to scaling up the sector as a whole.
The facility being planned with Air Products, he explained, could only “supply point one percent of the U.S. long haul trucking fleet.” Work to be done, then.
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country
Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.
SOURRCE BY MERCADO DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 28 JUNE 2022 More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
Armando Rodríguez, vice president and executive director of Seaboard, joins us for this Mercado Interview to talk about the company's contributions to the Dominican Republic's electricity sector. "Our plants have been strategically located by the authorities of the electricity sector to make it possible to reduce blackouts in Santo Domingo and save foreign currency for all Dominicans," he explains.
Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…
Image: Germán & Co As Oil Companies Stay Lean, Workers Move to Renewable Energy
Solar, wind, geothermal, battery and other alternative-energy businesses are adding workers from fossil fuel companies, where employment has fallen.
NYT CLIFFORD KRAUSS REPORTED THIS ARTICLE FROM HOUSTON, WHERE HE HAS COVERED ENERGY SINCE 2006. FEB. 27, 2023 Emma McConville was thrilled when she landed a job as a geologist at Exxon Mobil in 2017. She was assigned to work on one of the company’s most exciting and lucrative projects, a giant oil field off Guyana.
But after oil prices collapsed during the pandemic, she was laid off on a video call at the end of 2020. “I probably blacked out halfway,” Ms. McConville recalled.
Her shock was short-lived. Just four months later, she landed a job with Fervo, a young Houston company that aims to tap geothermal energy under the Earth’s surface. Today she manages the design of two Fervo projects in Nevada and Utah, and earns more than she did at Exxon.
“Covid allowed me to pivot,” she said. “Covid was an impetus for renewables, not just for me but for many of my colleagues.”
Oil and gas companies laid off roughly 160,000 workers in 2020, and they maintained tight budgets and hired cautiously over the last two years. But many renewable businesses expanded rapidly after the early shock of the pandemic faded, snapping up geologists, engineers and other workers from the likes of Exxon and Chevron. Half of Fervo’s 38 employees come from fossil fuel companies, including BP, Hess and Chesapeake Energy.
Executives and workers in energy hubs in Houston, Dallas and other places say steady streams of people are moving from fossil fuel to renewable energy jobs. It’s hard to track such movements in employment statistics, but the overall numbers suggest such career moves are becoming more common. Oil, gas and coal employment has not recovered to its prepandemic levels. But the number of jobs in renewable energy, including solar, wind, geothermal and battery businesses, is rising.
The oil and gas industry had roughly 700,000 fewer workers last year than six years earlier, a decline of over 20 percent. Much of that drop had to do with the slowing of the shale drilling boom and greater automation. By comparison, employment in wind energy grew nearly 20 percent from 2016 to 2021, to more than 113,000 workers.
In more than a dozen interviews, energy workers and executives said they had switched to renewable energy because they felt that the oil and gas industry’s best days were behind it. Others said they were no longer willing to tolerate the extreme ups and downs of oil and gas prices, and the accompanying cycle of rapid hiring followed by crushing layoffs. Many said concerns about climate change, which is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels, were a factor in their decision.
Jean Paul Beebe works for Enel North America, a developer of renewable projects that is owned by an Italian energy company.Credit...Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times
Jean Paul Beebe negotiated land leases for oil and gas companies before he was laid off early in the pandemic. He now works for Enel North America, a developer of renewable projects that is owned by an Italian energy company. He made a good living when shale drilling was booming, he said, but downturns took a toll on him.
“Riding that wave is a load, mentally,” Mr. Beebe said. “What I know now about renewables, it’s absolutely more stable.”
Many workers, including electricians, offshore construction engineers, information technology specialists and environmental surveyors, say the skills they honed in their oil and gas jobs have translated well to the work they are doing now.
“The basics are the same,” Miguel Febres, a petroleum engineer who worked in the oil industry for 19 years and is now a planner for wind and solar projects at Enel. “We install foundations, we install turbines, we build roads, we lay cables.”
The Greater Houston Partnership, which champions the interests of businesses in a city that is home to many large oil and gas businesses, has been trying to attract more renewable businesses to the region. A recent study for the group by McKinsey & Company found that 125,000 oil exploration, production and pipeline jobs were lost in the Houston area from 2014 to 2020, a 26 percent reduction. The study warned that many more traditional energy jobs could be lost over the next three decades.
“The work force of the future is going to look very different than it looks today,” said Jane Stricker, senior vice president for energy transition at the Greater Houston organization and a former executive at BP. She noted that dozens of start-ups had opened or relocated to Houston since 2020, some with as many as 50 employees.
“Covid created a ton of opportunity,” she said. “Nobody was making investments in oil and gas because returns were terrible. A lot of money out there was looking for a new opportunity.”
Executives at renewable companies say being in Houston has helped them attract workers.
“Whenever we post a position like geologist, or drilling engineer or geophysicist,” said Tim Latimer, the chief executive of Fervo, the geothermal company, “you name the oil company and we have a handful of applicants from every single one.”
The number of jobs in renewable energy, including solar, wind, geothermal and battery businesses, is rising.Credit...Emily Najera for The New York Times
Oil and gas executives say that there are still many good years of employment left in their industry, and that it continues to serve a vital mission.
Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major Texas oil and gas producer, said that “the realization that we have provided energy security for the country and our foreign partners along with a stable and cheap energy source to our citizens” continued to make the industry desirable professionally.
Trent Latshaw, chief executive of Latshaw Drilling, which operates rigs in Oklahoma and Texas, said the demise of oil and gas jobs was greatly exaggerated. “A lot of people have been brainwashed that oil and gas are on the way out,” he said. “The oil industry so massively outweighs renewables and will for a very long time.”
But even Mr. Latshaw acknowledged that renewables were growing in importance.
Sunnova Energy, a leading solar and battery provider based in Houston, has expanded its staff to 1,400, from 350 in March 2020. Last year it doubled its Houston office space. Its information technology staff alone has grown to around 200 from roughly 70 over the last two years.
“There are a lot of people coming from oil and gas, and they’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m ready for a change,’” said Anthony Cervantes, who interviews job candidates in his role as director of information technology.
Mr. Cervantes was a consultant to oil companies before joining Sunnova two years ago, after he was laid off during the Covid slowdown, he said. He is happier with his work now, he said, because he is worried about climate change: “It’s nice to have a purpose in your job.”
Some lawmakers in Washington and union officials have said the transition to green energy could hurt workers because jobs in oil, gas and coal tend to pay better and are more likely to be unionized than jobs at solar and wind companies. But renewable executives argue that those comparisons are incomplete and don’t take into account the more stable employment their industry provides.
John Berger, Sunnova’s chief executive, said wages at his company had risen rapidly. “The pay rates we pay our service technicians are way, way up over the last 12 to 18 months,” he said. “So the pay gap, if there ever was one, has either closed or is closing.”
Some workers who have left oil and gas companies said they had been frustrated with how slowly their previous employers embraced clean energy.
Sam Johnson, 30, has been interested in renewable energy since high school. After he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a doctorate in mechanical engineering, he got a job at Shell researching how the oil company might build large-scale renewable energy projects and sell electricity.
He said he had initially hoped that oil companies would change how they did business. “Most of the oil companies see that there’s going to be a day when oil and gas demand will be lower and we have to be able to do something after that,” he said.
But he gradually concluded that the industry was committing only a tiny portion of its revenue to clean energy research. A few months after he joined Shell, Covid hit, oil prices plummeted and research funding began to dry up. Working from home, he became more isolated as one colleague after another quit — frequently to work at renewable energy companies.
Most frustrating was the business lens by which Shell executives viewed his projects. “Every project needs to have a really high rate of return,” he said. “But electricity is not as valuable a commodity as oil or gas.”
A spokesman for Shell, Curtis Smith, said the company “remains committed to investing and delivering energy that is increasingly lower carbon.” He added, “The levers we pull to achieve that will continue to be scrutinized with the goal of growing shareholder value while contributing to a balanced energy transition.”
Over the months, Mr. Johnson’s frustration grew. He saw the writing on the wall when his supervisor left Shell for a start-up, he said.
Soon after, that manager offered Mr. Johnson a job as a senior service architect for GreenStruxure, which advises businesses on eliminating their greenhouse gas emissions. He now develops models to show how companies can save money by installing solar panels and batteries.
Mr. Johnson still appreciates his time at Shell, saying he got a “ton of experience” and liked the people he met there. “I would probably be willing to go back to Shell,” he said, “but I would have to be convinced I could make an impact.”
Special China…
Who is China's new foreign minister in charge of finding —a glimmer of hope— for Russia-Ukraine peace talks?
"You can't hide an elephant," Martin said, referring to a refrain he heard several times in Beijing. In other words, China's international standing has now reached a point where a low-key approach to diplomacy is inappropriate, if not impossible."
Image: Germán & Co
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday acknowledged for the first time China's "concerns" about the war in Ukraine.
"We understand your questions and concerns," he told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during their first face-to-face meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, since Moscow decided to invade Ukraine in late February, turning the global geopolitical scene upside down.
EL PAÍS BY GUILLERMO ABRIL, BEIJING, 15 SEPTEMBER 2022 
The images are self-explanatory…
What is worse, negotiation or war?
Significant dispute causes opposing interests (or what we think are opposing interests) to be at the core of the most conflict. Three visions on the War:
Sun Tzu (China 544 BC) the premise of The Art of War is that diplomacy should be used to avoid war. If it cannot be avoided, it should be fought strategically and psychologically in order to minimise damage and resource waste.
Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583, Delft, Holland - 28 August 1645, Rostock, Swedish Pomerania) published his seminal work De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) in 1629 during the Thirty Years' War, which described the political order as a loose international society and explored the idea of self-defence. His recommendations showed tolerance and changed the nature of wars in Europe, leading to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
As the United States Ambassador to Germany during the rise of Hitler's dominance in 1933, history professor William E. Dodd (Clayton, North Carolina, 28 February of 1869, Virginia, USA, 9 February 1940) would step outside his comfort zone, with sometimes complicated thoughts for a diplomat in times of crisis... One of the most well-known is: Why is it so difficult for world leaders to learn, adjust policies, and avoid the disasters that have occurred so frequently in the past?
The proposal from China…
China calls for a cease-fire in Ukraine while warning Moscow against using nuclear weapons, and insists that "dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out in Ukraine," according to the Asian superpower's government.
The Chinese bid on Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked much debate and suspicion... However, China, the East's forgotten ally during WWII, has taken a cautious stance toward the Kremlin... Mr. Quin Gang, the newly appointed Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, has been tasked with driving the challenger..
Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare China’s new foreign minister and the taming of “wolf warrior” diplomacy
NEWSTATESMAN BY KATIE STALLARD Qin Gang's rise from trusted aide to China's leader to ambassador to the US and then foreign minister reflects the country's increasingly assertive foreign policy, known as "wolf warrior" diplomacy.
“For a long time among the Chinese public, there was a perception that Chinese diplomats were too passive, that they didn’t defend China rigorously enough,” said Peter Martin, author of China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy. Some citizens sent calcium tablets to the foreign ministry, urging diplomats to strengthen their spines. “That started to shift under Hu Jintao [general secretary from 2002 to 2012],” Martin explained. After Xi came to power in 2012, he demanded that China be treated with respect as the world’s second-largest economy and told his diplomats to show “fighting spirit”.
Born in Tianjin, near Beijing, in 1966 – the same year Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution began – Qin seems to have aspired to a career in diplomacy at an early stage. He studied international politics at the foreign ministry’s Institute of International Relations, and got his first job, at 22, in the bureau for diplomatic missions in Beijing, clipping news articles. He joined the foreign ministry in 1992, in the department of west European affairs, and completed three postings to the UK embassy, an experience he likened to winning the lottery.
While little is known about his personal life beyond that he is married with a son (such a dearth of facts is not unusual in China’s opaque political system), Qin’s professional career tracks the country’s re-emergence as a major power. Aged ten when Chairman Mao died in 1976, he joined the foreign ministry as the height of China’s “reform and opening up” period, as the country was pursuing closer relations with the West and membership of the World Trade Organisation (granted in 2001). He was a spokesman in Beijing during the global financial crisis in 2008, which saw China recover faster than the US and question the future of the Western-dominated financial system.
But it was under Xi that Qin rose to higher office. He became head of Xi’s protocol department in 2014, where he accompanied the leader on trips overseas and is said to have paid great attention to ensuring Xi was afforded sufficient respect. As relations with the US deteriorated in subsequent years, Qin’s rise continued. He became vice-minister of foreign affairs in 2018 and ambassador to Washington in 2021, where he served for 17 months before being named foreign minister on 30 December 2022. At 56, he is one of the youngest people ever to hold the post.
While Qin’s reputation as a wolf warrior preceded his arrival in Washington, his approach as ambassador was more restrained. With Joe Biden in the White House, both countries hoped to stabilise relations and slow an apparent spiral towards open confrontation. “He was here to make nice and mend ties, not to do more damage,” said Yun Sun.
Yet there was a limit to how much of a difference he could make, given the parlous state of relations. Qin’s access to senior US officials was reportedly limited, with few authorised to meet him (the White House has denied this). So Qin focused on public diplomacy instead, posting photos on Twitter of meetings with Elon Musk, driving a tractor on a visit to farms in Iowa, and throwing the first pitch at a St Louis Cardinals baseball game. Still, American views of China darkened during his posting. According to the Pew Research Center, 82 per cent of Americans surveyed said they had an unfavourable opinion of China in 2022. This trend was repeated across the democratic world, fuelled by China’s heavy-handed approach to territorial and trade disputes. The demand that diplomats show “fighting spirit” has done little to win China friends abroad.
There are signs that the worst excesses of wolf warrior diplomacy are being tamed. During a politburo study session in May 2021, Xi called for efforts to promote a “trustworthy, lovable and respectable” image of China. In early January, Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman and another notorious wolf warrior, was sidelined – transferred to a department that handles land and maritime borders.
“I think there is a recognition, from the top leadership down, that some of the more extreme examples of wolf warrior diplomacy were damaging China’s international reputation and there was a need for some kind of tactical recalibration,” Martin said. We should not expect its diplomats to adopt a conciliatory tone, but China seems to be trying to balance a robust defence of national interests with outreach to trading partners, as it seeks to rebuild economic growth after the self-imposed isolation of its “zero Covid” policy.
Despite his “Warrior Gang” notoriety, Qin’s appointment fits this new approach. In previous roles, he had “a reputation among European diplomats as someone who was very capable of acting like a wolf warrior in private, dressing down officials and using very assertive language about China’s place in the world,” Martin said. But “he is capable of doing the charm-offensive thing too – addressing think tank audiences, working diplomatic receptions… Xi needs someone like that in charge of China’s diplomatic apparatus”.
Yun Sun said that Qin’s recent experience in the US could also help to steady relations between the two powers. “Qin’s tenure as the ambassador in Washington was clearly aimed at familiarising him with the key issues and personnel in the bilateral relationship,” Sun said. “It also shows Xi wants someone he knows and trusts to handle foreign relations.”
This won’t mean the end of Chinese diplomats berating their foreign counterparts in public, however. As China’s economic prospects look less assured, Xi won’t hesitate to stoke nationalism to redirect domestic discontent towards external enemies. He will not waver in his conviction that the days of hiding and biding are over; that China is a great power once again and must be treated as such.
“There is a refrain that I heard several times in Beijing,” Martin said: “You can’t hide an elephant. In other words, China’s international status has now reached a point where it’s inappropriate, and maybe impossible, for it to have a low-key approach to diplomacy.”
Qin has put this more colourfully, answering a question about increasing defence budgets in 2014 by scoffing that China was “not just a boy scout with a red-tasselled gun”. Besides, he continued, “even a boy scout grows bigger and bigger every year”. Both Beijing’s sense of its status in the world and Qin’s seniority have only increased since. If there is any change to China’s foreign policy in the months ahead, it will be more in style than in substance. An early test will come when the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, meets Qin in Beijing in early February. China’s diplomats may try to avoid picking fights, but that doesn’t mean they have any intention of backing down.
Image: Germán & Co China’s coal plant approvals highest in seven years, research finds
WASHINGTON POST BY CHRISTIAN SHEPHERD, FEBRUARY 26, 2023 China last year approved the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants since 2015, a new report has found, showing how the world’s largest emitter still relies on a fossil fuel that scientists say must be quickly phased out to avoid the worst consequences of a warming atmosphere.
It also underscores the way China is at odds with the global shift away from greenhouse gas-emitting forms of energy — and from its own pledges to reduce its emissions.
The rush to build new coal-fired projects across the country meant that authorities granted permits for 106 gigawatts of capacity across 82 locations in 2022, the highest number in seven years and four times higher than in 2021.
This is according to new report from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Finland-based nongovernmental organization, and the Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit that tracks fossil fuel infrastructure.
“The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months,” said Flora Champenois, research analyst at GEM.
…“China continues to be the glaring exception to the ongoing global decline in coal plant development,” she said.
With coal surge, China puts energy security and growth before climate…
Not all those projects will necessarily materialize. But local governments appear to be moving as quickly as possible, with 50 gigawatts of construction now underway.
Already responsible for about half of the world’s coal production and consumption, the new facilities in China are equivalent to about six times the amount of total coal capacity added in the rest of the world.
Becoming the main holdout in a global trend to phase out coal runs counter to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s effort to cast China as a climate leader. In 2020, he pledged to peak the country’s carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, a move hailed as a breakthrough by environmentalists who hoped Xi would play a more active role in limiting the Earth’s warming.
Coming as the Trump administration finalized the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, some wondered whether Beijing, not Washington, might lead a global transition toward renewable energy sources.
Modeling suggests that hitting the Paris agreement goal of limiting rising temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels is only possible if green energy adoption happens much faster and greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere.
China has made strides toward enabling a faster global energy transition. It pledged to stop building coal-fired power plants overseas. Massive installations of wind turbines and solar panels — 125 gigawatts worth last year — as well as surging adoption of electric vehicles have bolstered a sense that Beijing is committed to embracing carbon-reducing technologies.
But undercutting China’s progress toward a low-carbon economy is its inability to quit coal, which is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. Xi has said that the country will begin to “phase down” coal consumption from 2026 onward, but he has not said when new builds will stop.
As China mines more coal, levels of a more potent greenhouse gas soar…
Preliminary data suggested China’s carbon dioxide output rose by 1.3 percent last year compared to 2021, reversing what had been the longest decline of emissions in recent history as sporadic coronavirus lockdowns slowed economic activity for around a year up until the summer of 2022, according to an analysis by CREA released earlier this month.
That uptick was primarily due to a record 3.3 percent rise in coal consumption and came even as output of steel and cement — the two largest users of the fossil fuel outside of power production — fell significantly. (CREA’s lead analyst, Lauri Myllyvirta, isn’t sure the numbers add up, because industry specific figures suggested to him that less coal was used than reported. That uncertainty is in itself troubling, he said.)
Coordinating with China on climate has proved difficult for the United States and European nations as negotiations are routinely interrupted by geopolitics. Beijing suspended talks in August after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims as its own. Communication resumed three months later after a face-to-face meeting between President Biden and Xi in November.
But the main obstacles to China taking a faster path toward peaking its carbon dioxide emissions are domestic. Repeated electricity shortages and turbulent global energy markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have heightened the Chinese government’s long-standing concerns over the need for secure, reliable sources of power.
And then there is the problem of producing enough electricity to meet the growing demands of 1.4 billion people who on average only use about 40 percent of what a United States resident uses.
Experts believe China’s leadership considers coal essential to making sure that the lights stay on and factories keep humming even when energy systems are unexpectedly disrupted, as happened in August when an unprecedented heat wave caused hydropower shortages.
How China, the world’s top polluter, avoids paying for climate damage
Building power plants is also a way for local governments to deliver a short-term boost to the economy by creating jobs and construction contracts, even if the projects are unlikely to make money in the long run.
Officials sometimes defend the decision to construct new plants as a necessary evil to better distribute energy production, which doesn’t necessarily mean the power sector will use more coal or emit more carbon dioxide overall.
Even if that is true, building hundreds of brand-new coal power plants will make meeting China’s climate targets harder and costlier as the coal lobby’s interest in protecting their investments grows, the report’s authors noted.
“The worst-case scenario is that the pressure to make use of the newly built coal power plants … leads to a moderation in China’s clean energy build out,” they wrote. “This could mean a major increase in China’s CO2 emissions over this decade, undermining the global climate effort, and could even put China’s climate commitments in danger.”