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Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week, have China's emissions speaked?

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Speaker 1: Everything about China tends to be big, including its planet

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Speaker 1: heating impact. China is, after all, the world's largest consumer

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Speaker 1: of coal and produces nearly a third of global carbon

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Speaker 1: dioxide emissions, and that's why what China does makes a

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Speaker 1: big difference to the world's climate trajectory, even more so

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Speaker 1: than what the US does. In recent years, China's actions

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Speaker 1: have tended more towards clean energy than fossil fuels. It

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Speaker 1: deploys more solar power than the rest of the world combined,

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Speaker 1: and about half of all new cars sold in the

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Speaker 1: country are electric. But the conversation about China tends to

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Speaker 1: miss a lot of nuance. With the US under President

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Speaker 1: Ronald Trump taking big steps to reverse climate policies, it's

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Speaker 1: even more important to understand what China is doing. That's

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Speaker 1: why this week we're speaking to Louriy mulawirta co founder

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Speaker 1: of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air

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Speaker 1: and one of the foremost experts on all things climate

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Speaker 1: and energy in China. He recently published an analysis for

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Speaker 1: Carbon Brief that says China's emissions have peaked and they're

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Speaker 1: going into reverse, not because of a financial crisis or

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, but because there are structural reasons for it.

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Speaker 1: And it's the kind of good news on the climate

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Speaker 1: front that has become rare these days. Calling the peak

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Speaker 1: is not easy, whether that's oil consumption or COOTO emissions.

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Speaker 1: Often you can only be sure years after the peak

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Speaker 1: has passed. So how confident is Lowry that this really

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Speaker 1: is the peak? What's behind it? And how will the

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Speaker 1: trade war affect China's climate and energy policies in the

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Speaker 1: years to come. Larry, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with the big picture and situate the listener

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Speaker 1: on where China is. Obviously, it's a big manufacturing powerhouse.

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Speaker 1: For the last three decades of the missions have been

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Speaker 1: growing really quickly. It is now the world's second largest economy.

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Speaker 1: But what are its climate targets?

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Speaker 2: So China's been pledging climate targets since the Copenhagen Climate Conference,

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Speaker 2: which was more than fifteen years ago now. So the

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Speaker 2: first quantititive targets that they pledged were for twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: and then another set of targets was set for twenty thirty.

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Speaker 2: That's the current target year for China. The targets were

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Speaker 2: announced in twenty twenty one. The headline target that China

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Speaker 2: has been setting is carbon intensity so CO two emissions

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Speaker 2: from the energy sector per unit of GDP, which, when

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Speaker 2: your GDP is growing fast, is of course a flattering

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Speaker 2: way of setting targets because even if your emissions are

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Speaker 2: going up let's say five percent in a given year,

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Speaker 2: if you clock ten percent GDP growth, then you can

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Speaker 2: say that you got a reduction in your carbon intensity.

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Speaker 2: So the target for twenty thirty is to reduce CO

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Speaker 2: two intensity by more than sixty five percent from the

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Speaker 2: two thousand and five levels, so over a period of

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Speaker 2: twenty five years, to make that a bit more tangible.

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Speaker 2: When the target was set in twenty twenty one, it

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Speaker 2: looked like it would allow pretty much businesses usual CO

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Speaker 2: two emissions growth of one to two percent per year

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Speaker 2: until twenty thirty. What happened, though, is that during the

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Speaker 2: zero COVID period, China's economic strategy shifted towards emphasizing manufacturing

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Speaker 2: very heavily, which caused a spiking emissions. And now that

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Speaker 2: twenty thirty target is in fact very meaningful, if not challenging, one,

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Speaker 2: So from the current level, emissions will have to fall

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Speaker 2: in absolute terms out to twenty thirty in order to

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Speaker 2: meet that target.

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Speaker 1: And then it does have an absolute target two, which

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Speaker 1: is to try and peak carbon emissions by twenty thirty.

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Speaker 1: So if it does both things, then China may be

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Speaker 1: on track, but right now it is quite off track

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Speaker 1: now in terms of where things are. Specifically, over the

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Speaker 1: past year, You've done an analysis looking at china CO

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Speaker 1: two emissions and they've been down by a significant percentage,

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Speaker 1: and that tends to only happen during times of financial crisis.

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Speaker 1: Is China in a financial crisis and is that why

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Speaker 1: the emissions are Down't just talk us through what have

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Speaker 1: you seen over the past year?

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Speaker 2: For sure, So, as I said, China's emissions went up

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Speaker 2: rapidly during the zero COVID years from twenty twenty out

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Speaker 2: to twenty twenty three. But at the same time, China's

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Speaker 2: clean energy industry is boomed because of the emphasis of manufacturing,

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Speaker 2: because of government drive togel kinds of projects and investment moving,

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Speaker 2: because of a shift of investment from real estate to

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Speaker 2: the clean energy industries. And so because of all of that,

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Speaker 2: China's clean energy additions have reached a level that no

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Speaker 2: one really expected. The past twelve months were the first

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Speaker 2: time that all of the growth in electricity demand was

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Speaker 2: covered by clean energy, while electricity demand grew above average rates.

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Speaker 2: So this is the first time that power sector emissions

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Speaker 2: and total emissions have gone down without the cause being

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Speaker 2: the global financial crisis, zero COVID, something else that would

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Speaker 2: lead to a drop or slowdown in electricity demand. There are,

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Speaker 2: of course economic headwinds in related to the trade war,

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Speaker 2: related to the long tail of the economic impacts from

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Speaker 2: zero COVID, and so on. But the key point is

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Speaker 2: that over the past twelve months, electricity demand growth was

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Speaker 2: still above average, so whatever was happening in some sectors

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Speaker 2: of the economy didn't result in a slowdown in edage

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Speaker 2: demand or electricity demand.

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Speaker 1: How much have emissions fallen by?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have transmissions over the past twelve months

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Speaker 2: are down by about one percent. So it's significant enough,

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Speaker 2: especially compared with the rapid road of several percent per

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Speaker 2: year in the past few years, to mark a change

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Speaker 2: in the trend. But it also means that if there

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Speaker 2: is a surprise like severe drought and heat wave over

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Speaker 2: the summer, that could still cause a spike that would

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Speaker 2: cause emissions to top the previous peak.

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Speaker 1: How certain are we that this peak might be the

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Speaker 1: peak and we might not just see a rise next year.

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Speaker 2: I think it's quite certain that the key trends driving

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Speaker 2: this structural reduction emissions will continue this year for the

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Speaker 2: next few years. There are two key uncertainties. The first

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Speaker 2: one is will the clean energy growth continue, so trying

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Speaker 2: to change the price is paid to a new renewable

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Speaker 2: power projects earlier this year. The change is kicking in

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Speaker 2: in the summer of this year, and so the industry

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Speaker 2: has been quite optimistic that they can keep the development going,

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Speaker 2: but it does create uncertainty. So that's one thing that

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Speaker 2: we need to be mindful of. The other one is

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Speaker 2: what happens with energy demand growth, and so the expectation

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Speaker 2: would be that if China's aim of weathering the current

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Speaker 2: trade tensions and so on by stimulating consumption is successful

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Speaker 2: and so on, then energy mind growth would be at

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Speaker 2: or even below the historical trends. But of course, if

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Speaker 2: there is another decision to reserve to constructions Team Most,

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Speaker 2: for example, then we could see faster energy de mind growth,

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Speaker 2: and that could also upset that big.

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Speaker 1: Before we get into the details of how exactly China

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Speaker 1: came to this point, Let's just talk about how reliable

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Speaker 1: these numbers are. You know, how do you know whether

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Speaker 1: we can trust China's carbon accounting, its renewables figures, it's

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Speaker 1: coal deployment, and what are the big holes that are

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Speaker 1: still there in the data? Right?

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Speaker 2: So I would really point to do things in terms

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Speaker 2: of how to think about China statistical data. So one

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Speaker 2: of them is that there are always uncertainties for a

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Speaker 2: big country with a complex, rapidly changing economy, and simply

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Speaker 2: in terms of the quality of the statistics, China statistics

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Speaker 2: are much better than many other emerging economies. The other

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Speaker 2: thing is intentional statistical manipulation, which does happen in China,

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Speaker 2: and it does happen in China more than just about

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Speaker 2: or let's say most other kind is simply because China

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Speaker 2: set so many quantitative targets, So whenever there's a quantitative

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Speaker 2: target to do something, the statistical statistics tend to show

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Speaker 2: that it happened, whether or not it did. So the

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Speaker 2: quality of the statistics has been improving. This kind of

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Speaker 2: statistical manipulation has gotten harder to do and less blatant.

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Speaker 2: Than it used to be, but it's something that one

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Speaker 2: always has to be mindful of. So the way I

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Speaker 2: evaluate the robustness of different statistics is looking at okay,

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Speaker 2: so have these statistics shown trends that the government wouldn't

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Speaker 2: want to display? Electricity statistics are famed for doing that,

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Speaker 2: so they're one of the indicators that we know that

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Speaker 2: China's policy makers themselves have used when economic numbers have

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Speaker 2: looked too good to be true, and so they've shown

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Speaker 2: slowdowns when the government wouldn't like there to be a slowdown,

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Speaker 2: or they've shown rapid growth the government wouldn't like there

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Speaker 2: to beat rapid growth. That said, over the past twelve months,

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Speaker 2: there has been very little with any pressure on China's

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Speaker 2: provinces or enterprises to do actually show that emissions are

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Speaker 2: going down, So there isn't much of a reason to

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Speaker 2: think that there would be that kind of distortions.

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Speaker 1: Right now, let's look at what is causing the decline

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Speaker 1: and emissions. You talked about the large amount of solar

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Speaker 1: and wind power and battery capacity that China is installing.

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Speaker 1: How much renewables is it? In numbers?

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Speaker 2: The numbers are pretty hard to get your head around,

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Speaker 2: so we're talking more than three hundred gigawottes of wind

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Speaker 2: and solar per year. The US has less than two

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Speaker 2: hundred gigawatts of solar installed in total, so China's additions

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Speaker 2: in one year exceeded that. And last year was a

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Speaker 2: record year for solar in the US as well, with

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Speaker 2: fifty k coasttas so turned it almost five times. In

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Speaker 2: terms of power generation, the amount of solar and wind

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Speaker 2: added in twenty twenty four was enough to generate the

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Speaker 2: entire electricity consumption of the UK, and so most importantly,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about five percent of China's own electricity demand

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Speaker 2: added in clean power generation the year, which is the

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Speaker 2: average historical growth rate of electricity demand. So that crossover

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Speaker 2: where these last editions start to actually cover electricity demand

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Speaker 2: growth is what makes a turnaround in emissions possible. And

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Speaker 2: in terms of evs, they're approaching fifty percent of all

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Speaker 2: passenger vehicles sold, also gaining share rapidly in heavier commercial vehicles,

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Speaker 2: where the next breakthrough is expected. The same is happening

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Speaker 2: now for electricity storage. So there's almost two hundred gigawads

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Speaker 2: of pumped hydro storage in operation and under construction and

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Speaker 2: Just last year, about thirty gig awards of battery storage

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Speaker 2: was added in China. So to put things into scale,

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Speaker 2: China's peak demand is just over one thousand gig awads,

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Speaker 2: So when we start to talk about a few percent

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Speaker 2: of that in battery storage added per year, then that

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Speaker 2: starts to definitely make a dent in how much gus

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Speaker 2: or coal fired power you need to cover those peak demands.

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Speaker 1: So is this just a power sector story, then that

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Speaker 1: emissions are falling because electricity consumption is getting cleaner with

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Speaker 1: all the solar and wind and energy storage that is

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Speaker 1: coming online.

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Speaker 2: The other big thing that's happening in China besides clean

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Speaker 2: electricity generation is electrification, and that's happening. Of course, we

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Speaker 2: already talked about transportation, but it's also happening in industry.

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Speaker 2: It's also happening in buildings. So that means that for

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Speaker 2: quite a while already all of the growth in emissions

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Speaker 2: has been coming from the electric this sector because you

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Speaker 2: get growth energy demanding the other sectors, but they're shifting

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Speaker 2: to electricity, so the use of direct use of fossil

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Speaker 2: fuels in the other sectors has been falling. The third

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Speaker 2: thing that has been happening is a dramatic slowdown in

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Speaker 2: the construction sector. So construction, especially real estate and construction

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Speaker 2: and infrastructure have been a massive source of GDP growth

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Speaker 2: and emissions growth for China over the past couple of

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Speaker 2: decades because those are very energy and carbon intensive sectors,

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Speaker 2: so all of the cement and steel consumed by those

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Speaker 2: sectors has been a major driver of emissions. Cement production

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Speaker 2: has come down by more than twenty percent of its

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Speaker 2: peak in twenty twenty one, so that has been a

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Speaker 2: major part of this story in emissions starting to come down. Simply,

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Speaker 2: the process emissions from cement made up almost ten percent

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Speaker 2: of China's C two emissions ad it speak. And for

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Speaker 2: the steel sector, the trends are slightly more confusing because

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Speaker 2: manufacturing has started to use more steel, but steel consumption

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Speaker 2: for construction has come down dramatically, and overall steel consumption

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Speaker 2: looks like it's splittawed or starting to come down, and

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Speaker 2: there's a huge opportunity to shift to more steel recycling,

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Speaker 2: which would reduce the energy demand for steel making significantly,

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Speaker 2: even if total production stays flat.

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Speaker 1: And so that is an interesting story because we typically

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Speaker 1: hear of the renewable story in China of the electric

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Speaker 1: car story in China, but just put the steel sector

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Speaker 1: in context here and what this move towards recycling steel,

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Speaker 1: which is mostly driven by electricity, and this electricity is

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Speaker 1: becoming cleaner could do two not just speaking which might

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Speaker 1: have happened, but the decline that has to happen afterwards,

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Speaker 1: because China has to meet not just as twenty thirty goals,

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Speaker 1: but it has the goal to reach common neutrality by

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Speaker 1: twenty sixty. So it must start to decline pretty quickly.

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Speaker 2: Right, So, first of all, the steel sector in China

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Speaker 2: is of course massive. China makes more than half of

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Speaker 2: the world's steel, and energy use for the steel making

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Speaker 2: is the largest source of emissions if you include the

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Speaker 2: electricity use. Even without the electricity use, it's almost a

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Speaker 2: fifth of China's emissions. And so the opportunity here is

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Speaker 2: that as long as China's steel demand was growing rapidly,

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Speaker 2: the only way to meet that demand was to produce

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Speaker 2: a lot of primary steel. Because if your demand is

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Speaker 2: going up five ten percent per year, then whatever vehicles

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Speaker 2: and buildings and so on that are coming to the

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Speaker 2: end of their life so built decades ago, our a

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Speaker 2: tiny fraction of your current demand. But once demand plateaus

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Speaker 2: and a lot more buildings and and so and start

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Speaker 2: to come to the end of their life, the amount

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Speaker 2: of scrap steel available for recycling or potentially available for

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Speaker 2: recycling starts to go up fast as a percentage of

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Speaker 2: your steel demand. That shift hasn't really happened in China yet.

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Speaker 2: The share of electric arc steel making, so the kind

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Speaker 2: of steel making that uses scrap as the primary input,

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Speaker 2: has stagnated and is in fact missing the target for

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Speaker 2: this year. And that's because it's too cheap or too

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Speaker 2: cost competitive in China to make steel out of iron

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Speaker 2: ore and coking coal. But that's something that I expect

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Speaker 2: to be fixed because, as I said, the target for

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Speaker 2: this year is being missed and it clearly needs a

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Speaker 2: further push.

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Speaker 1: There's also just the electrification story of China, which has

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Speaker 1: been remarkable. So over this century, China has almost tripled

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Speaker 1: the share of energy that it consumes coming from electricity

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Speaker 1: about ten percent to nearly thirty percent now, and in

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Speaker 1: that same period, Western economies have largely remained flat at

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Speaker 1: about eighteen to twenty percent of their energy coming from electricity.

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Speaker 1: With the trajectory that you have outlined in terms of

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Speaker 1: deployment of wind and solar, but also some coal, and

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Speaker 1: we should talk about that. And all this electrification of

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Speaker 1: transport even now industry that might happen with steel. Are

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Speaker 1: we starting to see China becoming an electro state.

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Speaker 2: I've been a bit skeptical of that broad categorization because

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Speaker 2: there are still at least pockets of industry where electrification

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Speaker 2: trend isn't clear. But electrification is certainly a big part

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Speaker 2: of the strategy for transportation for industry. So there was

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Speaker 2: a time that shifting from coal to GAUS fossil gas

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Speaker 2: was a big part of the strategy, especially for addressing

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Speaker 2: air pollution. But because of energy security concerns, the emphasis

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Speaker 2: on shifting to cars has declined, and also because of

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Speaker 2: economic considerations, and so I think electrification will become even

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Speaker 2: more clearly the focus.

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Speaker 1: And so what makes you pause if all the numbers

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Speaker 1: are pointing towards electrification, and this is not just in

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Speaker 1: the transport sector, but also in buildings and also in industry,

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Speaker 1: and the fact that even steel, which is a liguard,

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Speaker 1: might start to catch up, why do you think the

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Speaker 1: electro state thesis is not yet one that is the

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Speaker 1: trajectory China is ticking.

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Speaker 2: I think that's the trajectory for everyone. It's quite obvious.

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Speaker 2: It's just that it's not clearly stated as a policy

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Speaker 2: end point. But certainly China has been moving much faster

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Speaker 2: than just about everyone else.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of my conversation with LOURR.

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Speaker 1: Mulwerta after this short break. And hey, if you're enjoying

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Speaker 1: this episode, please take a moment to rate and review

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your feedback really

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Speaker 1: matters and helps new listeners discover the show. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: So far, we've looked at the good story, which is

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Speaker 1: renewables are helping power emissions decline and things electrifying, so

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Speaker 1: that means emissions will decline on other sectors. But when

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Speaker 1: you look at the numbers, there are currently sectors where

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Speaker 1: emissions are growing. What are those.

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Speaker 2: The main sector with a clear expectation that coal consumption

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Speaker 2: and emissions will go up is the chemical sector. China

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Speaker 2: has this long standing program of building a coal to

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Speaker 2: chemicals industry, which is basically petro chemicals industry using coal

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Speaker 2: as the feedstock to produce synthetic gas, synthetic liquid fuels,

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Speaker 2: and chemicals industry outputs, and this is incredibly carbon intensive.

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Speaker 2: It's even more much more intensive than making the same

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Speaker 2: stuff out of crude oil. So this is an area

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Speaker 2: where a massive amount of capacity is being built to

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Speaker 2: process coal into chemicals. The utilization of that capacity has

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Speaker 2: remained quite low because it's struggling with profitability. The posy

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Speaker 2: makers are quite clear that this is an energy security

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Speaker 2: play or CITYPM White goal planning for extreme scenarios, so

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Speaker 2: basically making sure that China has the capacity to keep

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Speaker 2: its economy working if maritime transportation of oil and gas

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Speaker 2: is blocked as part of a major conflict with the US.

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Speaker 1: Given the macroeconomic situation right now, which even before Trump

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Speaker 1: came to power was the case where the Chinese economy

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Speaker 1: was slowing down, plus the Chinese population has started to decline,

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Speaker 1: is there some contribution to the speaking of emissions that

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Speaker 1: is coming from these two factors.

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Speaker 2: You can always talk about the counterfactual, which is if

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Speaker 2: we were still seeing seven percent ten percent GDP growth

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Speaker 2: like two decades ago, then of course even the current

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Speaker 2: massive clean energy additions would fall way short of covering demand.

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Speaker 2: But overall, the slowdown of the economy is something that

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Speaker 2: has been expected for a long time, so slowing down

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Speaker 2: to maybe five percent GDP growth in the first half

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Speaker 2: of this decade and towards four percent in the second half.

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Speaker 2: China does have target or seating Pin maybe personally has

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Speaker 2: a target of doubling GDP per capiture from twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: to twenty thirty five, which means you have to maintain

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Speaker 2: over four point five percent GDP growth for the remainder

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Speaker 2: of the period. That's very clearly the red line for

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Speaker 2: the policy makers, and that's why they stuck with an

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Speaker 2: around five percent GDP target for this year as well.

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Speaker 1: And what about China's population, given has been falling by

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Speaker 1: about a million people each year for the past three years,

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Speaker 1: is that contributing to a decline in emissions?

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Speaker 2: Where that definitely comes in is the real estate and

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Speaker 2: infrastructure sector. So if you had a lot of population

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Speaker 2: growth contributing to needing more real estate and more infrastructure

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Speaker 2: and so on, then of course that would be a

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Speaker 2: different situation.

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Speaker 1: And then if you look at the trade war that

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Speaker 1: is ongoing right now, there is something that we can

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Speaker 1: learn from the past where in the first Trumpet minutustration,

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Speaker 1: China responded to the tariffs that were deployed by the

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Speaker 1: US by increasing its manufacturing capacity to try and offset

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Speaker 1: the decline that it would have in exports to the

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Speaker 1: US by sending those exports to other countries. Do you

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Speaker 1: expect China to have a similar trajectory, given this time

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Speaker 1: around the tariffs are even higher.

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Speaker 2: A big part of the response during the first Trump

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Speaker 2: administration was in fact domestic steamulus to the construction sector,

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Speaker 2: very much unannounced and only really visible after the fact.

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Speaker 2: This time, what Chinese policy makers are saying is that

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Speaker 2: they want to stimulate consumption so household spending power, instead

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Speaker 2: of relying on these kind of stimulus which has been

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Speaker 2: dubbed low quality by the Saging administration. And this is

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Speaker 2: also very much a lines with CIEs overall economic guidelines

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Speaker 2: of common prosperity, aiming for a large middle class and

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Speaker 2: so on. So there is a happy development here that

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Speaker 2: could take place where this in fact pushes along China's

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Speaker 2: own ambitions for changing the structure of the economy. If

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Speaker 2: you're used to the environmentalist messaging of consumption is the

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Speaker 2: root of all evil, it might sound a terrible idea

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Speaker 2: to increase consumption, but the point here for emissions is

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Speaker 2: that household consumption is in fact much less carbon intensive

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Speaker 2: than the construction and manufacturing industries, which have been driving

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Speaker 2: growth in the past. So if more of the spending

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Speaker 2: power in the economy was directed to households, they would

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Speaker 2: spend much more of that on services like healthcare or

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Speaker 2: range of other services. And even the manufacturing that caters

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Speaker 2: to households is much less energy intensive then the manufacturing

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Speaker 2: that caters to the construction sector, for example.

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Speaker 1: And what about China's climate diplomacy Given the past decade,

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Speaker 1: we've seen the US flip every time there's been a

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Speaker 1: change in the president, but there have been moments where

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Speaker 1: US and China have cooperated. But now that the US

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Speaker 1: is firmly with the Trump administration not going to be

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Speaker 1: part of climate diplomacy and maybe even play the role

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Speaker 1: of spoiler, how is China responding to this moment?

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Speaker 2: I think two things have changed. If you think to

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Speaker 2: Obama's announcement in twenty fourteen, where the two leaders announced

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Speaker 2: their new climate targets together, so one of them is

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Speaker 2: the entire political dynamic in both countries. It's very hard

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Speaker 2: to see that there would be any kind of political

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Speaker 2: upside for seeing in the current atmosphere from anouncing something

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Speaker 2: like this together with a US president, because that would

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Speaker 2: be just seen as caving and being weak. So China

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Speaker 2: has been very clear that their ambition is unchanging, is

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Speaker 2: not influenced by pressure from others. And the other thing

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Speaker 2: that has really changed is that clean energy industry, including exports,

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Speaker 2: has become such a key driver of China's economy that

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Speaker 2: China has a much stronger self interest now in also

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Speaker 2: keeping a global and transition going. So just in the

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Speaker 2: past few years, China has made a massive investment in

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Speaker 2: manufacturing capacity for solar, for batteries for evs and so on,

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Speaker 2: and if the global transition styled, that would mean that

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Speaker 2: quite a bit of that capacity would go unused and

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Speaker 2: cost financial distress. That said, this hasn't really translated into

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Speaker 2: multilateral diplomacy from China yet, So China, for example, didn't

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Speaker 2: put its weight behind the target of drippling renewables and

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Speaker 2: doubling efficiency. So this is where China still needs to

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Speaker 2: get more comfortable with taking the initiative and in fact

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Speaker 2: persuading other countries to do more. And I think here

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Speaker 2: things are really going to change once China's leaders are

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Speaker 2: secure in thinking that they've turned the shape on emissions,

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Speaker 2: They're going to be a lot more comfortable because they

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Speaker 2: don't have to be defensive about their emission's growth anymore.

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Speaker 1: If this is the peak, how quickly will we see

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Speaker 1: a decline or will it be a slow plateau like

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Speaker 1: it has been for coal consumption over the past decade.

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Speaker 2: There's certainly a risk of China getting stuck at pretty

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Speaker 2: much current levels of emissions in the absence of setting

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Speaker 2: ambitious emission reduction targets for twenty thirty five. I think

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Speaker 2: one key concern is that wants the coal industry starts

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Speaker 2: to see their demand go down in absolute terms, especially

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Speaker 2: as they've been investing in new coal mines, new coal

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Speaker 2: fart power plants recently. That could generate a lot of pushback.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, keeping emissions at a plateau

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Speaker 2: would mean upsetting the growth ambitions of the cleaner engine industry,

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Speaker 2: So there's going to be pushed from both sides. So

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Speaker 2: the targets that China's going to set this year, first

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Speaker 2: in its new Paris Commitment and then in the five

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Speaker 2: year plan that is due to be released next year,

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Speaker 2: will be key in calibrating that level of ambition.

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Speaker 1: And finally, What do people in China think about the

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Speaker 1: US right now, which is the world's largest producer of

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Speaker 1: oil and gas, has a ton of fossil fuels still

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Speaker 1: available for it to burn, but it is not really

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Speaker 1: deploying electricity technologies which are more efficient and economically cheaper. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it is doubling down on fossil fuels, especially under this administration.

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Speaker 1: Do they see the US losing out on the future

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Speaker 1: of energy, even as it might be currently the global

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Speaker 1: energy superpower.

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Speaker 2: I was in fact in Beijing when the US election

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Speaker 2: results were coming in, and I can say that in

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Speaker 2: a room full of Chinese people, I was the only

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Speaker 2: one who was trying to check my phone under the

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Speaker 2: table for the results, So people weren't paying as much

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Speaker 2: attention as Americans might expect. And also when under the

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Speaker 2: Biden administration the US was starting to actually make an airport,

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Speaker 2: I think the reaction from Chinese experts was one of skepticism,

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00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 2: or at least one of wait and see, like see

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00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: whether the US is again actually pull this off, because

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Speaker 2: there is a sense that the US is so far behind,

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Speaker 2: especially in terms of manufacturing, and it just doesn't have

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Speaker 2: the kind of ecosystem and the let's get it done

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Speaker 2: spirit that China has. So currently, I think Chinese experts

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Speaker 2: and Chinese policymakers are very comfortable and secure in thinking

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Speaker 2: that they have the lead in these markets and technology areas,

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Speaker 2: and it would actually be really good to get some

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Speaker 2: more competition. So if there was more of a sense

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00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 2: that others are at least making an effort to catch

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Speaker 2: up and put up some competition, that would keep China

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Speaker 2: moving faster.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Laurie, thank you so much, and thank you

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Speaker 1: for listening to zero. Now for the sound of the week.

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Speaker 1: That was the sound of a bucket wheel excavator used

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00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: for open pit coal mining, and it's essentially a shovel

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00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: as big as a skyscraper. If you liked this episode,

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00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: please take a moment to rate and review the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, Share this episode with a

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Speaker 1: friend or with a China skeptic. This episode was produced

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00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: by Oscar Boyd. Bloomberg's head of podcast is Sage Bowman

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00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: and head of Talk is Brendan newnham. Our theme music

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00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: is composed by Wonderly Special. Thanks to Jessica Beck, eleanor

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00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: Harrison Dengate, Samersadi, Moses Andam and Shawan Wagner, I'm Makshatrati

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00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: back soon