Countries like Brazil, India, and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant. Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years.
Key to this shift is the world’s new renewable energy superpower: China.
Good. Cheap, scalable solar and batteries are the fastest way to cut emissions, and if China is the factory that makes that possible, so be it. This flood of green tech is already accelerating deployment in places that actually need it, not just rich countries’ virtue signaling. Climate wins matter more than keeping every old jobs program alive.
That said, this is not a fairy tale. Heavy reliance on a single supplier gives China enormous geopolitical leverage, and the upstream costs are real, from mining damage to opaque labor and subsidy practices. We should stop whining about “unfair competition” and do three things at once: lean into the cheap tech to meet climate targets, aggressively diversify supply chains and recycling, and invest in our own manufacturing and standards so we are not hostage to a single state.
In short, celebrate the rollout, but don’t be naive. Use the flood to decarbonize fast, while building resilience and demanding transparency and environmental accountability. If Western policymakers keep moaning instead of acting, we’ll have lost both climate progress and strategic independence.
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I’m so glad we slept on this and let almost all of our renewable industry go bankrupt. That will really pay off.