How Xi sparked China's electricity revolution

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

68% : "They actually opened renewable energy to market pricing, confident that it was cost-competitive with traditional energy.
62% : But it is China that now leads the latest global technology revolution in electrification and renewable energy, say analysts from US-based energy think-tank RMI and other independent research groups.
60% : China remains the world's biggest greenhouse gas producer and its power sector emissions reached a new high last year, driven by a rise in coal consumption.
57% : "Since I announced China's goals for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality five years ago, we have built the world's largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system as well as the largest and most complete new energy industrial chain," Xi told a UN-convened virtual meeting of world leaders in late April.
57% : According to corporate announcements and financial statements compiled by Climate Energy Finance, a Sydney-based research group, Chinese companies have, since the start of 2023, committed $156bn in outbound foreign direct investment across more than 200 clean technology transactions.
56% : The network of high-speed rail spans 45,000km -- five times the size of the EU's -- and is forecast to expand to about 60,000km by 2030.
56% : But the introduction of competitive electricity markets -- putting fossil fuels and renewables in direct price competition -- is viewed as a necessary step in the gradual reduction of electricity fuelled by coal and gas over coming decades.
54% : Beyond energy security, electrification -- the process of swapping processes and technologies reliant on fossil fuels with electrically powered alternatives -- will play a critical role in efforts to tackle climate change.
54% : Yet following Xi's dual pledges that China's carbon emissions would peak before 2030 and the country would achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the fuel is expected to over time be used more and more as a back up for a renewables-dominated electricity system.
54% : "This trade war has really emphasised the whole point of energy security and electrification because one of the most-traded commodities in the world is fossil fuels," says Tim Buckley, director of CEF.
53% : Beijing has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the clean tech sector, both to state-owned developers and the private sector, almost five times as much as the US and 15 times Japan.
52% : "The world has underestimated how much the cost of renewable energy has come down in China," says Yanmei Xie, an independent expert on Chinese industrial policy.
48% : This effort is expanding Beijing's political and economic influence globally just as the Trump administration pursues a hard decoupling from Chinese supply chains and roils global trade.
26% : And while both sides have weaknesses and choke points across their industrial supply chains, many experts believe that Trump and his cast of close advisers have miscalculated the extent of Beijing's preparation for this crisis.
25% : China's commitment to fossil fuels is a mixed picture.

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