China raced ahead building renewable energy last year, installing more wind and solar power than ever before and continuing to leave all other countries in the dust.
That's akin to building full-size nuclear plants in one year. The installations meant China surpassed a goal, six years early, of having 1, gigawatts from renewables by , a benchmark Chinese President Xi Jinping set five years ago.
The scale of the advance is important because at the same time, China remains the country that currently contributes the most to climate change, relying heavily on burning coal to make electricity, cement and for manufacturing.
According to Carbon Brief, China's carbon dioxide emissions, which have been rising, actually fell slightly when you compare the last 10 months of with the same time the year before. It's too early to say whether this marks an important turning point for the planet. The U. It amounted to less than China β gigawatts of solar and wind β according to preliminary numbers from the American Clean Power Association. Not only does China build and use a lot of clean energy, it's the world's most important exporter of equipment to make it.
It's the top supplier of batteries, solar panels and wind turbines, plus the electrolyzers used to make hydrogen fuel, according to the International Energy Agency. The vast scale of Chinese manufacturing has lowered the cost of solar and wind, which are cheaper ways to make electricity in most cases now than fossil fuels.
