It’s almost like China’s climate action was just window dressing. It seems to be unraveling…
China’s National Carbon Trading Scheme was supposed to go into full operation later this month, but now it’s been cut back by two-thirds. Instead of burdening 6,000 companies it will only afflict 2,000. And only a week ago, the Chinese government suddenly axed solar and wind subsidies, with the cuts starting just six weeks from now. Oilprice calls it “a crushing blow for wind and solar”. In a devastating move, there are even demands that solar plants have to sell electricity at the same price as coal power. The cruelty!
China produces three quarters of all the world’s solar panels, having subsidized-the-heck out of the global industry, exploited slave labor and driven the US leaders out of production.
Judging by the Wall St Journal story — in the last two months the paradigm has shifted from Environmental control to Economic priority. Perhaps solar power wasn’t much use for building ballistic missile submarines?
How different things would be if solar was actually cheaper than coal…
China to stop subsidies for new solar power stations, onshore wind projects in 2021
BEIJING, June 11 (Reuters) – China will no longer grant subsidies for new solar power stations, distributed solar projects by commercial users or onshore wind projects from the central government budget in 2021, the state planner said in a statement on Friday.
And now solar power can only sell at the same price as coal power? Really?
Electricity generated from the new projects will be sold at local benchmark coal-fired power prices or at market prices, the statement said.
Probably the reason for the solar subsidy cuts is because the bill had heated up to $42 billion by mid last year. And those subsidies are largely paid by electricity consumer serfs who weren’t too happy*.
China Delivers Crushing Blow To Wind, Solar Power
June 11, 2021, Oilprice
The country’s finance ministry had previously committed to granting 57 percent more subsidies to solar power projects this year, although it did slash subsidies for wind power.
Yet the reasons for the cut—and this year’s end of subsidies—were not exactly altruistic. China has amassed a massive debt pile in subsidies owed to wind and solar companies as a result of its previously generous support for new projects. The pile, according to a Bloomberg report from July last year, is worth about $42 billion.
Given the size of some of the cuts the Wall St Journal headline is tame:
China Tempers Climate Change Efforts After Economic Officials Limit Scope
by Sha Hua in Hong Kong and Keith Zhai in Singapore, WSJ
China’s top economic planners have put the brakes on attempts by environmental officials to reduce carbon emissions…
China, which has done very well out of the Year-of-Covid, now wants to do even better: the-environment-be-damned?
… rather than giving priority to the reining in of fossil-fuel consumption now, officials at the economic planning office want to seize the momentum of the global post-pandemic recovery, even if it means elevated emissions in the short term, according to people familiar with the matter.
It was only in March when the Environmental ministry discovered steel companies were being naughty and slapped savage emissions cuts on them, but the economic ministry stepped in and has undone that slapping:
On May 31, at the behest of economic planners, China’s steel hub Tangshan ordered the loosening of emissions restrictions for its steelmakers—undoing a March directive that came after environmental ministry inspectors found the companies in violation of environmental regulations and instructed the companies to cut emissions by 30% to 50%.