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by maxglute
878 days ago
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All this is saying is countries will produce/consume fossil fuels according to self interest. US shale/oil export boomed years before RU/UKR war, same with planned LNG expansion. That kind of infra didn't get planned and built in the last 2 years. It just so happens the war validated US prior geostrategic goal of being fossil fuels exporter. Eitherway, why would PRC be convinced to reducing use when it's at 1/6 per capital of US. West has to ramp down per capital usage to PRC levels for that proposal to make sense. e: And the only effect of PRC consuming more energy for manufacturing is other countries can manufacture less. Why do we need to reshore / diversify / build redundant factories/supply chains. Clearly that's in jest, but the logic works both ways, why would PRC not harness energy to improve her geopolitic posture when US is using it to enhance hers. Long term demand also works on efficiency paradox, the more supply there is, the cheaper something becomes and the more it tends to be used. US ramping up more supply/reduces, or rather increase cost of green transition. Large reason why oil demand is set to plateau long term is PRC is using oil to make renewables with cheap RU and Iranian oil. The point is, as long as US benefits from being fossil exporter by playing up her geologic advantages, PRC is going to reap benefit from converting fossil to goods by playing up her manufacturing advantages. |
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When it comes to wealth then nobody demanded China to participate in single party controlled economy experiments that crippled its economical growth for decades and kept large parts of its population poor. Lets remind that this is the (perhaps naive) goodwill of the West that has allowed China to prosper.
Another point when it comes to per capita usage: China has tripled its population by close to 3 times post WW2. While US population has also increased then it has been in large part by immigration (including Chinese immigrants). The same applies to EU - they are sinks for the population growth in other countries while their native population declines.
Yes, per capita primary energy consumption of China is 2.5 times less than that of US, but US consumption is already by itself incredibly high. The difference between China and Germany is only 1.3 times and China is using more energy per capita than is United Kingdom.
So it is by no degree justified for China to expect the same level per capita energy usage as United States.
The first step for China is to stop aggressive increase in fossil fuel usage. If it can signal that it can be cooperative then other countries can make further adjustments. If China does not play along, US will neither.