[kortilla]

Their coal as a source is still on the way up in total tons burned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China

Carbon declining from car usage switching to electric and moving to more efficient fuel plants is the decrease you’re thinking of.

Coal is still growing there, but the upside is it’s growing slightly slower than renewables so at least as a percentage it’s declining.

Unfortunately that just means their demand increased YoY so they had to build both dirty and clean energy.

This view makes it obvious because coal is at the bottom of the stack: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China-electricity-pr...

[dghlsakjg]

Read your own source, it directly refutes what you are saying:

"In 2025, China's coal-fired power generation dropped by 1.9%, the first decrease since 2015, despite its energy demands has increased by 5% during that same year. According to Wood Mackenzie, the drop was attributed to a rapid increase in new non-fossil generation that has "finally outpaced demand growth", while coal plants had been operating at lower utilisation rates and being used more for grid flexibility and peak demand rather than baseload generation."

The graph you linked to conveniently ends right at peak coal consumption. If you go find the data for the last two years that are missing from that graph, coal consumption has been reduced.

You are all over this thread shitting on China unconditionally. We get it, you don't like China. But when your own sources disprove the point you are trying to make, it might be time to re-evaluate your position and probably the news sources that dictated that position to you. What was correct a decade ago, is very much false today, and the trend line is accelerating away from your feelings.

[kortilla]

I’m not shitting on China and that’s a red herring. I’m shitting on people who are praising China for being the #1 emitter who rapidly grew emissions long after the west realized how bad climate change was and was trying to correct them.

China actively built coal and continues to build coal fired generation far beyond the rest of the world.

The fact that the public charts are missing the recent decline is my mistake.

I don’t hate China, I hate people that pretend to care about the environment that glaze China when it’s very clear China optimized for its own citizens in the face of the west trying to grapple with climate change and is only now showing some signs of pivot with solar being cheap enough.

>What was correct a decade ago, is very much false today, and the trend line is accelerating away from your feelings.

I’m the one that gave a trend line. Your response was that it has slightly declined at the very end and the chart isn’t up to date. I don’t think you know what a trend line is.

Put your additional year or two on the end and it will just look like every other slight reprieve. Draw an actual, you know, moving average or anything else that establishes a “trend” and you’ll see China is not reacting to climate change very quickly.

[triceratops]

> I’m shitting on people who are praising China for being the #1 emitter

Largest country in the world is the largest emitter. Quelle surprise. Does Vatican City get a prize for being the smallest emitter?

> long after the west realized how bad climate change was and was trying to correct them.

The West led by the US whose adminstration currently denies the existence of climate change? Whose emissions drop was due to the fracking boom and natural gas becoming cheaper than coal? Let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back. If fracking hadn't been invented how much coal would the US be burning today?

China burns coal because they have coal. If they had natural gas their emissions would be lower too. They know coal is bad and as you've admitted yourself, their coal use is down in 2025. It's projected to decrease even further by 2035.

They're deploying solar and wind and nuclear at a never-seen-before pace. Their factories produce plentiful cheap panels and batteries and EVs that the rest of the world can use to decarbonize - so at least there's a point to "the highest emissions in the world". The US is approving data centers with on-site gas turbines, and paying off windmill operators to shut down.

They are not the same.

> it’s very clear China optimized for its own citizens

Every country is supposed to do that. The current US administration is acting against its citizens' interests with its crusade against solar and wind energy.

> in the face of the west trying to grapple with climate change

How is the west doing that? All I see are more SUVs and people protesting solar generation facilities in the country and calling renewable energy and bike lanes "woke" or some nonsense.

> [China] is only now showing some signs of pivot with solar being cheap enough.

Who made solar so cheap, I wonder? Was it an accident or part of multiple 5-year plans that anyone can read?

And "some signs" is possibly the biggest understatement I've seen all year. They install more solar than the rest of the world combined.

Please, please re-examine your biases. Stop repeating the same conservative media lies. Start looking at the data objectively.

[kortilla]

>Does Vatican City get a prize for being the smallest emitter?

Nope, because they are irrelevant in the scheme of sources of CO2. Tons emitted is all that matters.

>The West led by the US whose adminstration currently denies the existence of climate change? Whose emissions drop was due to the fracking boom and natural gas becoming cheaper than coal? Let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back. If fracking hadn't been invented how much coal would the US be burning?

The west, as in Europe (and the US before Trump) who began all of the initiatives to track CO2, the impacts of global warming, clean energy alternatives, etc. All of the solar tech that China is deploying today is paid for by the hundreds of failed startups pushing the technology forward in the 2000-2012 era.

>China burns coal because they have coal.

That’s not an excuse. Australia gets a middle finger as well for because they have a shitload of coal and also take the attitude of “we might as well burn it since we have it”. That’s literally the opposite of being proactive.

If you only build renewable to deal with a shortage of fossil fuels, then you’re not addressing global warming. You’re just doing the very normal economic incentive thing.

>Their factories produce panels and batteries and EVs that the rest of the world can use to decarbonize - so at least there's a point to "the highest emissions in the world".

Depends on how dirty the energy is for those. If more emissions come from manufacture and transport than are saved by the panel+storage, it would have been better for the recipient to burn fossil fuels.

>The US is approving data centers with on-site gas turbines, and paying off windmill operators to shut down.

Yes, it’s disgusting and everyone in the Bay Area that used to pretend about global warming who is now working for companies expanding for AI can get fucked.

>They are not the same.

They are not, but holy shit China is also terrible. The difference is that China has a track record of destruction over the last 25 years while climatologists screamed from the rooftops. It’s going to take 15 years even at their ambitious pace to unwind the expansion of emissions in the last 15. That’s the problem with climate change, it doesn’t matter if you increase solar production until you actually get rid of the coal burning.

[triceratops]

> Nope, because they are irrelevant in the scheme of sources of CO2. Tons emitted is all that matters.

So if China split up into 200 countries, they are irrelevant? The US and Europe are ahead in cumulative emissions even today. If "tons emitted is all that matters" then that's who is the most responsible. All the carbon is still in the atmosphere.

> If you only build renewable to deal with a shortage of fossil fuels, then you’re not addressing global warming.

Why the heck not? Whatever happened to "tons emitted is all that matters"? Who cares why you build renewables as long as you build them?

> You’re just doing the very normal economic incentive thing.

The US reduces emissions because natural gas is cheaper - "The West took steps to fight climate change". China goes solar because it's cheaper - "Well they're just looking out for #1, they don't really care about the environment".

Bit of a double standard there, no?

> All of the solar tech that China is deploying today is paid for by the hundreds of failed startups pushing the technology forward in the 2000-2012 era.

Really they produced panels that cheap in 2012? I didn't see them. And China has produced zero innovations in solar tech or battery tech?

> Australia gets a middle finger as well for because they have a shitload of coal

You mean the highest per-capita deployer of solar energy today? In your worldview it seems countries are only allowed economic development on your terms that you've set because they make you look better than everyone else.

> If more emissions come from manufacture and transport than are saved by the panel+storage, it would have been better for the recipient to burn fossil fuels.

Fortunately fictional hypotheticals don't happen, so it's all good. You speak as though producing and transporting fossil fuels is emissions-free.

> China is also terrible. The difference is that China has a track record of destruction over the last 25 years

And "The West" has a much longer track record than that. Again we see your bias. No one is without blame but you seem eager to assign disproportionate blame to one country because of this bias.

> while climatologists screamed from the rooftops

And US voters gleefully voted in multiple climate change denying administrations.

> That’s the problem with climate change, it doesn’t matter if you increase solar production until you actually get rid of the coal burning.

The difference is that China is realistically on a path to end coal burning. The US is not currently on track to stop burning natural gas and gasoline, given its refusal to consider, indeed its active sabotage of, alternatives.