By Dawood Auleear
China has today become the factory of the world. Many Western companies have found places abroad to produce their goods at competitive rates. China was the ideal location for the majority. As a result, the world did not face any dislocation in the supply chain. Ironically, on the other hand, China has been blamed for being the world’s biggest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gases. This is similar to enjoying the juicy meat from your butcher’s while at the same time accusing him of killing animals.
The Chinese, however, have their own way of dealing with problems. Instead of starting a debate, they concentrated on investing massively in green energy. That was happening well before COP 22 which appealed for a 2C reduction in world temperature, before 2023 would be declared the warmest year, before global warming would start killing the coral reefs from Mexico to Australia and even before the downpour in Dubai would disrupt the economic activities of this Gulf state for a week.
Data were available in 2023 about the Chinese attempt to work towards a cleaner world: China has produced 510m kilowatts of renewable energy which reduced the emission of CO2 by 2.26bn tons; China exported wind and solar power products at giveaway prices that have amounted to a decrease of carbon emissions by 573m tons. To the world, this Chinese initiative accounted for a 41% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. It also happened that the Aramco CEO rightly believed that China’s cheap green products would create zero-carbon emission by 2050. Doesn’t it sound like music to your ears?
China is now offering to the world cost-effective electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products. One would have thought that this would have been an important step towards a transition to clean energy. But alas! There are forces in the world driven by such selfishness or jealousy or fear that they would lose their pre-eminence that they are inventing all sorts of hurdles for China while at the same time shouting aloud from rooftops that the world is in danger of obliteration. They are accusing China of over-production of EVs, imposing tariff barriers of all sorts and forming coalitions of friendly states to limit the sale of those clean vehicles. Can you beat these forked tongues? They are so blinded by hatred that they don’t even know which side of the bread is buttered for the human race.
Who is afraid of China? Why should anyone bite the hand China is tending with key to the planet’s survival?
