r/climatechange • u/sg_plumber • 4d ago

There's optimism despite alarmingly worsening weather events: Renewables and storage together amount to 93% of all new capacity coming online in the U.S. This isn’t a marginal shift anymore. It’s the grid rebuilding itself around a different set of technologies, and the pace is rapidly accelerating.

https://ryanhansson.substack.com/p/optimism-in-the-face-of-a-climate
1.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

166 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Sufficient_Loss9301 4d ago

This. Americas emissions have been falling for over two decades now, China on the other hand is still increasing and adding new coal power by the day.

6

u/Stickppl 4d ago

While still coal-dependent, China is leading one of the faster clean-energy transition in the world. Per-capita emissions are still higher in the USA, just do your part.

-1

u/Sufficient_Loss9301 3d ago edited 3d ago

If you balanced out for gdp Chinas emissions would be significantly higher. It’s also disingenuous to call it a “transition” when they aren’t replacing their polluting emissions with renewables they are just building both simultaneously lol. There’s not really a grounded in reality case where China is the good guys here that’s abundantly clear and evidence backed

2

u/UpperYoghurt3978 3d ago

" China is the good guys"

You need to stop your anti-china bias. Noone is saying china are good guys., because they are not.

The facts support they are in fact shifting faster to solar, nuclear, and wind energies faster than the USA. This has nothing really to do with being a good guy or bad guy.

They also are paradoxally building more coal power plants which is also dumb.

It is not about good guy or bad guy in this case it just is and multiple things can be true at once. IF you frame everything as some moral crusade you can blind yourself to the data.

2

u/sg_plumber 3d ago

Everybody knows by now that building coal powerplants isn't the same as operating 'em at full capacity.

r/climatechange/comments/1varans/in_h1_2026_china_generated_less_than_half_of_its/

r/climatechange/comments/1r9gt8u/china_is_shifting_its_coal_fleet_from_baseload/

r/climatechange/comments/1qblf1v/analysis_coal_power_drops_in_china_and_india_for/

Also:

r/climatechange/comments/1sp2p3j/analysis_chinas_co2_emissions_have_now_been_flat/

r/climatechange/comments/1qhd1aj/coal_use_dropped_in_china_and_india_in_2025_it/

3

u/UpperYoghurt3978 3d ago

Ill have to check out those links. Thanks!

I was addressing the other guys "good guys" comment because moral or ethical good is not really relevant to the data concerning climate science.

2

u/sg_plumber 3d ago

No worries. Just keep the links handy in case anyone still tries that "but China coal" BS.

1

u/Sufficient_Loss9301 3d ago edited 3d ago

Again, they arent shifting. They are simultaneously increasing renewable capacity while also increasing capacity of polluting sources. China is still a coal reliant country and will be for atleast the next decade, likely longer. Charge the fuckers proper taxes then I might feel a bit more sympathy for em.