China’s Clean Energy Push Has Made It Less Vulnerable to Energy Shocks, Including the Iran War

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By Nicholas Kusnetz, Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News.

 Excerpt: As countries scramble to secure oil, gas and fertilizer, China’s bets on clean energy and coal are cushioning its dependence on oil and gas imports. ...In an essay in Foreign Policy written with Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, Downs argued that while the war has exposed China’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, “it also underscores how deliberately Beijing has sought to prepare for a world in which energy security is inseparable from geopolitics—by electrifying its economy, securing domestic sources of energy, amassing stockpiles, and dominating clean technology supply chains.” Last year more than half of new cars sold in China were electric, according to the energy think tank Ember, while the country is a leader in electrifying heavy-duty vehicles and high-speed rail, too. Meanwhile, a rapidly growing portion of its electricity is being generated by solar and wind energy as China installs more of those technologies than the rest of the world combined.... 


See also the The New York Times article China’s Edge in an Oil Shock: Electric Cars and Renewables. 

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