Chinese Clean Tech Is Not the Enemy
Beijing installed as much wind and solar last year as the rest of the globe combined. We need that scale to decarbonize.
Bending the curve.
Source: AFP/Getty Images
From all the talk of Chinese “overcapacity” coming out of Washington, you might think that the problem of addressing climate change had already been solved.
“Chinese policies and nonmarket practices are flooding global markets with artificially cheap solar modules and panels,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday, in announcing sweeping tariff increases on Chinese clean technology that mentioned overcapacity four times. Beijing’s solar factories have more capacity than is needed “even relative to an ambitious climate agenda,” according to Brad Setser, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Biden administration trade advisor.