Bill McKibben is a 30+ year veteran in climate activism in the US. The following is an excerpt from his newsletter. To read more of this fascinating article, see link below.
In a rational world, it would have made sense for the rich countries to take the lead in fighting climate change. After all, rich countries got that way precisely by burning fossil fuel in the two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, and it’s the global south that is paying most of the price in terms of drought, flood and fire.
That’s why, since the international climate negotiations began thirty years ago, the assumption has been that the global north should lead the way—we had “common but differentiated responsibilities” for the future, and the job of the north was to help finance the transition away from dirty energy.
But as this year’s round of global climate talks gets underway in Belem, it’s becoming clear that this common-sensical (and moral) understanding of the situation has been essentially turned on its head. If there’s going to be a solution, for now it’s mostly going to come from the poorer nations of the world.
Recently, China’s emissions of co2 have apparently now peaked, or at least plateaued. It should come as no great wonder to readers of this newsletter why: their barely believable expansion of clean carbon-free energy has been the most important technological story since…the Industrial Revolution. And it shows no signs of stopping.
For example, China is now testing new offshore wind turbines with a capacity of 50 MW. This supersized structure is designed to float on the ocean’s surface and can withstand typhoons, according to the company, which plans to start making the turbines later this year and to deploy it next year.
The scale of the renewables revolution in China is almost too vast for the human mind to grasp. By the end of last year, the country had installed 887 gigawatts of solar-power capacity—close to double Europe’s and America’s combined total. The 22m tons of steel used to build new wind turbines and solar panels in 2024 would have been enough to build a Golden Gate Bridge on every working day of every week that year. China generated 1,826 terawatt-hours of wind and solar electricity in 2024, five times more than the energy contained in all 600 of its nuclear weapons.
China now deploys clean electricity on a planetary scale. And according to André Corrěa de Lago, the Brazilian diplomat chairing the COP 30 conference, who told reporters earlier this week: “China is coming up with solutions that are for everyone, not just China,” he said. Similarly, you can see solar system initiatives showing up in many ways around the world - in Pakistan, India and Jordan.
This, of course, is in dire contrast to the abdication of responsibility underway in the West, especially in the U.S. I’m not going to go into more detail than is necessary, but: New data shows America’s carbon emissions are now rising (again, the opposite of China’s decline. This is the disgusting result of Trumpian energy priorities.
Decarbonizing economies that have throughout their existence depended on fossil fuels is complicated and will only become more so. But there is no more important task for governments than finding ways through these challenges and forging alliances of the willing to protect life. If common politics doesn’t grow a spine, then public commentators must—for the sake of, well, everything.
To read the entire article, see link below.