China’s quiet strides in the climate change fight are an example to all

Despite the distraction of a host of other challenges, China has implemented a wide range of projects to tackle its own carbon footprint head-on, with an approach that is multifaceted, technology-focused and scalable

Quentin Parker

Published: 10:30pm, 5 Jul 2023

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A pristine area of rainforest the size of Switzerland was razed last year with untold loss of irreplaceable biodiversity. Enormous wildfires in Canada have unleashed vast quantities of carbon dioxide to exacerbate global warming while also choking residents across North America. Sea lions and dolphins are dying in unprecedented numbers off the coast of California, and storms, floods and famine of increasing regularity and seriousness are taking place worldwide.

You would have to be bereft of your senses and lack any grip on reality not to appreciate, with all the available evidence, that something dangerous is happening to the world’s climate and having seriously negative effects on all living things. It is accelerating and setting records – and not in the good way.

Many governments are starting to get serious, with fine words being spoken and even some coordinated actions taken through bodies such as the United Nations’ climate summits.

At the same time, there is a popular uprising of sorts, with groups such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. People in countries across the world are organising to demand their political leaders take bolder actions on climate change.

At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic, the terrible, grinding war caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global crisis in cost of living, inflation and other related problems are distracting us at the worst possible time. These things are taking our attention from the urgent actions we must all take to help address the fundamental and existential threat the planet is facing.

People want action, but there is serious lag. The risks are rapidly increasing that it will all be too little, too late.

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The world needs bold leadership and exemplary initiatives to follow now, not tomorrow. We need practical examples of efforts to get ahead of the climate change tipping points rather than languishing far behind them.

It seems to me that China can accept this mantle. As other countries debate, argue, shift blame and pontificate as the world burns, China has implemented a wide range of projects to tackle its own carbon footprint head-on. Its approach is multifaceted, technology-focused, scalable and being enacted at a steady, sustainable pace.

A wave of actions is unfolding in China. One is the recent approval for a 2 megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor (MSR) located in the desert city of Wuwei in Gansu province. This technology, whose potential has been known for decades, offers exciting prospects. It is cleaner and safer than its uranium-based equivalents. It also has more accessible and abundant fuel reserves and a more efficient power source.

If it was not for the needs of the nuclear weapons programmes of the 1950s onwards, the world’s nuclear power inventory could now be dominated by more environmentally friendly thorium salt nuclear installations.

China is rich in thorium salt reserves. In the future, it could deploy significant numbers of molten salt reactors to take advantage of these resources. They could become part of the nation’s multipronged solution towards eliminating any need to burn fossil fuels for power generation.

India also has an active thorium salt reactor programme, and valuable collaboration between these important geopolitical players is possible.

A view of the Kela photovoltaic power station in Yajiang county in Sichuan province, on June 21. Covering some 1,667 hectares, the Kela power station has an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts and can generate an average of 2 billion kWh annually. Photo: Xinhua

Another project of note is the commissioning of the hybrid solar-hydro Kela power plant in the Yalong River plateau in Sichuan province that can produce 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, equal to the power consumption of 700,000 households for a year.

Then there is the research in fusion power via facilities such as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in Hefei, Anhui province, and China’s international collaboration in the ITER fusion facility being built in France. The US$25 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the world’s biggest international fusion project, certainly its most ambitious.

China’s current deployment of solar power already provides more than 225 gigawatts of renewable energy, which is more than from the entire rest of the world combined. There is something to be said for centralised organs of power that can mandate and effect such enormously important projects on rapid timescales for the benefit of all.

At the same time, China is working to reverse desertification through planting millions of trees. A 2021 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization states that China’s forest cover has increased from 157 million hectares in 1990 to about 220 million hectares by 2020. Furthermore, as part of China’s 14th five-year plan unveiled in March 2021, there is a target of increasing forest coverage to 24.1 per cent by 2025.

Workers plant hedysarum scoparium, a plant which can live in dry regions, in the Tengger Desert of Alxa Left Banner, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on April 2, 2020. The country has started a project to curb desertification by planting an ecological forest. Photo: Xinhua

Trees are a vital carbon sink. They help regulate our climate, filter the water we drink, provide vital habitats for other plants, insects and other wildlife and, of course, emit oxygen. This does not replace the loss of virgin rainforest mentioned earlier, but it is nevertheless a good thing.

Finally, China is undertaking a rapid introduction of electric cars. It has overtaken Japan as the world’s largest car exporter and leads this particular sector and research into vital battery and solar panel technologies. This means the prospect of less particulate pollution in Chinese cities, improved air quality and reduced need for petrol.

So without much fanfare and with serious deliberate intent, China is making important and increasing strides both nationally and internationally in addressing the climate change problem. The rest of the world should take note and replicate such bold and profound moves.

Quentin Parker is an astrophysicist based at the University of Hong Kong and director of its Laboratory for Space Research