Geopolitical rivalry and conflict related to the rise of China as an economic, manufacturing and trade superpower is holding back the widespread dissemination of green technology advances
Two news reports covering events in different parts of the world highlight the need for the application of green technology advances to save countries from further deterioration in their environment and the worsening of crises arising from climate change and unsustainable development practices.
The two events are the fires in Los Angeles (LA) with its toll on lives and property and the less obvious – but just as deadly – agency of air pollution assailing the population of Delhi and its surrounding areas.
In LA, the current area burnt down exceeds the size of San Francisco with an early cost estimate of the still raging fires assessing it at US$150 billion. This makes it the most costly disaster in Californian history. It is second in the United States (US) for now to Hurricane Katrina’s US$200 billion estimated damage. Katrina’s was mainly an unavoidable natural disaster compared with the present LA one which was more avoidable in its causation, spread and severity.
Although a decades old problem, the impact of Delhi’s air pollution is still yet to be comprehensively studied. Some estimates have placed India’s air pollution costs at over US$100 billion annually from lost productivity, work absences and premature deaths, with the greatest loss situated in the northern region. A 2023 report from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found that Delhi residents may lose an average of 11.9 years of life to air pollution. A similar frightening scenario has been found for Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. See https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/news/people-can-lose-more-than-5-years-of-their-lives-due-to-air-pollution-study/.
LA Fire Blame Game: Ignoring the Elephant in the Room
For now the blame game in LA for the historic fires has predictably developed along partisan political lines focusing on leadership and policy weaknesses and failures. Although mismanagement and human factors play a role in what unfolded in the fires and many similar disasters, scientific opinion is increasingly inclined towards climate change and extreme weather events as a major causative factor.
However divergent the views that opposing opinion groups have on the importance of climate change in areas experiencing unprecedented extreme fires, droughts, floods, air quality issues, etc., there can be no disagreement that the take up of green technology can make a positive difference. There is little doubt too that the widespread application of best practice examples of green technology effective in water scarce arid regions could have made a difference in LA.
The grim reality for the world is that societies and countries everywhere have to cope with an unprecedented proliferation of crisis developments of our making that are increasingly expensive and devastating in their cost and impact. At the same time, the optimistic reality is that we have the tools in appropriate and green technology for the better management of climate change and man-made environmental crises and problems.
Why The Spread Of Green Technology Is Lagging
Why green technology has not been more employed to build a more sustainable world and mitigate the impact of climate change is due to a myriad of reasons such as lack of knowledge and awareness, policies and regulations lagging behind technological advances, lack of supportive infrastructure, concerns over high initial investment costs, and political pushback arising from geopolitical rivalry.
The last factor of geopolitical rivalry and conflict is especially important and is related to the rise of China as an economic, manufacturing and trade superpower; the fear and refusal of the US and the West to accept this change affecting the world order; and the consequential campaign to bring China down. In the climate change and sustainable development sectors, this factor is evident from the response of the West to the adoption of innovations in green technology of which China is a world leader.
We can clearly see this in the high tariff and other exclusionary policies and measures introduced by the US, European Union (EU) and some of its western allies to keep out Chinese electric vehicles (EV) despite the undeniable advantages of EVs over internal combustion engines (ICE) in greenhouse gas emissions.
A similar exclusionary process is taking place with other Chinese green technology advances that are exported to the world. This includes solar photovoltaic (PVs), wind turbines, lithium ion batteries, and a host of other emerging technologies such as low-emission hydrogen, carbon capture solutions, grid-scale energy storage and smart grid technologies that can pave the way to a greener world.
The West had initially welcomed China’s green technology revolution. In 2019, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organization that promotes the adoption and sustainable use of renewable energy, noted approvingly that “No country has put itself in a better position to become the world’s renewable energy superpower than China. In aggregate, it is now the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, placing it at the forefront of the global energy transition.”
Today, instead of welcoming and leveraging China’s green technology products to help the world attain the climate change targets set up by the twenty nine United Nations climate change conferences (the latest for 2024 recently convened in Baku calls for limiting global warming through mobilizing financing for climate change mitigation activities), we are seeing a 180 and more degree turn in the US and other western government response to China’s green technology and renewable energy advances and leadership.
This turnaround which has been justified as helping shield the domestic producers of green technology in the West will not only obstruct efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and decarbonize economies. It could also provide the setting for similar environmental crises and disasters that we are seeing in LA, Delhi and other parts of the world.
Looking ahead, one hopeful development is the emergence of BRICS as a key player in the world order and China’s role in it. This is not only a game changer in global politics and economics. It has the potential to help the world to a greener and environmentally more sustainable future.
