Global Impact of China’s Energy Revolution

Abstract

China’s energy revolution has an impact not just in China but around the world. The most immediate impact is in drastically reducing costs for producing renewable power; these cost reductions, following technology-specific learning curves, drive uptake of renewables in China as well as in other countries. Renewables are coming to be an energy choice for developing countries everywhere, enhancing energy security and reducing carbon emissions. China’s energy consumption is also generating the world’s highest aggregate levels of carbon emissions, which are increasingly viewed as a global issue to whose solution China will also have to make its contribution. At the same time China’s approach to ensuring its energy security through manufacturing is likely to become a model for other industrializing countries.