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Comment by louthy | Hacker News Reader

> The UK has achieved the fastest rate of grid decarbonisation among advanced economies. A lot of this progress occurred when renewables were still expensive, so we are stuck with a cost hangover. Luckily, renewables are getting much cheaper, so the tradeoffs in future policy are very different.

A silver lining at least. I’m old, so won’t see the benefits of this I’m sure, but it’s still nice to know we’ve made some tangible progress toward a cleaner future

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I would like to know what "fastest rate of grid decarbonisation" even means, because the UK is definitely not the nation with the largest share of renewable electricity production. I guess it measures how much energy production has transitioned from non-renewable to renewable sources in recent years.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...

They mean the rate of reduction in the metric graphed above.

Why was Poland so high?

> The share gross electricity generation from coal in 2022 was 70.7%, (1.7 p.p. less than in 2021).

https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/poland-energ...

From that data, for the same reason as China: overdependence on coal.

It's the percentage cut in emissions relative to the 1990 bench line.

I don't think it's a particularly cryptic measure.

The UKs peak carbon per kWh was at some point. Since then it's dropped at a percentage rate higher than anywhere else.

The biggest thing has been the elimination of coal even if it's with natural gas as it's a much cleaner fuel. It's still a fossil fuel, but burns with much less pollution.

It’s so insignificant that at best we might delay the climate catastrophe by a few seconds

People might not like this, but that's true.

as long as non-western countries keep polluting - even if we achieve net-zero nothing will change other than us feeling better and patting ourselves in the back.

This is a very misguided view of the situation.

a) The transition to clean energy, transportation etc by Western countries funds the development and investment in new technologies. These then filter down to developing countries when the economies of scale kick in e.g. solar panels, electric cars.

b) There are also other benefits to cleaner solutions than just trying to achieve net-zero. Reductions in pollution reduce morbidity, improve productivity, improve happiness, secure food supply etc.

I think you overestimate the importance of what the West does. The West no longer dominates the world economically. Things no longer filter down the rest of the world as simply as you think. China is a bigger economy than any Western economy than the US, and is growing. India is about as big as any European economy. Both, and many other countries are doing more and more of their own R & D and have their own agendas.

The West still leads in overall R&D. Even TSMC advanced nodes ultimately rely on western equipment and technology. New advancements in AI and vaccines were western as well.

China has made impressive bounds in R&D but still lags in many fields of scientific research. Much of their research output is derivative in my experience of reading a fair bit of research articles in several fields.

However China does lead in many fields of manufacturing. The western countries are far behind in there. That is important in terms of global leadership in renewable energy.

There is a big difference between "leads" and "dominates".

a) China is third to US and EU in terms of GDP. And their economy is on a downwards trajectory.

b) Majority of the early R&D in solar, EVs etc came from the US. China has been vital in driving unit economics.

a) China is third to US and EU in terms of GDP. And their economy is on a downwards trajectory.

what about population? as that's the main driving factor for pollution - especially if you couple that with energy needs.

Chinese population is falling now, I believe. There's some talk the ~1.4 B official figure is seriously overstated as well.

Their population is stagnating and there's some good signs that the numbers they gave were not accurate in the first place, China's real population is likely lower than India.

So you have to count the EU as a single country to push China into third place. This is something people argue about. During Brexit I many people assured me the EU was not a country.

If you use PPP rather than nominal GDP China is actually the biggest and the EU the third biggest.

Also worth noting that, despite expansion, the EU was a smaller proportion of the worth economy before the UK left, than the EEC was after Britain joined. The trend is very much away from the West.

It's not about the west (or anyone in particular) doing the R&D, it's about the west providing a market for that R&D.

Although having said that, I do note this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/11/china-...

I expected average HN user to be aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Knocking the western 30% of pollution down to zero is still meaningful, even if the remaining 70% isn't affected (which it will be). China, one is the most polluting non-western countries, is going to renewables and electric vehicles at a faster rate than some of the western countries.

* acording to CCP's reported numbers

The CCP is at least heavily motivated to get rid of coal because the wealthy and leadership can't buy their way out of Shanghai's smog problem.

They're on track to build 12 _new_ coal plants this year.

Why do people believe they're operating in good faith?

> China, one is the most polluting non-western countries, is going to renewables and electric vehicles at a faster rate than some of the western countries.

Its not "going to renewables". It's building the fastest amount of renewable generation, but that's new capacity, not replacement. It's also building the most coal plants and nuclear plants and anything else. It's all new capacity.

Same with cars. Most EVs and most ICes.

China is growing, and is doing so in all directions.

Drinking game. Drop Google Street View anywhere on the territory of India. If there is a trash pile visible, take a shot.

And as long as oil producing countries (hello uk/us) keep pumping it out. We need intl agreements to ramp this down fast.

Per capita EU is a far bigger polluter than non developed countries.

>I’m old, so won’t see the benefits of this I’m sure

you won't see it because you'll be enjoying one of those lovely blackouts we'll get when we turn off all the AGRs and didn't build more nuclear

> the benefits

The UK has 30GW of wind capacity. Two weeks ago wind was generating 1.8GW (5% of demand at the time). The benefits of a power source are only somewhat theoretical when you can't rely on it being there when you need it.

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