Among the topics of conversation between U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at their meeting last week was, according to the FCDO “shared interests, including a global green energy transition”. The Labour government believes that it can lead the world in this “transition”, and that to secure this position, the UK must become a “clean energy superpower by 2030”, requiring the total decarbonisation of the power sector by that time. But the statistics reveal the very different natures of the two government’s “shared interests” and raise the question of what Lammy thinks he was doing in Beijing and Shanghai.
Britain’s army of green wonks, at some point in the last decade or so, have got it into their heads that China is the model of green transition. This is because China invests heavily in the production and deployment of green technology. Between 2013 and 2023, China’s annual electricity generated from wind increased from 376 TWh to 2,301 TWh – an increase of 612%. Britain’s wind power fleet meanwhile produced 77 TWh in 2013, rising to 213 TWh in 2023 – an increase of 276%.
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