{"id":315640,"date":"2025-11-24T13:12:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T13:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/everything-is-awesome-legal-planet\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T13:12:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T13:12:59","slug":"everything-is-awesome-legal-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=315640","title":{"rendered":"Everything is Awesome! – Legal Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Everything is Awesome!<\/h3>\n

Well, not really, but China\u2019s astonishing progress in curbing emissions points to a technological way forward \u2014 and how the United States is being left behind.<\/h2>\n

\"\"There is so much that is awful, so let\u2019s see some good news for once<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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China\u2019s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, extending a flat or\u00a0falling<\/a>\u00a0trend that\u00a0started<\/a>\u00a0in March 2024.<\/p>\n

The rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) saw CO2 emissions from transport fuel drop by 5% year-on-year, while there were also declines from cement and steel production.<\/p>\n

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that while emissions from the power sector were flat year-on-year, a big rise in the chemical industry\u2019s CO2 output offset reductions elsewhere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s really quite remarkable and perhaps the most significant positive development in the world today. China is a rapidly growing and industrializing economy, and it has been able to hold its emissions flat, and by the end of the year, it might well constitute a slight drop because emissions tend to peak during the summer as air-conditioners go full blast.<\/p>\n

And it does not appear to be an artifact of weather or timing. Instead, it reflects China\u2019s massive adoption of renewable energy:<\/p>\n

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In the power sector, China\u2019s\u00a0dominant source<\/a>\u00a0of CO2, emissions remained flat in the third quarter even as electricity demand grew strongly.<\/p>\n

Electricity generation from solar and wind\u00a0grew<\/a>\u00a0by 30%, with solar up 46% and wind power generation increasing 11%. With\u00a0small increases<\/a>\u00a0from nuclear and hydropower, non-fossil power sources covered almost 90% of the increase in\u00a0demand<\/a>, even as demand growth accelerated to 6.1% in the third quarter, up from\u00a03.7%<\/a>\u00a0in the first half of the year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The two big questions are chemicals and cement. The gains from power generation were almost totally offset from plastics production, particularly high-performance materials. And a real estate dip in the Chinese economy means fewer emissions from cement production. (Steel is a problem but not as much).<\/p>\n

And striving for a good mood, even the bad news \u2013 fossil fuel emissions reached a record high<\/a> \u2013 is tempered by the fact that worldwide, those emissions are offset by \u201clower land use emissions\u201d \u2013 a technical way of saying deforestation, forest degradation, loss of peatlands and harvesting trees for wood.<\/p>\n

Even there, we might be turning a corner. In the past, China has been a meaningful contributor to land-use emissions, but in recent years its land-use emissions have turned net-negative as more trees have been planted than cut down. But we still have significant problems of land use emissions from countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and Congo.<\/p>\n