GEOPOLITICAL rivalry and conflict related to the rise of China as an economic, manufacturing and trade superpower is holding back the 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 to prevent further environmental degradation and mitigate the worsening crises caused by 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 area burned by wildfires now exceeds the size of San Francisco, with early estimates of the ongoing damage reaching US$150 billion (RM675 billion). This makes it the most costly disaster in California’s history, second only to Hurricane Katrina, which caused an estimated US$200 billion in damages in the US.
While Hurricane Katrina was primarily an unavoidable natural disaster, the current fires in LA are considered more preventable in terms of their causes, spread and severity. Although it has been a problem for decades, the full impact of Delhi’s air pollution has yet to be comprehensively studied.
Some estimates suggest that India’s air pollution costs exceed US$100 billion annually due to lost productivity, work absences and premature deaths, with the greatest impact concentrated 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 in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.
Ignoring elephant in the room
The blame game in LA over the historic fires has predictably taken on partisan political tones, with a focus on leadership and policy weaknesses and failures.
Although mismanagement and human factors played a role in what unfolded in the fires and similar disasters, scientific opinion is increasingly inclined towards climate change and extreme weather events as major causative factors.
Despite the differing views on the role of climate change in areas experiencing unprecedented wildfires, droughts, floods and air quality issues, there can be no disagreement that the faster adoption of green technology can make a positive difference.
The grim reality for the world is that societies and countries everywhere
have to cope with an unprecedented proliferation of crises of their own making, which are becoming increasingly costly and devastating in their impact and financial toll.
At the same time, the optimistic reality is that we have the tools – through appropriate green technologies – to better manage climate change and other man-made environmental crises.
Spread of green technology lagging
The limited use of green technology to build a more sustainable world and mitigate the impact of climate change is due to a myriad of reasons, including a lack of knowledge and awareness, policies and regulations lagging
behind technological advancements, inadequate supportive infrastructure, concerns over high initial investment costs and political pushback arising from geopolitical rivalry.
The final factor, geopolitical rivalry and conflict, is especially important
and relates to the rise of China as an economic, manufacturing and trade superpower. This has led to fear and resistance from the US and the West to accept the change affecting the world order, resulting in the 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.
This is evident in the high tariff and other exclusionary policies and measures introduced by the US, European Union and some of its Western allies to block Chinese electric vehicles (EV) despite the undeniable environmental advantages of EV over internal combustion engines in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A similar exclusionary process is taking place with other Chinese green technology developments that are exported to the world. This includes solar photovoltaic, 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, an intergovernmental organisation 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 29 UN climate change conferences (the most recent, held in Baku in 2024, calls for mobilising financing for climate change mitigation), we are seeing a 180° and more 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 decarbonise 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.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
