China’s installations of wind and solar in May are “enough to generate as much electricity as Poland, as the world’s second-biggest economy breaks further records with its rapid buildup of renewable energy infrastructure”, reports the Guardian. It adds: “China installed 93GW of solar capacity last month – almost 100 solar panels every second, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Wind power installations reached 26GW, the equivalent of about 5,300 turbines…’We knew China’s rush to install solar and wind was going to be wild but WOW,’ Myllyvirta wrote on social media.”
Relatedly, the International Hydropower Association (IHA) says that China is on track to “exceed its 2030 pumped storage hydropower target by more than 8% and potentially reach 130 gigawatts (GW) by the end of the decade”, Reuters reports. China’s hydropower capacity grew 24.6GW in 2024, it adds. State-run newspaper China Daily reports that China has made “significant” progress in establishing its “product carbon footprint management system”, with more than 70 national standards issued or were “under development” by the end of 2024, according to a report by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).
Meanwhile, China celebrated its “National Low Carbon Day” yesterday. Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, has called for Chinese citizens and the world to “actively tackle climate change and jointly protect our planet”, the Shanghai-based Paper reports.
Elsewhere, Reuters reports that a “tropical depression may hit southern China as early as Thursday, meteorologists cautioned, bringing rain and gales to a flood-hit region still recovering from the impact of Typhoon Wutip two weeks ago”. The newswire adds that China has “battled with summer floods for millennia”, but climate change is “resulting in heavier and more frequent rain”, according to scientists. State news agency Xinhua reports that flood control emergency response has been escalated to the highest level in two counties in southwestern China’s Guizhou province, following “severe flooding” triggered by “continuous heavy rainfall and upstream inflows”. Meanwhile, China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has “urgently” allocated 100m yuan ($14m) to support “disaster relief work” in Guizhou, with an additional 100m yuan to Guangdong and Hunan, according to China News.
Finally, Bloomberg reports that the EU wants China to “resolve the export issue around rare-earth magnets” before the two sides’ meeting in July. Another Bloomberg article says that US president Donald Trump appears to have given China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, the “green light” to carry on the imports of the fuel. Reuters also covers the story, saying that Trump also calls for China to buy oil from the US.
Thetimes