No images? Click here Workers commute as smoke billows from a coal fired power plant on November 25, 2015 in Shanxi, China. Heavy dependence on coal has made China the source of nearly a third of the world's total CO2 emissions. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) The Biden administration has placed climate change agreements at the top of its legislative agenda—but the United States' clean energy ambitions are complicated by some vexing geopolitical realities. Meaningful action on climate cannot succeed without cooperation from China, yet there are few grounds to believe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will comply with any international agreements constraining its economic activity, and every reason to believe that it will exploit the issue to shore up its own authoritarian governance and exploit the supply chain vulnerabilities of other countries. This week we're highlighting three Hudson scholars who are shedding light on the challenges facing President Biden's climate change agenda. On Twitter, Nury Turkel highlights the troubling connection between U.S. solar panel supply chains and forced labor in China; in an op-ed for The Hill, Nadia Schadlow warns that the energy storage sector, a critical element of clean energy, is increasingly dominated by China; and Nate Sibley convened policymakers from the U.S., U.K., and Canada to explore conservative solutions to climate change. See below for key highlights from Nury, Nadia, and Nate. Fifty percent of the world's polysilicon products, a component of solar panels, are produced in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where state-sanctioned forced labor is prevalent. Nury Turkel, a Uyghur-American lawyer and senior fellow at Hudson, calls attention to congressional efforts to ensure the integrity of U.S. solar panel supply chains: How Our New Climate Policies Could Lead to Increased Reliance on China Key takeaways from Nadia Schadlow's op-ed in The Hill, "How Our New Climate Policies Could Lead to Increased Reliance on China" 1. China holds considerable leverage over the Biden administration's climate change priorities:
2. The production of energy storage and critical minerals are controlled almost exclusively by Chinese firms:
3. While the U.S. energy sector enjoys considerable freedom from government intervention, the CCP treats China's commercial sector as a powerful tool of political influence:
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. Rethinking Climate Change and Environmental Issues Key quotes from the event, Rethinking Climate Change and Environmental Issues: A Conservative Approach, featuring conservative policymakers from the U.S., U.K., and Canada. U.S. Representative John Curtis on confronting the largest global polluters:
British Member of Parliament Alicia Kearns on engaging China on environmental issues:
Canadian Member of Parliament Greg McLean on the adverse effects of Keystone XL's cancellation:
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. Go Deeper America’s Allies Finally Take on the Uyghur Genocide On Monday, the U.S., EU, U.K., and Canada stated with unmistakable clarity that they will not stand idly by in the face of genocide, writes Nury Turkel in The xxxxxx. This has been a long time coming. The EU has not sanctioned China since the Tiananmen Square massacre over 31 years ago. Counterbalance Ep. 4: Miles Yu, Framing the Free World's Struggle with the CCP In the latest episode of the Counterbalance podcast, Miles Yu, former China policy advisor to Secretary Mike Pompeo, joins Mike Doran and Marshall Kosloff to discuss how the U.S. can maintain a world order based on democratic values and address the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to spread authoritarian methods of governance to other countries. US-Australia Series: China and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities Australia and the U.S. face shared concerns on issues of supply chain security and manufacturing sectors that are at risk of exploitation by the CCP. This panel of leading experts convened by Patrick Cronin examined the vulnerabilities in critical U.S. and Australian supply chains such as those of semiconductors and rare earth minerals and discussed the steps that Canberra and Washington should take to better secure their supply chains. |