http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/16/3438810/china-solar-goals/
In Latest Step In Its ‘War On Smog’ Effort, China Says It Will Triple Solar Capacity By 2017
By Emily Atkin May 16, 2014 at 3:34 pm
As part of its notorious “war on smog” and effort to cut its reliance on coal, the Chinese government on Friday announced that it would speed up solar power development in the country by tripling installed capacity to 70 gigawatts by 2017, a report in Bloomberg said.
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The announcement comes just two months after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s officially “declared war” on the country’s horrific and tragic smog problem, which scientists in Beijing have compared to the effects of a nuclear winter. The pollution has made headlines around the world as it has worsened, causing myriad health problems, marring cityscapes, and even giving an 8-year-old girl lung cancer. What’s more, the pollution has recently been confirmed to be caused by fossil fuel production, with coal at the forefront.
China’s announcement that it would increase solar capacity also comes just days after a report found that China’s continued dependence on coal would thwart any effort to fight global warming by any other country. That report, led by the U.K.’s Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, recommended China swiftly reduce its dependency on the fossil fuel, otherwise it would be “almost impossible” for the world to avoid a situation where global warming stays below 2°C.
“The actions China takes in the next decade will be critical for the future of China and the world,” the study said. “Whether China moves onto an innovative, sustainable and low-carbon growth path this decade will more or less determine both China’s longer-term economic prospects in a natural resource-constrained world, … and the world’s prospects of cutting greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to manage the grave risks of climate change.”
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