Opinion | Guangdong’s stalled energy transition reflects Beijing’s mixed climate messages
- Guangdong’s renewed investment in fossil fuels shows provincial decision-making is at a crossroads, as Beijing balances energy security against climate goals
- This loss aversion attitude is a frequent source of inertia in China’s energy transition – without new signals from the top, provinces’ climate ambitions won’t grow
Guangdong is also China’s largest regional economy, and has been for the past 34 years. Foreign trade, investment and consumption lifted the province and buoyed China’s economy, but they have all hit a bump recently.
By 2020, its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption had fallen to 30 per cent. But it has since hedged its bets, developing fossil fuel at rates faster than other leading regional economies such as Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, according to research from Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office.
Compared to them, Guangdong is much further along in its energy transition. It has exceeded the renewable energy goals outlined for it in the 14th five-year plan for 2021-2025, with solar power capacity additions putting it comfortably above target and wind energy capacity additions that are triple the goal. Energy storage projects also grew at a compound annual rate of 106 per cent from 2021-2023.