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 September 2024

In CR112, I commented that, with Labour expected to be in office shortly, there wouldn’t be “much change on key issues such as peace in Gaza and Ukraine, NATO, the economy, energy bills, benefits and public services.”  Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened.  

There have been some positives from Labour: the pay rises for teachers and junior doctors; the settling of the rail pay disputes; the Bill to renationalise the railways; the promised legislation to repeal the most recent Tory anti-union laws; the ending of the Rwanda deportation scheme for asylum seekers; and the reported suspension of processing licenses for arms exports to Israel.  But these are offset by the many negatives.

The two-child benefit cap is being maintained; the public sector pay rises have been pitted against other much needed investment in public services, now cancelled; chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves has “discovered” a £20 bn hole in the public finances, with the result that only those pensioners on Pension Credit or other means-tested benefits will receive the Winter Fuel Payment, while there will be tax rises in the Autumn; instead of the Rwanda scheme there will be a “large surge” in return flights for migrants and new detention centres; there has been no real pressure from our government for Israel to end the genocide in Gaza; and our government can still find the funds to send ever-more dangerous weaponry to Ukraine.

The main theme of CR112 was the need for a united front of working-class organisations and the left to challenge the ruling class offensive, and as the prerequisite, as Alex Gordon said, “to lead an anti-monopoly alliance against imperialism’s drive to war and disastrous path to climate destruction.”  Historically the United Front policy is most famously associated with Georgi Dimitrov and the 7^th World Congress of the Communist International, where the policy was particularly directed against fascism.  The fascist riots in Britain in July and August underscore the need to build today’s United Front against racism and fascism too.  We can already see this movement in embryo in the magnificent response of trade unions and community organisations to the planned fascist riots.

Fascism in Britain remains a fringe political force, but the racist ideas on which it feeds run deep, due to this country’s colonial and imperialist history.  Those ideas have also been given more respectability by the election of six Reform UK MPs at Westminster.  The riots were certainly planned by a range of far-right figureheads, commentators and organisations, but they were enabled to do that because Islamophobia has been promoted by governments and media, ever since the ‘war on terror’, and because, as Clive Lewis MP said, the inhumanity to Palestinians, being shown daily, gives “permission” for rising Islamophobia.  The riots are a warning of what is likely to come if Labour under Keir Starmer fails to deliver for working people.

It isn’t enough just to stand up to racism and fascism: the antimonopoly alliance has to be built around a programme of economic, political and ideological/cultural policies in the interests of the working class.  The fight for expanded democracy is very much part of this, and in this context the Communist Party’s programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism, emphasises the need for progressive federalism.  In the first feature article in this edition of CR, Rob MacDonald explores what progressive federalism means in detail, and its potential role in building alliances locally.

Picking up the issue of climate destruction, our second feature article, by Carlos Martinez, looks at the enormous advances being made by socialist China in expanding green energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, afforestation and ‘circular’ waste management, while at the same time developing its economy.  China, says Carlos, is “leading the way to prevent climate breakdown”; and it is not only doing so domestically but through cooperative projects in its Belt and Road Initiative.  It is the hostility of Western powers to China which is preventing this technology being adopted more widely.

Returning to the issue of the far right, Alan McGuire looks at the popularity of politicians such as Donald Trump, Argentina’s Javier Milei and Spain’s Alvise Pérez, showing that with them the neoliberal ideology has been repackaged, justifying the individual over society.  To counter this, he says, we need to build solidarity in the real world (not online), “a counter-culture based on solidarity, respect and community ….  It is by building people power that we build a viable hegemonic alternative to neoliberalism”.

The issue of the individual comes up again, in a different context, in Elliot Evans’ article on Anxiety.  He locates the roots of much anxiety not in individuals themselves but in the tensions imposed on them by capitalist society.  Thus, ‘self-help’ measures or other palliatives are not, generally, going to be able to resolve the problems, because those are inherent in capitalism.  “We must explain to people that the inherent anxiety of life exacerbated and inflamed by capitalism can never be soothed for any one of us until we all join together,” he writes.

Three shorter articles complete this edition of CR: Johnnie Hunter reviews Elena Veduta’s Socialism and Economic Cybernetics: Towards a Manifesto; Ruth Pitman provides a practical guide, and an encouragement, to the use of evaluation in Party political education programmes; and Fran Lock’s Soul Food column provides us with a couple of new poems commenting insightfully on the general election outcome.

By the time you read this, the journal’s new web site www.communistreview.org.uk, should be up and running.  Please check it out and promote it.

Purchase the COMMUNIST REVIEW AUTUMN 2024 Edition

Progressive federalism’s role in alliances, policy and Communist Party growth

Rob MacDonald

Introduction

This article explores the linking of progressive federalism concepts with some of the key struggles we face, the need to create popular alliances, develop our policies and grow the Communist Party of Britain (CPB).  It highlights needs for local, regional and national democratic systems and economic powers of intervention for the interests of people across England, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.  Democracy is the key aim, not bureaucracy.

I shall reference some past struggles which arguably transformed public opinion, changed national and local government relationships and created popular democratic assertions by people for the right to control capital locally.  Modern circumstances in England, Scotland and Wales, including recent ‘devolution’ deals inherited from Conservative governments, will also be considered, along with the wide variety of current questions, such as the steel industry and manufacturing, transport, town regeneration, utilities, regional resources and environmental issues.

I shall show current democratic inconsistencies between England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the significant fall in local democratic representation of people – the drop in the number of elected councillors – since the 1970s.  That trend continues today with mergers of councils, electoral boundary changes and fewer elected councillors at this year’s local elections.

Over recent decades, we have seen growing concentrations of power among elite politicians and the rise of non-elected people to positions of power and influence.  Latest examples in 2024 include a new wave of 10-year long-term town boards launched across England this year.  These were initiated in the final months of the last Conservative government.  Former Conservative levelling-up secretary Michael Gove MP described town boards as ‘new-style politics’.

Ongoing local and regional deals effecting communities, economies and democracy established under previous Conservative governments exist in many places.  Communists need to consider these.  So should the new Labour government.

There are larger and smaller schemes.  Some may seem trivial to some on the left.  But these schemes matter to many towns and thousands of residents.  They cover subjects that people care deeply about – industrial estates, employment, construction contracts, town centre regeneration, the public realm, bus and railway stations, leisure and sports facilities, arts and cultural spaces.  In my view, we overlook these at our peril.

Our central Party leadership cannot be expected to be aware of all local and regional developments.  Individual members and branches should provide that link.  They should connect the Party with local and regional affairs, negative or positive.

It is important to emphasise that a nuanced approach may be needed.  Rather than dismiss all these issues out of hand, it is better to know what is happening locally and regionally, and then engage in a considered way.  Local knowledge can build our credibility, resonance, capacity, connections and the potential for new alliances and stronger political responses.

The impact of Conservative government policies on north-east England in the 1980s was a catalyst in my political awakening as a teenager.  I joined the Communist Party in Middlesbrough in the mid-80s.  Local, regional and national needs, rights and aspirations were, and remain, core political motivations for me – my political raison d’etre, then and now.

The 1980s included the Miners’ Strike, whose 40th anniversary has been marked this year.  The Strike was linked to Thatcherism and many other figures, including Ian MacGregor at the National Coal Board.  MacGregor was previously at British Leyland and at the British Steel Corporation, where he had enacted huge closures on Teesside and in other steel regions of England, Scotland and Wales.  These were all part of the wider deindustrialisation of Britain and the assault on industrial trade unions.

Deindustrialisation not only affected blue-collar workers, but included a massive decline in research and development work associated with manufacturing, affecting many well-paid white collar jobs across a number of regions, including north-east England.  It also had long-term economic, political, social and demographic impacts, in particular the loss of young people from industrial regions (including suburbs and commuter belts), the ‘brain drain’ and the ongoing North-South divide.

That era also brought early Thatcherite regional development policies and organisations, along with local council rebellions such as in Liverpool and rising calls for Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

I heard Mick McGahey, the late deputy leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, speak in Middlesbrough Town Hall during the Miners’ Strike.  A key Communist Party figure, he made the link between struggles, policies and democratic systems – including the argument for a Scottish Parliament.  Rightly in my view, Morning Star articles and letters in 2024 have highlighted McGahey’s approach and contributions.  For me, that type of joined-up approach is needed for today’s circumstances, especially in England.

In this article, I mainly consider England.  But I briefly refer to Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Spain.  I believe the points I raise are applicable to different locations.

Because of my Scottish roots, I have always taken an interest in developments there.  Through marriage, I have links to Ireland which I have visited many times and been influenced by too.  I also know members of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) domiciled in Britain, who have been exploring the building of a new ‘plurinational’ governance.  We are dealing with nations and regions facing challenges and tensions caused by multiple factors.

In England, I compare some regional devolution deals and mayors’ remits in the North-East and North-West.  Importantly, I highlight how these powers vary and also how public support – or opposition – can vary with different elements or from region to region.  This complexity is perhaps illustrated by the seemingly contradictory situation in the Tees Valley in north-east England.  There, voters this year elected a controversial Conservative regional mayor for the third time.  Then they elected Labour MPs for Westminster just a few weeks later.

Overall, I’m highlighting these topics because I believe that Communists, and the wider left, need to connect better with local and regional affairs.  These situations offer the left additional opportunities to show how capitalism, monopolies and a lack of popular democratic power impacts at local and regional levels, in addition to national and global narratives.

Also the CPB had candidates in the 2024 local and general elections.  That should help to improve our local and regional presence and awareness.  The Party is reviewing its election activities and considering any lessons.  Perhaps some of these ideas can help too?

For clarity, I write this as an ordinary Party member.  I am not an expert.  I have not got the solutions or policies here and now.  But this is a discussion feature based on real, current situations and observations.  It also highlights useful pamphlets, books and ideas available to all Party members.  It is hopefully a useful contribution to our collective knowledge, debates and actions, inside the Party and beyond.

It is definitely an appeal for an informed, connected, outward-looking Party in all localities and regions – a Party which builds alliances, seizes good opportunities to act, understands and influences local and regional public opinion, and make serious, popular and engaging political contributions which resonate and motivate.

The 2024 elections

2024 has not only seen local council and regional mayoral elections as well as the general election.  It also marks the 50th anniversary of the important 1974 local government reforms, which created many of the councils we know today, and the 25^th anniversary of elections to the re-established Scottish Parliament and the then National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd).

However, in recent years there have been council mergers and major austerity cuts, leaving many councils, public services and communities in trouble.

The new Labour government outlined early priorities in July for matters including economic growth, housing, planning, railways, energy, more regional devolution and limited reform of the House of Lords.

All England’s regional mayors were invited to Downing Street within days of Labour’s election victory.  A government press release said the meeting would “begin the process of shifting power from Westminster through a major programme of devolution to power-up all corners of the country.”

The Daily Mirror’s headline on 18 July, for the King’s Speech setting out Labour plans was “Taking back control”.  Angela Rayner spoke of a “revolution in decentralised decision-making” and wanting more councils to “take the plunge” with devolution on areas such as transport, planning, adult education, jobs support and skills.

Now, around 100 Labour MPs at Westminster have backgrounds with local councils.  Does this bode well for councils, communities and regions over the next five years?  Time will tell.

Needs, democracy and intervention powers

Do our local, regional and national governance systems provide the powers of intervention we really need to control our economic circumstances?  And do they enable meaningful public participation in democracy and decision-making?  Importantly, how can we connect the struggles people face every day with the need for economic powers and better democratic systems?  Can we connect vital issues of public concern, such as the economy, housing, education, transport, inequalities between towns, cities and regions with the need for progressive federal arrangements?

We need to consider fundamental issues around capitalism, the British economy, monopolies, power and decision-making.  Can public dissatisfaction – and aspirations – be turned into popular assertions for the right to control capital locally?  Can we build meaningful participatory democratic systems that meet our needs and enjoy popular support?  Taking back control was a key slogan around Brexit.  It resonated with millions.  But gaining control remains an ongoing task.

These questions and others, around circumstances and needs in England, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall, are being considered by the Party’s Progressive Federalism Commission.

Mixed opinion and awareness among communist party members

The Progressive Federalism Commission aims to provide ideas and reports, which might be developed into clearer policies or actions for the Party.  The Commission’s work is not easy.  It has highlighted quite different levels of awareness and opinion on various issues among CPB members, including across different districts, regions and nations, but especially in England.

Uncertainty and concerns were raised by some about understandings and definitions of nations and states, and national questions balanced within internationalism.  Some were sympathetic to Irish self-determination but not Scottish or Welsh.  Some felt England was overwhelmingly conservative and English questions were usually the domain of the right.

Yet, they also recognised some attempts to counter that, some radical parts of English society and history, and concepts of ‘progressive patriotism’ and culture such as the singer Billy Bragg, who has articulated other narratives about England.

Nonetheless, it is arguably a measure of the left’s weakness in articulating English domestic questions that, in turn, our members struggle to articulate proposals for England including new relationships with Scotland and Wales, and how Scottish and Welsh arrangements and demands can, arguably, enhance England too.  Members’ apparent difficulty to consider English questions is also in contrast to their typical fluency in discussing non-domestic international issues.

In my view, widespread education, discussions, proposals for and creation of new or radically reformed local, regional and national English institutions, new economic powers of intervention, investment in communities, services and infrastructure, investment in engaging democratic systems including physical local and regional English democratic chambers, civic spaces and new regional assemblies, would do much to articulate and enact a progressive, democratic England.  There has been money to revamp Westminster.  Let’s see serious proposals and funding for better English local and regional democratic systems and institutions.

In some ways, members’ mixed feelings regarding institutions and democratic systems were also apparent when the Party stood in elections this year.  Some members were unsure or unconvinced that the Party should stand in local elections.  Some were unclear about the Party’s stance on electoral politics, as set out in our strategic programme Britain’s Road to Socialism (BRS).  Some were unclear about the purpose of local councils, regional mayors, combined authorities, ‘devolution’ and the many other projects in localities and regions, such as levelling-up and town boards.  Some probably viewed councils as bureaucratic administrations rather than democratic forums.  Both are true.

Of course, much good work was done by Party members in the elections.  Yet, it would be a mistake not to consider if members could be better-informed about local, regional and national governance and democratic systems, warts and all.  I think it’s important that all members understand the variety of arrangements we have, and how they arose, to be able to think about changes needed in future.

We probably need some historic understanding too.  The Communist Party has many good resources, pamphlets and books on history.  Some of these explain the growth, development and tensions between capitalism, national and local governance and the people’s democratic demands at different places and eras.  Examples include changes in national and local government during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, the modern Scottish and Welsh parliaments and recent English ‘devolution’.

The 2024 general election highlighted a desire for change but also undemocratic features of the first-past-the-post electoral system.  Despite relief that Labour won, we also know Labour’s huge number of MPs does not reflect the proportion of votes they received or full public opinion.

Significant numbers of people voted for the Conservatives and Reform UK.  Others voted for Greens or independents.  But the smaller parties gained far less seats than they deserve proportionally.  The Communist Party supports proportional representation as a fundamental democratic principle.

Pamphlets, books and concepts of use

Several Communist Party and Manifesto Press publications cover key topics such as the development of capitalism, national and local government and democratic demands.  They include discussions of periods when workers, trade unions, communities, councils and others have formed broad alliances to challenge monopoly capitalism and seek significant new powers.  Important examples include the London borough of Poplar in the 1920s and Scotland in the 1970s.  Today, similar broad anti-monopoly alliances are needed, calling for new arrangement to tackle capitalism at local, regional and national levels.

These pamphlets and books include:

• The Party’s pamphlet, Johnson’s Post-EU Britain or Progressive Federalism? by John Foster.  
• Other John Foster pamphlets and books such as Nations and Working Class Unity in Britain.
• The BRS, which includes content on progressive federalism.
• Peter Latham’s book, The State and Local Government, published by Manifesto Press in 2011.

These publications show how England, Scotland and Wales all have histories of democratic movements and of radical rebellion by working people and their allies.  No single nation or society is innately radical or conservative; circumstances change over time and reflect competing and contradictory forces and trends.  The above publications also show how national and local governance has been developed under capitalism to protect power, wealth and the status quo.  Thus, popular democratic rights and economic concessions have had to be fought-for – they are never willingly granted.

Scottish rebellions and alliances

John Foster has often highlighted the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in of the early 1970s in Scotland.  This was also the focus of his book with Charles Woolfson, The Politics of the UCS Work-In, published by Lawrence & Wishart; but the struggle also featured in his article about popular fronts and anti-monopoly alliances in CR112.

During the work-in, Communist shop stewards led a movement of occupation ‘work-ins’, rather than strikes, against the proposed closure of four yards on the upper River Clyde by the Conservative government under Edward Heath.  

In effect, the government’s intention was to create surplus labour in Scotland that would then be available for the movement of new car manufacturing plants and other multinational firms to the fringes of Britain, to restructure the British economy ahead of joining the EU.

However, the UCS work-in raised fundamental questions about the right to work, and economic and democratic decision-making in Scotland and Britain.  It also led to the convening of a Scottish Assembly with trade unions, the Scottish TUC, councils, churches and chambers of commerce participating.  Importantly, small and medium-sized Scottish businesses were involved: many of them supplied shipyards or were linked to Clydeside communities reliant on shipyard employment.

The threat to Scottish businesses and the regional economy by Westminster government policies and global capitalism was exposed.  This drove a wedge between the Scottish business community and the Conservative Party.  Aspirations for a Scottish parliament, with powers of economic intervention, were raised too.

This type of alliance had a major impact on Scotland, but also England and Wales, with over 100 occupations and similar demands during the early 1970s.  But later came right-wing reaction from the Conservatives, with the Thatcher governments of the 1980s and ’90s and their ongoing legacy.  However, as John Foster argues, similar types of mass anti-monopoly alliance are needed today.

Britain’s Road to Socialism and progressive federalism

The BRS identifies how capitalist monopoly corporations and their state systems can be replaced by state power in the interests of the working class and its allies.  It is described as a living, developing programme to be constantly tested and reassessed.  It is a guide to action.

In my view, everything I discuss in this feature is in keeping with the purpose and spirit of the BRS.  The concept of progressive federalism is explored on pp 55-6.  The programme states:

“It is essential for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh National Assembly to have the full economic, legislative and financial powers necessary to protect and develop the economic, social and cultural interests of their peoples.  Such powers are particularly important for the Scottish and Welsh governments to intervene decisively in the economy, to exercise popular sovereignty over monopoly and market forces.”

Regarding progressive federalism, the BRS states that it should

“aid and not hinder any attempt to shift the balance of power in favour of the majority and enable working people and their allies to exercise increasing control over the allocation of resources at federal, national and regional level.  Its institutions must be able to respond to the democratic demands of an anti-monopoly alliance, expressed through political parties, to shift wealth and power away from monopoly control.  A British federal parliament, elected through STV [single transferrable vote] in multi-member constituencies, would have jurisdiction over foreign affairs, defence, macro-economic policy and national insurance, the power to raise taxes on wealth and income, and the responsibility to redistribute income among the nations and regions on the basis of social need.  National parliaments in Scotland, Wales and England, together with English regional assemblies, should be elected on the same basis, with powers to raise revenue and specifically to advance democratic control through state investment and public procurement.  A federal upper chamber [to replace the House of Lords] elected by the national parliaments and regional assemblies should have responsibility for upholding national and regional rights and revising all legislation.”

Personally, I am not sure that Party has acknowledged more recent mass events in Scotland around the 2014 independence referendum, such as rallies, debates, writing and culture over years?  Some commentators elsewhere have described those years as a ‘democratic tsunami’ across Scotland.

While the SNP has suffered losses and controversy recently, I think Scottish independence will remain a significant topic.  If Labour fails to deliver, the SNP could see a revival.

Public debates about power, democracy and the modern needs of nations are happening elsewhere too.  The Welsh Parliament has moved to increase the number of elected members – describing it as investing in democracy.  In Ireland, there have been citizens’ assemblies to consider constitutional issues; Sinn Fein has backed regional events with the Commission on the Future of Ireland.  In the past, the concept of creating a new federal Ireland based on its historic provinces was put forward under the ‘Nua Eire’ idea.

However, apart from an abortive referendum over a North East Regional Assembly, England has not had any other similar referenda, debates or big conversations.  The Brexit referendum had some mass elements but it was initiated by the right and powerful.  There has never been a lengthy, popular conversation in England to fully explore its needs, aspirations and options; the left should advocate it.

PCE members have held meetings in Manchester, Edinburgh and London, exploring national and regional arrangements between Spain, Catalonia and the Basque country.  Their attempts to formulate new democratic and governance arrangements for the Iberian peninsula are similar in some ways to the proposals from our own Progressive Federalism Commission.  Their informal ideas include a ‘pluri-national’ governance system and establishing a republic.  Environmental questions, the loss of young people and the impact of mass tourism are also being looked at.

English governance, capitalism and rebellions

Peter Latham’s book is another fascinating read.  Its subtitle is ‘Towards a new basis for local democracy and the defeat of big business control’.

It details key periods of national and local governance, capitalist growth and democratic rebellions with plenty of detail about England.  It shatters any myths that England is naturally conservative.  It is important that communists in England know about English radical and democratic events and progressive alliances of the past.

The book looks at historic events including: the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt; the emergence of banking; creation of early boroughs, shires and counties in the 1600s; the creation of the Houses of Lords and Commons; the industrial revolution; the forming of modern councils; and people’s demands for democracy through the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s.  It includes Victorian-era rebellions in Oldham, Lancashire.

Later in 1921, councillors in Poplar, in east London, challenged government arrangements for poor relief and argued that wealthier areas, such as Westminster, should contribute to poorer areas.  They refused to pay council funds to outside organisations such as the London County Council and the Metropolitan Police.  They said their priorities should be the poor.  Poplar’s struggle was for reforms.  But revolutionaries supported it.

Poplar councillors were jailed, leading to huge protests and conflicts.  Government restrictions and surcharges were imposed against councillors for their defiance.  However, the surcharges were later rescinded in 1924 by the first Labour government.

Later, during the 1920s and ’30s, more government action was taken against local rebellions against the Poor Law, in West Ham, Chester-le-Street, Bedwelty and Rotherham.  However, local council roles and powers grew in other ways during the 1930s.  This included building council houses and providing gas, electricity, transport, telephone systems, docks and entertainment.  In that era, over 40% of all government expenditure was by local government.

Post-war centralisation by Westminster

Over several decades after the Second World War, local councils lost many responsibilities.  Labour councils’ roles in housing, education and social care became a target of 1950s Conservative governments.  Then in 1963 the Greater London Council was created, followed by local council changes in England and Wales, then Scotland, in the early 1970s.  In England, new metropolitan councils were created in the West Midlands, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear.  Elsewhere, new two-tier shires with county and district councils were established.

In general, council areas were made larger.  Conservative politicians saw this as more efficient and also as a way of weakening Labour influence in urban areas, as Peter Latham writes.

This era also saw UK government policies to restructure British industry to compete with major US companies including mergers and using regional unemployment and inequalities to reduce wage pressures, as illustrated with the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders case.

The 1970s and ’80s saw increased financial control of local government by Westminster, though there were rebellions by councillors in Clay Cross, Derbyshire, in the 1970s and then Lambeth and Liverpool in the 1980s.  Like Poplar many years earlier, central government powers were used against them, including court action, surcharges and councillors being banned from elected office.

Fewer councillors, falling democratic representation

Peter Latham states that the number of councils fell from over 1,000 before the 1974 reforms to 441 by around 1998 – a reduction of over 70 per cent.  The average population served by each council rose from 29,000 to 128,000.  The number of elected councillors fell by one third.

As a result, people in England, Wales and Scotland now have the lowest levels of local democratic representation in western Europe.  Councillors have larger electorates and increased workloads.  This trend has continued under Labour and Conservative governments with council shake-ups since the 1990s and up to the present day.

For example, North Yorkshire now has just one unitary council covering a huge geographic area and a population of over 600,000 people.  Seven former district councils created in 1974 under the old two-tier county and district system were scrapped in 2023.  Similarly, Cumbria County Council and six lower-level district councils below it were scrapped in 2023.  They were replaced with two unitary authorities.  Somerset County Council was also scrapped in 2023.

There may be arguments about efficiency, duplication, overlapping roles and bureaucracy.  But our focus should be on accessibility and participation in democracy, public services and facilities, and democratic powers of economic intervention, taxation and planning.

The Cameron-Clegg era and austerity

Moving to much more recent periods, the book details how Conservative and New Labour governments enacted the penetration of the public sector by private businesses, the impact of the financial crisis of 2007-8 and the early subsequent years of austerity.  Published in 2011, it chronicles the then direction of travel by the Conservative-Lib-Dem coalition government under David Cameron and Nick Clegg.  That austerity has been continued by subsequent governments and has harmed our society in so many ways.  It’s a startling read about how we got to where we are today.

Latham highlights early privatisation of local council services such as street cleaning and bin collections, seen as ‘low hanging fruit’ which the public perhaps felt was uncontroversial.  But privatisation, outsourcing, tendering and all the rest grew hugely.  Opportunities for private penetration of public services, assets and infrastructures were so great that overseas firms bid for them.  But today, public services or assets which the public feel strongly about, such as care homes, health services, water and gas, have been impacted too.  And the Environment Agency has been starved of finance, hitting projects such as flood defences.

Overall, Peter Latham says Britain has become a low skill, low wage, low growth and low investment economy.

Socialist decentralisation and recommendations

Peter Latham looks at alternative socialist models of decentralisation in China, Venezuela, Cuba, Kerala in India and Porto Alegre in Brazil.  These have resulted in material life improvements for people and enhanced participation in decision making systems.  He also considers tax and wealth distribution in Britain, and alternative tax arrangements to the current council tax and business rates (national non-domestic rates).  These include the combination of a land value tax, which has been tested in Glasgow and also advocated by Andy Burnham in the past, combined with progressive taxation of income and wealth.

His recommendations include:

• Enhanced council committee systems to allow all councillors to influence policy.
• More councils, covering smaller areas.
• Moving away from elite mayors and cabinets.  Theses structures (and arguably today’s regional combined authority models) reflect business models for swift decisions rather than democratic models.  Also, concentration of power, especially with mayors, increases risks of corruption which has been a major problem in the United States.
• Proportional representation using the single transferrable vote for all elections
• Direct provision of local services by councils.  Currently councils are among many organisations providing services
• Ending all privatisation, profiteering and marketisation of local and central government
• Ending the City of London Corporation which is undemocratic and archaic.  It is effectively a tax haven established centuries ago.  It should be restructured as a London borough.

From a Marxist perspective, Latham also looks at theories of the state and local government and how governance systems are never neutral.  He considers some ideas of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian communist leader imprisoned by Mussolini, and famed for his Prison Notebooks.  These ideas include consideration of the roles and balance of coercion and consent in politics and change.

Latham considers whether socialism can be built before or after working-class influence or power is asserted?  He suggests that the use of force, or seizure of power, can be insufficient to build socialism.  It can create reactions, backlashes and counter-revolutions.  Genuine popular support is needed – consent – to sustain change.

Perhaps popular anti-monopoly alliances and greater left influence in local and regional affairs can shape public consent and enhance democratic structures and organisations,  networks and capacity to counter reaction?

Given the above, what local and regional policies and democratic arrangements would the Communist Party propose and enact if it gained power?  How could the left in general better engage with and consult the public?  How can popular consent be achieved and retained over time?

Democracy and consent should be key considerations for the left.  Gaining power and popular consent is one challenge.  Keeping power and popular consent is another. How would the left nurture and retain popular support?  Can accessible, popular democratic decision-making processes lessen the likelihood of right-wing popularist revivals or establishment reaction?

There may be key periods or events in future when power is in the balance, as forces of reaction and progress compete.  These could be described as periods of ‘dual power’.  In such circumstances, having popular consent combined with credible local, regional and national democratic systems and mandates may be pivotal.  Establishing real local, regional and national democracy is arguably essential in achieving this: then nations and regions can consider how to progress towards socialism?

England’s patchy ‘devolution’ and democratic deficits

With the Progressive Federalism Commission, I have highlighted the inconsistent regional ‘devolution’ deals in England, and England’s democratic deficits compared with Scotland and Wales.  England has no elected regional assemblies outside London, no votes for 16-year-olds and no proportional representation in any elections.

So-called devolution has been erratic and changed through different eras, such as the Northern Powerhouse, ‘levelling-up’, freeports, combined authorities, town deals, county deals, localism and the ‘Big Society’ (remember that?).

A key feature of modern Conservative-agreed English regional devolution boards and combined authorities is the small number of elected representatives.  English regional combined authority boards typically have one council leader from each borough in the region and one directly-elected regional mayor (such as Andy Burnham or Ben Houchen).  Outside London, there are no directly-elected regional councillors or assembly members.

London has the London Assembly where voters have three votes – one for the mayor, one for their constituency and one from a London-wide list.  

Examples of very different regional English devolution deals are illustrated in the North East and the North West.  In the Tees Valley, Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen has a focus on major regeneration, economic growth and infrastructure projects.  In Greater Manchester, Labour Mayor Andy Burnham is associated with trams and new regulated bus services.

There are devolution deals and discussions across the country.  Crucially, the public has hardly been involved in any of these.  English devolution has been a conversation between elite regional and national politicians and business representatives.  Furthermore, existing local democratic systems are changing with little public awareness.  Elected councillors have been increasingly sidelined by elite combined regional authorities, ‘levelling-up’ bids and town boards being required by Westminster to include non-elected people, in particular business representatives.

The left needs to understand the range of ‘devolution’ deals, in order to engage with them, critique them and offer alternatives.  The variations and details of each deal can affect public engagement, expectations, support or opposition.

While we may have overall criticisms of all devolution deals and Westminster government policy, we also need to understand the different circumstances and why public opinion may vary.  Hopefully, this will assist the Communist Party to respond with detailed, credible alternatives and, ultimately, influence the wider progressive movement and society at large.

Other members of the Progressive Federalism Commission are considering topics including trade unions and devolution, developments in Scotland and Wales, the future of Cornwall, and reform of local government and public services.  They have stressed that through time people have had to fight for democratic rights and systems.  That remains the case today.

The limited role of Greater Manchester’s regional mayor

In Greater Manchester, the Combined Authority covers 10 boroughs and 2.8 million people.  Its directly elected mayor, Andy Burnham, has been associated with re-regulating bus services, trying to tackle homelessness and challenging the government’s pandemic lockdown arrangements.  His official remit includes police, fire and planning responsibilities but not the economy and business.

The economy and business portfolio at Greater Manchester Combined Authority is with Councillor Bev Craig, the Labour leader of Manchester City Council.  So it is arguably Manchester City Council, not Burnham or the other 9 Greater Manchester council leaders on the combined authority, which dominates economic debates.

In my view, it’s hard to think of one other political leader in any other Greater Manchester borough who has ever challenged the consensus idea that everyone benefits from Manchester’s economic success.  Yet, various boroughs, such as Oldham, Rochdale and Bolton, have serious problems.

Despite the national media portraying Andy Burnham as ‘king of the North’, I would argue that although his public support is generally high, it can also be superficial.  It is based on factors such as his affable personality, fame from being a former MP and mainly being associated with uncontentious issues, such as helping rough sleepers on the streets.

But public support is variable.  Unpopular issues, such as plans to introduce Greater Manchester motorway tolls or clean air zones, have led to some public backlashes and nervousness from Burnham or other leaders.  Similar backlashes were seen in London too with Sadiq Khan and the ULEZ scheme.

Environmental and transport needs are potentially vulnerable to capture by the far right.  Proposals need to be well considered and to be seen as fair.  Otherwise, devolution, councils and mayors can be portrayed as enforcers, toll-collectors and bureaucrats rather than enablers of positive change.

In the wider North West, despite Manchester’s image as a progressive, cooperative city-region, there have been some complaints about a lack of public consultation by Greater Manchester leaders with neighbouring regions and authorities, such as in Lancashire.

There are arguably some good elements of devolution too.  Greater Manchester trams are popular and important.  And health professionals in the NHS and council-owned leisure centres say devolution has resulted in closer work between doctors, hospitals and the leisure sector, improving people’s health and physical activity, and patients’ preparation for and recovery from hospital surgery or other major medical treatments.

With Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram, Burnham has written a book, Head North, A Rallying Cry For A More Equal Britain.  Their recommendations include a written constitution, reform of the voting system, removal of the whip in party discipline, a senate for nations and regions, full devolution, a Grenfell Tower law, a Hillsborough law and net-zero activity to re-industrialise the North.

Some critics say it is cliche-ridden and superficial.  Indeed, quite a lot of it is biography and anecdotes.  But its criticism of Westminster politics, its general call for change and the high profiles of its authors could arguably be used for further activities, debate and progress.

Tees Valley – big economic interventions

In north-east England, the Tees Valley Combined Authority was launched in 2016.  It represents five boroughs of Middlesbrough, Darlington, Stockton on Tees, Hartlepool and Redcar & Cleveland, with a population of around 700,000.

Previously, Teesside had been without a single region-wide authority since 1996, when the old Cleveland County Council was abolished.  Earlier, the short-lived Teesside County Borough operated there in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The region needed a regional body for a co-ordinated regional overview, rather than individual smaller boroughs acting alone.  But it also needed regional democratic representation and accountability through directly-elected members.  But that was not included under Conservative government terms, as with other combined authorities.

Tees Valley Conservative mayor Ben Houchen was first elected in 2017 then re-elected in 2021 and 2024.  He is closely associated with major economic, regeneration and infrastructure interventions.  These have included buying Teesside Airport near Darlington for £40m and redeveloping the former Redcar steelworks site, including creating a Freeport.  Freeports have been established elsewhere too, such as in the Liverpool City Region.

For clarity, this is not an endorsement of Ben Houchen.  His projects have captured the public desire for big economic intervention, which explains his popularity.  But the processes involved have been controversial.

In the past, Teesside Airport was threatened with closure and there were claims that a northern property developer, Peel Group, wanted to build housing there.  After years of controversy, Houchen bought the airport with public money, which has since seen airlines and services returning, and investment in facilities such as freight.

At the former Redcar steelworks site, the new Teesworks industrial site is being developed.  This is described as the UK’s largest industrial zone at 4,500 acres.  It is located next to the North Sea and River Tees estuary with ports, railways and roads.  Plans include establishing a mix of industries including carbon capture, low carbon and green energy developments such as wind turbine manufacturing.

Deals with local land developers and regeneration contractors have raised accusations of corruption, poor governance and a lack of transparency against Houchen and of poor scrutiny at the combined authority, both of which have been strongly denied.  Questions have also been raised about the balance between private and public sector risks and rewards, and there have been accusations of huge gains for developers with minimum private investment.

There has been serious environmental controversy too.  Dredging of the River Tees near Teesworks has been blamed by some for the deaths of thousands of crabs and other crustaceans along the north-east coast.  The issue raised alarm, debate and some protests, by groups including Extinction Rebellion and another called Teesside Resistance.  In the 2024 mayoral election campaign, Teesside Resistance, which had links to a fishermen’s collective, ran a ‘Bin Ben’ campaign.  

An investigation by government agency DEFRA found, that the cause of the crab deaths was an algal bloom.  This has been disputed: levels of chemicals found in dead crabs in the north-east were reportedly much higher than in crabs from other coasts around England.  DEFRA closed its investigations, saying the North Sea problem was over and the crustaceans had returned.  

In the past, Houchen has criticised Conservative Party leadership contestants for failing to discuss regional policy and levelling-up.  He was re-elected in May, promising to invest £1 bn in transport infrastructure.  He is associated with current upgrades of Middlesbrough and Darlington railway stations, and improvements to others.  He is also talking about hospital upgrades.

In contrast, the Labour Party’s Tees Valley mayoral campaign was criticised as lacklustre.  The candidate, Chris McEwan, had a manifesto including free car parking in town centres, guaranteed skills and employment reviews for people of certain ages, CCTV cameras and better street lighting to tackle crime.

And the Green Party Tees Valley mayor candidate pulled out, saying she did not want to split the anti-Houchen vote.  A strong Green campaign could have presented some awkward environmental questions for Ben Houchen and Freeports across the country.

Houchen has survived controversy and scrutiny from local and national media, including Private Eye and the Financial Times.  Middlesbrough and Stockton Labour MPs and the chairman of Middlesbrough Football Club.  His vote was down this year but the big economic projects he is linked to still command a lot of interest.

New industries earmarked for the River Tees Freeport area include wind turbines.  So, environmental issues, regeneration and employment are all entwined on Teesside – from fishermen’s jobs to new green energy jobs.  These many themes show the scale and complexity of some devolution deals and the potential multiple considerations for radical politics and alliances.

Other regions have experienced controversies too, such as in South Yorkshire with the closure of Doncaster Sheffield Airport, where the Peel Group has also been involved.  Trade unions, civic leaders and the public have protested about closure threat.  Over 70,000 people signed a petition, and Ben Houchen also spoke out, criticising Peel too.  This was a Conservative regional mayor criticising a major northern business.  This saga illustrates many questions, including defending regional economic assets and local economies, and tackling monopolies in airport, airline or property sectors.

How can the left engage in situations like these?  What will the new Labour government do regarding existing devolution deals with arguably unresolved democratic, financial and environmental controversies?  There are potential alliances in these complex situations – including with the public, MPs, councillors, political parties, local businesses and environmental groups.

Other regions and political opportunities

Across the country, there are many examples of scenarios where the Communist Party could get involved.  Housing, town and country planning system and public influence in the planning system are key areas for the new Labour government.  This could present opportunities to connect, build alliances and highlight the pros, cons and alternatives.

Transport is another key need.  In the North, better and new rail links are wanted in Yorkshire (Bradford), Lancashire (Morecambe, Lancaster, Pendle, Burnley and Hyndburn), Merseyside (Skelmersdale) and the North East (Teesside, County Durham, Sunderland and Washington).  Port and harbour infrastructure, freeports, governance, accountability, investment and environmental issues are topics on Teesside, Merseyside and, to a lesser degree, Glasson near Lancaster.

Airport ownership, vulnerability and monopolies are issues in Teesside, South Yorkshire and Blackpool.  Privatised water, energy and utilities are issues everywhere.  But there are also local debates and opportunities for new green energy and council-owned green energy generation.

County and district council restructures and public access to democracy and services are topical in North Yorkshire, Lancashire and what was Cumbria.

Regarding some positives, local economy development projects, local supply chains, local ownership, wealth retention, co-operative models, in-sourcing of council staff and services, and community wealth-building projects are emerging.  Councils are often key partners in these.  These are potential alternatives to outsourcing, privatisation, monopolies and big-city trickle-down wealth theories.

The TUC and devolution

Trade unions have historically played key roles in democratic calls for powers and institutions, in England, Scotland and Wales.  In recent times, the TUC has published some reports on devolution considerations.  It wants devolution deals to support working people, reduce inequalities and deliver quality public services.  Its devolution principles include:

1. Solidarity between regions and nations of Britain.

2: Tripartite working in devolved authorities, so workers’ interests are regarded with at least equal weighting to employers.  

3: That devolution should support all workers and deliver decent work, including through trade union recognition and collective bargaining in any new devolved authority.  

Furthermore, the TUC advocates ‘co-production’ in devolution – where citizens, trade unions, business, politicians and officials work together to design and deliver local development and industrial strategies.

Regional voices reduced

Capitalist centralisation, monopolisation and globalisation harms diversity, communities and human culture at all levels. In Britain, local, regional and national media and cultural infrastructure have been cut financially, merged, centralised and restructured in recent decades.  We have fewer regional voices.

Examples are widespread.  In journalism, ITV in particular has lost much of its regional identity, content and structure, while local radio is increasingly owned by major national and international media companies with minimum local identity and production.

Theatre, arts centres, music venues, libraries, museums and galleries have all suffered.  Arts councils have had financial cuts – the recent fight to save Oldham Coliseum theatre was a consequence.

Furthermore, we have seen commercialisation and privatisation of public spaces, parks and squares, sports, leisure facilities and football clubs.  The public realm, high streets, villages, towns and cities, buildings, architecture and amenities need investment for people.

Labour’s new Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy MP has already spoken about football clubs in her early days in the post.  There are plenty of other pressing needs too.  She has written a book, All In, How We Build a Country that Works.  Time will tell.

Progressive federalism should consider all this.  Politics is everything to do with people.

If the public really does value local, regional and national life, in all its diversity, which I don’t doubt, they need to understand how capitalism undermines it.  We need to communicate how new politics can support what people really value.

What next?  Thoughts for the Communist Party

Policies  

Does the Party need to develop more-detailed policies for what it advocates in a progressive, federal Britain?  For example: democratic decision-making systems and institutions; tax and economic measures; powers and relationships for local, regional and national governance?

Can some existing institutions be reformed?  Should some be scrapped?

Can physical, in-person democracy and decision-making be complemented by technology?  Could online and remote participation enhance democracy?

Can local and regional geographic experiences of capitalism and people’s individual and collective geographic and civic identities be better used to unite people and end divisive identity politics?  Can progressive politics be better aligned to local and regional English identities, adding a socialist/Marxist understanding?

Party visibility and connections  

Branches must be visible.  Every branch should have a regular public presence on social media, providing, as a minimum, local contact info, shares of local and national news and information, including central Party and Morning Star posts.

Every branch should also engage somehow with local news media, such as by sending letters to newspapers and engaging constructively with website comments.  Party branches and individual members should become better informed on local and regional issues on their doorsteps.

The Morning Star should be asked to join the free Local Democracy Reporting Service news service.  This provides council-focused news reports free of charge to media across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  It includes the BBC, ITV and local and national newspapers.  The Morning Star could designate a regular feature to local democracy news.  The Service is free to all media including small publishers.  It is an important new development following massive news media and technology changes.

Branches, probably using individual members, should consider engaging with local councillors and council meetings for public debate, eg taking petitions on local affairs to council meetings.  The public have formal rights to raise questions at councils, and full council meetings are good opportunities.  Such approaches can, in turn, appear in local news media, raising wider awareness.  Groups such as tenants’ unions, residents’ groups and environmental campaigners use these rights.  Council meetings are local democratic chambers.

Within trade unions and trades councils, members should promote discussion of devolution and raise awareness of topics.

Culture matters

Culture and recreation can articulate many issues and aspirations.  Culture in the broadest sense makes up key parts of civic life where we can engage – events, discussions, festivals, journalism, literature, songs and music, news media, social media, arts, language and dialect, food and drink, pubs and clubs, gardening, allotments, parks and playing fields, the built environment, conservation, statues and memorials, local history, outdoor culture, leisure centres, gyms, sport and games.

Mainstream political links

Labour is in office.  Are there people, ideas, events or campaigns that the left should consider?  Politicians such as Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram, Lisa Nandy and Preston Council’s Matthew Brown have all written books on local and regional issues.  Maybe they would be willing to join a debate or event?  Perhaps Morning Star readers’ groups could be asked to promote such events?

China at the Forefront of the Green Energy Revolution

Carlos Martínez

IT IS BY NOW almost universally understood that humans need to transition away from fossil fuels and adopt renewable energy if we are to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change.  As Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, says:

“Global temperatures are rising.  Sea levels are rising; ice sheets are melting; and other species are struggling to adapt to a changing climate.  Humans face an avalanche of problems from flooding and drought to wildfires and fatal heatwaves.  Farmers are at risk of crop failures.  Cities are at risk of being submerged.  There’s one main cause: human emissions of greenhouse gases.”

The science is clear and widely accepted: human activity, most importantly the burning of fossil fuels, has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to an unprecedented level.  This has led to more heat being trapped within the Earth’s atmosphere (that is, less heat is being radiated back into space), resulting in a global heating effect, which leads to more frequent and severe weather events, rising sea levels, and shifts in ecosystems.

Data from the ice core record, going back around 800,000 years, show that carbon dioxide concentration has fluctuated quite widely, between around 170 and 280 parts per million (ppm), with a previous peak at 300 ppm around 320,000 years ago.  CO₂ levels had been stable at around 270 ppm for the last 10,000 years, until a significant upward curve starting in the early 1800s and accelerating sharply from the 1950s onwards.  At the time of writing (June 2024), carbon dioxide concentration is 424 ppm.

Greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to increase, and the corresponding ecological problems will get significantly worse, unless we either reduce our consumption of energy to an extraordinary degree or we switch to non-emitting forms of energy.  The idea of reducing humanity’s overall energy consumption is not plausible.  For the majority of the world’s population, low energy consumption correlates to poverty, to low standards of living.  Clearly, socialists hope that most people in the developing world, over the course of the coming decades, will increase rather than decrease their consumption of energy, and will experience a corresponding improvement in quality of life.  As such, the only realistic option for preventing climate breakdown whilst continuing to pursue development is to undertake a massive global transition to green energy: to meet humanity’s energy needs without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and without causing permanent damage to the environment.

China’s changing role

Much is made by Western journalists and politicians of the fact that China is the world’s biggest overall emitter of carbon dioxide, having overtaken the US in 2007.  Of course, this is not a criticism made in good faith: the Western powers have made insufficient progress in decarbonising their economies, and now aim to pin the blame on China.  For example, Wopke Hoekstra, EU commissioner for climate action, commented in 2023: “I’m saying to China and others that have experienced significant economic growth and truly higher wealth than 30 years ago, that with this comes responsibility”.  US President Joe Biden famously claimed in his closing statement to the G20 summit in 2021 that China “basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change”, further stating that meaningful progress on climate change negotiations is “going to require us to continue to focus on what China’s not doing”.

Such a position is obviously not tenable.  China’s per capita emissions are around half those of the US, Canada and Australia.  Meanwhile, China is a developing country, with a per capita income a quarter of that of the US.  Unlike the increasingly post-industrial West, China is still undergoing modernisation and industrialisation.  It is industrialisation, and the corresponding improvement in living standards, that drives China’s greenhouse gas emissions − not luxury consumption.

Emissions have started to reduce in Britain and the US over the last 20 years, but these countries continue to have an outsized responsibility for the climate crisis.  Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.  In terms of cumulative emissions − the quantity of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere − the US is responsible for 25%, although it contains just 4% of the world’s population.  China meanwhile is responsible for 13% of cumulative emissions, in spite of having 18% of the world’s population.

In his bestselling book When China Rules the World, Martin Jacques writes that, as a result of China having “torn from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century in little more than three decades”, it has worked up “a huge ecological deficit of two centuries accumulated in just a few decades”.  Nevertheless, the Chinese people and government have been increasingly focused on ecological issues in recent decades, and environmental protection has become integrated into all levels of policy-making and economic planning.

Part of the reason for this heightened awareness of ecological issues is that China is already experiencing adverse impacts of climate change.  According to the World Food Programme, China is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with up to 200m people exposed to the effects of droughts and floods.  Already tens of thousands have to be evacuated every summer in response to flooding in the Pearl River Delta.  High levels of air pollution in the major cities are a serious health issue for the population.  China is already experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves due to global warming.  Zheng Zhihai, chief forecaster at China’s National Climate Centre, observes: 

“With the intensification of global warming, high-temperature weather in China in recent years has been characterised by its earlier onset, increased frequency, prolonged duration, a wider impact range and increased overall intensity”.

Environmental law expert Barbara Finamore notes that the Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership has accelerated efforts to “transform its economic structure from one reliant on fossil fuel-driven heavy industry and manufacturing to one based on services, innovation, clean energy, and environmental sustainability”.  Chinese policy-makers have started to de-emphasise GDP growth and to encourage green development, whereby “living standards continue to rise, but in a way that is much less energy and carbon intensive”.  The goal is to construct “an energy and resource efficient, environmentally friendly structure of industries, pattern of growth, and mode of consumption”.  In her popular 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, economist Mariana Mazzucato notes approvingly that China more than any other country is prioritising clean technologies “as part of a strategic vision and long-term commitment to economic growth”.

Early on in his presidency, in July 2013, Xi Jinping outlined his vision in relation to China’s environmental strategy:

“China will respect and protect nature, and accommodate itself to nature’s needs.  It will remain committed to the basic state policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment.  It will promote green, circular and low-carbon development, and promote ecological progress in every aspect of its effort to achieve economic, political, cultural and social progress.  China will also develop a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly geographical layout, industrial structure, mode of production and way of life, and leave to our future generations a working and living environment of blue skies, green fields and clean water.”

Over the course of the last decade, China has become, in the words of former UN under-secretary-general Erik Solheim, the “indispensable country for everything green”; and its “contribution to combatting global climate change is unparalleled”, according to Heymi Bahar, a senior analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Renewable energy

The most important component of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the replacement of fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources.  This means shifting power generation from coal, oil and gas to solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and nuclear, and electrifying travel, industry and heating.

Towards this end, China has announced ambitious long-term targets: to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.  Announcing these goals at the UN General Assembly in 2020, Xi Jinping explained that “humankind can no longer afford to ignore the repeated warnings of nature and go down the beaten path of extracting resources without investing in conservation, pursuing development at the expense of protection, and exploiting resources without restoration”.

Immediately after the goals were announced, the State Council − China’s top administrative body − introduced a comprehensive “1+N” policy strategy, “comprised of an overarching guideline for reaching the “dual carbon” goals (the ‘1’) and a number of more concrete guidelines and regulations to implement the strategy (the ‘N’)”.

The popular online magazine Interesting Engineering notes that 

“when the Asian superpower set its energy targets in 2020, aiming to achieve peak emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, most dubbed it ambitious.  To support these ‘ambitious’ goals, the government committed to constructing 1,200 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 .…  However, China is now on track to achieve this target a remarkable five years ahead of schedule”.

China’s carbon emissions result from the power and heat sectors (51%), industry (28%), transport (10%) and construction (4%).  The country has been making remarkable progress in reducing the proportion of fossil fuels in each of these sectors.  The government has been working at all levels to “quietly reorganise the entire power sector to support rapid electrification and expansion of renewables”.  Through coordinated planning and an unprecedented level of investment, China is on track to peak carbon dioxide emissions well ahead of schedule; indeed current trends indicate that this goal may already have been reached.

According to a detailed analysis for Carbon Brief, China’s emissions could well have peaked in 2023, driven by expanding solar and wind generation, along with declining construction activity.  Presenting this analysis, The Economist comments: 

“It is early days, but if this trend continues, the country’s emissions may never again rise to the levels they did in 2023.  In other words, they would have peaked”.

Renewable energy capacity reached around 50% of total generation capacity in 2023, surpassing that of coal for the first time.  The Financial Times editorial board reluctantly admits that 

“China’s state-owned enterprises, often seen as lumbering giants, are helping to accelerate the adoption of clean tech.  Such SOEs, which contribute the lion’s share of China’s gross domestic product, have the resources and backing to develop at scale some of the biggest solar and wind plants, even in remote areas”.

China’s investment in clean energy rose 40% year-on-year in 2023, to $US890 bn.  Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, observes that this investment is “almost as large as total global investments in fossil fuel supply in 2023”.  Interestingly, Myllyvirta’s analysis indicates that renewable energy was the largest driver of China’s economic growth for the year, accounting for 40% of the GDP increase.

China has taken a significant lead in the area of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation.  This technology is based on converting sunlight directly into electricity.  British environmentalist and new energy expert Chris Goodall provides a helpful overview of the physics of solar PV:

“We can think of photons of light from the sun as nothing more than pulses of energy.  Solar panels work by capturing this energy.  Each pulse can dislodge an electron in the panel and give it the extra energy to cross a one-way junction between two thin layers of silicon (or other constituents).  This creates a negative charge, adding to the electrical gradient between the two layers of silicon.  If wires are attached to the back and front of the panel, the electron will flow back to the layer from which it originally came, creating useful electrical current.”

A Bloomberg article from January 2024 reports that China installed more solar panels in 2023 than any other nation has built in total, adding 216.9 GW of capacity: “That’s more than the entire fleet of 175.2 gigawatts in the US”.  In the same period, the US added 32 GW − almost seven times less.

Chinese manufacturers dominate the solar panel industry, accounting for over 70% of global production.  This is a direct result of the government setting clear objectives and policy guidelines which are then implemented at provincial and municipal levels. 

In a recent essay entitled ‘America Is Losing the Green Tech Race to China’, David Wallace-Wells, prominent journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth, describes China’s role in the global green-tech supply chain: 

“China produces 84% of the world’s solar modules ….  It produces 89% of the world’s solar cells and 97% of its solar wafers and ingots, 86% each of its polysilicon and battery cells, 87% of its battery cathodes, 96% of its battery anodes, 91% of its battery electrodes and 85% of its battery separators.  The list goes on.”

Chinese companies are at the forefront of innovation in the field of renewable energy.  In 2023, the world’s largest hydro-solar power plant commenced operations in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, Sichuan.  This is primarily a solar power plant but it relies on hydropower to regulate the inherent intermittency of solar energy.  The plant “will cover the needs of 700,000 households for a whole year with its annual generating capacity of 2 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh)”.

Meanwhile, at the world’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant, in China’s western Qinghai province, researchers have found a way to combine green energy generation with tackling desertification and reducing poverty.  Nearly 3,000m above sea level, and exposed to extreme levels of solar radiation, it is an area that has experienced significant desertification in recent decades: 

“By the end of the last century, the desertification rate of the land was as high as 98.5%, making the solar panels installed here vulnerable to damage from the sand and gravel stirred up by strong gusts of wind”.

Since the installation of the power plant, grass has been thriving, due to photovoltaic panels reducing wind erosion on the vegetation.  Furthermore, in order to maintain the grass and to prevent the proliferation of weeds, sheep have been introduced to the solar park.  This has given a major boost to livestock cultivation in the region, with people in the surrounding villages now raising “photovoltaic sheep”.  The plant is thus “simultaneously generating electricity while making exemplary contributions to poverty alleviation and ecological conservation efforts”.

In addition to its rapidly expanding solar power capacity, China has also been investing heavily in wind energy, and was responsible for 65% of total wind power installation in 2023.

In June 2024, it was announced that Dongfang Electric Corporation, a state-owned manufacturer of power generators, had completed the installation (in Guangdong province) of the world’s first 18 MW wind turbine, capable of generating power for 36,000 households per year.  Indeed, of the top five global wind turbine manufacturers, four are Chinese.  China’s investments in wind power have led to major technological advancements and economies of scale, such that installed wind turbine cost in China is just one-fifth of the equivalent cost in the United States.

Alongside the enormous rollout of renewable energy, China has also been working to reduce its reliance on coal, the carbon dioxide emissions of which are twice as high as for natural gas.  The use of coal is currently responsible for around 69% of China’s carbon emissions, a reflection of China’s resource endowment: plenty of coal, little oil and little gas.

In the 15-year period from 2007 to 2022, coal’s share of the power mix was reduced from 81% to 56%, with “the large-scale deployment of wind and solar generation starting to satisfy an increasing share of electricity load growth”.  It is true that China continues to build new coal-fired power plants; however, these are modern, cleaner and more efficient replacements for existing plants.  US-based analysts KJ Noh and Michael Wong note that the bulk of China’s coal plants are now advanced supercritical or ultra-supercritical plants, “which means they are much more efficient and cleaner than many of the industrial-era legacy plants of the US”.

Many of the coal plants planned or under construction will act in a reserve capacity to ensure reliability of supply from solar and wind power plants.  Indeed, plans are underway to convert existing coal-fired plants from baseload generators to reliability reserve generators.  That is, coal plants would become “providers of energy security and capacity to meet peaks in electricity demand, and not generate large amounts of electricity”.²¹  These coal plants can expect to lie idle the bulk of the time.  A 2023 Telegraph article notes that the approval of new coal plants 

“does not mean what many in the West think it means.  China is adding 1 GW of coal power on average as backup for every 6 GW of new renewable power.  The two go hand in hand”. 

Transport

Globally, transport is responsible for around one fifth of carbon dioxide emissions, and is also a significant contributor to air pollution.  

As is widely known, China has quickly become the world leader in the electrification of transport.  A BBC article describes how, as a result of two decades of government support, China now has over 95% of the world’s electric buses, and as of 2022, 77% of all buses in the country are electric, up from 16% in 2016.  A number of major Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Tianjin and Guangzhou have already achieved 100% bus fleet electrification.

In high-speed rail (HSR), China is far out in front, with more high-speed rail miles than the rest of the world combined.  Although it only started its HSR rollout in 2008, China now has over 40,000 km.  Spain, in second place, has 3,661 km.  The US has 735 and Britain has 113.  The length of China’s HSR network is expected to reach 70,000 km by 2035.

Chinese electric cars make up 60% of worldwide sales, up from 0.1% in 2012.  Myllyvirta’s analysis for Carbon Brief, referred to above, reveals that China’s production of electric vehicles grew 36% year-on-year in 2023.²⁸  Regulations are being introduced that will effectively phase out fossil fuel-based cars in the next few years.  Almost 50% of new car registrations in China are for electric vehicles (EVs), and this number is rising rapidly; for comparison, EV market penetration in the US stands at just 8% as of 2024.  To go with these electric cars, there is also a growing network of 2.7m electric vehicle charging stations in China.

Global cost reduction

China is investing in renewable energy at such a scale as to bring costs down globally.  A BBC News report notes that “wind and solar power are booming in China and may help limit global carbon emissions far faster than expected” and that “solar panel installations alone are growing at a pace that would increase global capacity by 85% by 2025”.  According to Myllyvirta’s Carbon Brief analysis, cited above, solar prices fell by 42% in 2023, and battery prices by 50%.  “This, in turn, has encouraged much faster take-up of clean-energy technologies”.²⁸  Over the course of the last decade, global solar PV costs have gone down by more than 80%, and wind generation costs by 60%, “in large part due to China’s innovation, engineering and manufacturing”.

The drop in renewable prices provides an important boost for the global green transition − “ever-cheaper solar power is a tailwind for the global energy transition”.  Kevin Tu, of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, remarks: “If the Chinese manufacturers had not brought down the cost of panels by more than 95%, we could not see so many installations across the world”.

China is thus making a massive contribution to making the global green transition viable.  Even the Financial Times (FT) editorial board accepts that, “when it comes to climate change, Beijing’s green advances should be seen as positive for China, and for the world”.  Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, assesses that “China’s provision of services and support to other countries has significantly improved the accessibility of clean energy technologies and reduced the global cost of using green technologies”.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees things that way.  The US government announced in May 2024 a new raft of tariffs against Chinese green technology, including a 100% tariff on electric vehicles (EVs), a 50% tariff on solar cells, and a 25% tariff on lithium-ion batteries.  Presented as a means of curbing China’s unfair trading practices and boosting the US’s domestic manufacturing, the tariffs self-evidently form part of the broader New Cold War and are an example of President Biden appearing to get “tough on China” in advance of November’s presidential elections.  Such “toughness” is a bipartisan consensus in the US: Donald Trump responded to Biden’s 100% tariffs by promising tariffs of 200% if he is elected.³²

A Forbes article notes: 

“Most analysts tend to concur that in the medium- and long-term, a trade war with China isn’t in America’s best interests ….  With the US many years behind China both in terms of EV development and renewable energy manufacturing, experts said they found it unlikely that simply buying more time would help spur the nation’s − and the world’s − all-important drive away from fossil fuels, which the scientific community has repeatedly said is essential if humanity is to avoid catastrophic warming.”

This highlights the stupidity and short-sightedness of the US’s escalating “climate trade war” with China.  In the name of suppressing China’s economic and technological rise, the US political leadership (both Democrat and Republican) is sabotaging the US’s own green transition.  As Marxist economist Michael Roberts points out: 

“China has scaled up its green industries rapidly.  It now produces nearly 80% of the world’s solar PV modules, 60% of wind turbines and 60% of electric vehicles and batteries.  In 2023 alone, its solar-power capacity grew by more than the total installed capacity in the US… The cost [of Biden’s tariffs] to the US economy and the profitability of US industry will be considerable, and even more to the real incomes of Americans.”

The FT describes the US’s climate trade war as “a blow to the green transition at home and potentially abroad” since, “with households already pressed by the high cost of living, lower prices for EVs and solar panels now look like a missed opportunity”.  A further FT article notes that both Europe and the US “will face a mammoth task in creating a new clean tech supply chain that excludes China”. Prices for green energy products and materials will increase, and “it might be very difficult to really scale things up fast, because of the fact that you can’t tap into that Chinese expertise”.

US politicians have been talking incessantly about China’s “overcapacity” in solar PV and electric vehicle production, but it is perfectly obvious that no such overcapacity exists in the green industry.  As Erik Solheim remarks, in a June 2024 interview with Global Times:: 

“We have all called for many more high-quality green products from everyone, from China, from Europe, from the US, from everyone.  Why start blaming China for doing what is expected from everyone?”

One glaring irony of the situation is that US and EU tariffs will have minimal impact on China’s exports, as it can find growing markets elsewhere in the world.  The real losers will be ordinary people in North America and Europe.  

All countries, and developed countries in particular, face a critical challenge of decarbonising their economies, and it will be impossible to meet that challenge without intense global cooperation.  As a white paper from China’s State Council Information Office, China’s Green Development in the New Era, puts it: 

“Protecting the environment and countering climate change are the common responsibilities of all countries.  Only when all countries unite and work together to promote green and sustainable development can we maintain the overall balance in the earth’s ecology and protect humanity’s one and only home.”

Going nuclear

Nuclear energy is not generally considered as being renewable, since it relies on precursors such as uranium, the supply of which is finite.  Nonetheless, uranium is a very common element and there is enough of it available to meet demand for centuries into the future, given that “1 kg of uranium contains the same amount of energy as 2.7 million kg of coal.” Furthermore nuclear energy is far cleaner than fossil fuels: it does not emit greenhouse gases nor cause air pollution, although, as a 2021 article for Deutsche Welle points out, the extraction, transportation and processing of uranium does produce emissions.

Nuclear energy is however highly controversial, and public perception of it is coloured by the notorious nuclear accidents in Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011). Many environmentalists reject the idea of nuclear having a long-term role to play in meeting humanity’s energy needs, due to the risk of accidents and of radioactive waste leaking and contaminating water and soil; uranium-235 after all has a half-life of over 700m years.  Meanwhile, much of the peace movement rejects nuclear energy due to the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation: “nuclear power and nuclear weapons industries share a common technological basis and are mutually beneficial”.  There are also legitimate concerns that enriched uranium or plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Controversy notwithstanding, nuclear power currently makes a significant contribution to the energy mix in many countries, and in the words of British environmentalist Mike Berners-Lee, “anyone taking a firm anti-nuclear stance needs to have a coherent plan for the low carbon future without it”.  Nuclear power is the main source of electricity in France (in no small measure a manifestation of its neocolonial relationship with Niger, which has provided much of the uranium); “as a result, France has about half the carbon emissions per head of the OECD as a whole”.  According to the International Energy Agency, global nuclear power capacity will have to double by 2050 if humanity is to reach the net zero goals agreed by the UN.

Hannah Ritchie opines that “one of the biggest misconceptions is that nuclear power is unsafe.  In fact, it’s one of the safest sources of energy.” She goes on to note that that the death toll from the Chernobyl disaster − incorporating direct deaths and potential deaths from cancer cases caused by the radiation − is under 400.  

“Every one of those deaths is tragic, but they’re much fewer than most imagine, especially given the fact that this was the worst nuclear disaster in history and is unlikely to be repeated.” 

As such, she considers that nuclear energy is “hundreds, if not thousands, of times safer” than fossil fuels.  David Wallace-Wells makes a similar point in his popular 2019 book, The Uninhabitable Earth: 

“Already, more than 10,000 people die from air pollution daily.  That is considerably more each day than the total number of people who have ever been affected by the meltdowns of nuclear reactors.”

Nuclear energy is a costly option in most parts of the world, not least because many countries have divested from it in recent decades.  China however has continued to consider nuclear an important part of its strategy for both energy security and reducing emissions.  As such, China has “plans to generate an eye-popping amount of nuclear energy, quickly and at relatively low cost”, with a view to building over 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, “more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35”. Nuclear could play a particularly important role in replacing coal-fired plants.  The FT observes that “policymakers in Beijing believe nuclear power can help replace coal-fired plants, which are still the main source of China’s electricity despite a rapid growth in renewables”.⁷²

China is leading research into nuclear power, including fourth-generation reactors, the first of which was connected to the grid in December 2021.  Fourth-generation reactors promise to be significantly safer and to produce far less radioactive waste than earlier nuclear technology.  A recent report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the US is 10 to 15 years behind China in rolling out next-generation reactors, the result of China’s “coherent national strategy to develop nuclear power”.  Between 2008 to 2023, China’s share of nuclear energy-related patents increased from 1.3% to 13.4%.

China is at the forefront of research into thorium-based nuclear power generation, which is widely considered to be both cleaner and safer than its uranium-based counterpart: thorium is three times as abundant as uranium, produces far less nuclear waste, and is much more difficult to convert into nuclear weapons.  According to Kailash Agarwal of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “because of its abundance and its fissile material breeding capability, thorium could potentially offer a long-term solution to humanity’s energy needs”.

China is also among the world leaders in the effort to generate energy through nuclear fusion, which has the potential to some day generate unlimited, safe, emissions-free and radioactive waste-free power. As Neil Hirst says:

“Nuclear fusion could eventually provide a virtually unlimited source of power that is carbon free and which does not pose the same safety and security issues as nuclear fission”.

Green Belt and Road

The fruits of Chinese investment in green energy are being reaped beyond the borders of the People’s Republic, with Chinese companies supplying renewable energy infrastructure around the world, particularly the countries of the Global South.  The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in particular “provides an opportunity to export green technology across Central Asia and Africa”. 

Addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2021, Xi Jinping announced that China will not build any new coal-fired power plants overseas, and would increase its support for developing countries to pursue green and low-carbon development.  Since then, China’s investment in renewable energy projects along the Belt and Road has increased substantially.  According to an analysis by Energy Monitor, in the first half of 2023, 41% of BRI energy engagement went to solar and wind power, compared with 25% in the first half of 2020.  In 2013, renewable energy only constituted 19% of energy financing under the BRI.

Chinese financing for renewable power generation now accounts for the large majority of Chinese-financed overseas power generation capacity.  Ma Xinyue of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center opines that “by combining rapid phase-out of coal finance across the world and facilitating the world’s energy and economic transition, China has the opportunity to assume international climate leadership during an absolutely critical time”.

Environmentally-friendly projects developed within the framework of the BRI include: a 123 MW solar plant in South Africa that will provide electricity to over 80,000 households; Noor Abu Dhabi − the world’s largest single-site solar power plant; the ‘Whoosh’ high-speed railway − Indonesia’s first such, connecting Jakarta to Bandung; the Tabarjal 400 MW solar power plant in Saudi Arabia; the enormous Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Park in Pakistan; Latin America’s largest solar plant, Cauchari Solar Park in Argentina; Zambia’s largest hydropower plant, the Kafue Gorge Lower Hydropower Station; a 1,000 MW floating solar plant in Zimbabwe; a 50 MW wind power plant in Namibia; and many more.

In his Global Times interview, Erik Solheim discusses his experiences living in Kenya for several years and witnessing the construction by Chinese companies of the Mombasa-Nairobi railroad:

“It is the cleanest and most well-functioning transport system in Kenya.  It’s an absolute, wonderful, green contribution to Africa”.⁶⁴

Nigerian journalist Otiato Opali writes that 

“from the Sakai photovoltaic power station in the Central African Republic and the Garissa solar plant in Kenya, to the Aysha wind power project in Ethiopia and the Kafue Gorge hydroelectric station in Zambia, China has implemented hundreds of clean energy, green development projects in Africa, supporting the continent’s efforts to tackle climate change”. 

Tony Tiyou, CEO of clean energy company Renewables in Africa, adds: “China is clearly showing some leadership here, and they should be commended for that”.

China is also supporting Cuba’s bid to generate 24% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and Cuba has joined the China-initiated Belt and Road Energy Partnership. 

Ecological civilisation and the role of socialism

In the US, Britain and elsewhere, governments make empty promises around renewable energy and carbon efficiency, whilst taking precious little meaningful action.  Indeed, they maintain fossil fuel subsidies, expand drilling for oil and gas, impose tariffs and sanctions on Chinese solar panels and EVs, and engage in ecologically ruinous military activities.  Meanwhile, the capitalist class attempts to shift responsibility away from itself and onto individual consumers, who are expected to reduce their domestic energy consumption, to avoid flying, to recycle, to take shorter showers, to drive electric cars, to eat less meat and so on.  The crisis is thereby, in typical neoliberal fashion, individualised, and the capitalist class is absolved of all responsibility and blame.

The balance of power in capitalist countries is such that even relatively progressive governments (where these exist) find it difficult to prioritise long-term needs of the population over short-term interests of capital.  

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel writes: 

“The past half-century is littered with milestones of inaction.  A scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change first began to form in the mid-1970s ….  The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992 to set non-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions.  International climate summits – the UN Congress of Parties – have been held annually since 1995 to negotiate plans for emissions reductions.  The UN framework has been extended three times, with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, and the Paris Agreement in 2015.  And yet global CO₂ emissions continue to rise year after year, while ecosystems unravel at a deadly pace.”

China is still a developing country, but it has become the clear global leader in environmental protection.  It is the world’s first renewable energy superpower.  The government is not shifting responsibility to individuals, but promoting coordinated action at all levels of government and society.

It is important to understand why it is China, rather than any other major country, that is leading the way in the struggle to prevent climate breakdown; why it is China systematically pursuing an environmental action plan that goes beyond the wildest dreams of Western environmentalists; why it is China that is “building a society in which everyone pursues ecological progress all the time, everywhere, and in everything they do.”

As John Bellamy Foster observes: 

“While China has made moves to implement its radical conception of ecological civilisation, which is built into state planning and regulation, the notion of a Green New Deal has taken concrete form nowhere in the West.  It is merely a slogan at this point without any real political backing within the system.  It was talked about by progressive forces and then rejected by the powers that be.”

Mike Berners-Lee has written that, “more than in most countries, if a policy idea is seen as a good thing, the Chinese can bring it about”.  This could be interpreted as a trope about China’s putative authoritarianism, but it reflects a profoundly important reality: China’s crucial advantage is its political system.  As Xi Jinping puts it, China has “the political advantage of pooling resources to solve major problems”, and this in turn is a manifestation of the location of political power in the working people led by the CPC.  The government’s goals are the masses’ goals, and hence the pursuit of a Beautiful China and the fight against climate breakdown can be prioritised, just as the fights against poverty and Covid-19 have been.

China has raced ahead in renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, afforestation and ‘circular’ waste management because it has identified those sectors as being absolutely crucial for the 

future of not only China but the world.  As such, it has built environmental considerations into the core of its planning system and has targeted public investment accordingly.

What’s more, China’s enormous investments have largely been made by state banks, and many of its key projects carried out by state-owned enterprises, according to strategic guidelines laid out by the government.  This is possible because of the basic structure and planned nature of the Chinese economy.  Which is to say, the fundamental reason China has emerged as the undisputed leader in the fight against climate breakdown is its socialist system.  However, the results of China’s progress are already having a global impact, as described above.  The whole world, and particularly developing countries, can benefit from China’s innovations in renewable energy and electric transport.  And for those of us in the advanced capitalist countries, where political power is dominated by a decaying and aggressive bourgeoisie, China’s example can be used to help create mass pressure to stop our governments and ruling classes from destroying the planet, and to encourage sensible cooperation with China on environmental issues.

■ Published simultaneously on the Friends of Socialist China web site, https://socialistchoina.org.

Notes and References

¹ H Ritchie, Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, Chatto & Windus, London, 2024, p 28.

² L Krauss, The Physics of Climate Change, Head of Zeus Ltd, London, 2021, pp 27-35.

³ ‘China overtakes US as world’s biggest CO₂ emitter’, in The Guardian, 19.06.2007; at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews .

⁴ ‘EU climate chief: China must help fund rescue of poorer nations hit by disaster’, in The Guardian, 26.11.2023; at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/26/eu-climate-chief-china-fund-rescue-poorer-nations-cop28 .

⁵ ‘G20 pledge to take climate action criticised for “lacking ambition”’, in The Guardian, 31.10.2021; at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/31/g20-pledge-to-take-climate-action-criticised-for-lacking-ambition.

⁶ World Bank, ‘CO₂ emissions (metric tons per capita)’, at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC.

⁷ S Evans, ‘Analysis: Which countries are historically responsible for climate change?’ at Carbon Brief, 05.10.21, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/.

⁸ M Jacques, When China Rules the World: The end of the Western world and the birth of a new global order, 2nd edn, Penguin Books, New York, 2012, p 179.

⁹ World Food Program, Where we Work: China, at https://www.wfp.org/countries/china.

¹0 Kelly Ng, ‘Tens of thousands evacuated from massive China floods’, BBC News, 28.04.2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp0gd5ezj9lo.

¹1 Li Menghan, ‘Heat waves have intensified in recent decades’, in China Daily, 17.06.2024, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202406/17/WS666f9024a31095c51c509341.html.

¹2 B Finamore, Will China Save the Planet?, Polity, Cambridge, 2018, p 28.

¹3 N Hirst, The Energy Conundrum: Climate change, global prosperity, and the tough decisions we have to make, World Scientific, New Jersey, 2018, p 74.

¹4 Zhihe W, Huili H and Meijun F, ‘The Ecological Civilization Debate in China’, in Monthly Review, November 2014; online at  https://monthlyreview.org/2014/11/01/the-ecological-civilization-debate-in-china/.

¹5 M Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking public vs private sector myths, Penguin Books, London, 2018, p 181.

¹6 Xi J, ‘Leave to Our Future Generations Blue Skies, Green Fields and Clean Water’, Letter of congratulations to the Eco Forum Annual Global Conference, Guiyang 2013, in Qiushi, CPC Central Committee Bimonthly, at http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-12/14/c_607615.htm.

¹7 ‘Narrative of “overcapacity” is a complete failure: former UN under-secretary-general’, in Global Times, 11.06.2024, at https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202406/1313926.shtml.

¹8 ‘IEA expert: China is second to none in photovoltaic, wind power and hydropower’, in China News, 11.06.2024, at https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2024/06-11/10232179.shtml.

¹9 M McGrath, ‘Climate change: China aims for “carbon neutrality by 2060”’, BBC News, 22.09.2020, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54256826

²0 Xi J, ‘Full text: Statement by Xi Jinping at General Debate of 75th UNGA’, in China Daily, 22.09.2020, at https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202009/23/WS5f6a640ba31024ad0ba7b1e7.html.

²1 Wang Z and K Sandholt, ‘How China’s energy system can reach carbon neutrality before 2055’, at Carbon Brief, 15.05.2024, https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-chinas-energy-system-can-reach-carbon-neutrality-before-2055/.

²2 AJ Chacko, ‘China breaks 2023 record, tops solar capacity than rest of the world’, at Interesting Engineering, 26.01.2024, https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-breaks-2023-record-tops-solar-capacity-than-rest-of-the-world.

²3 Yon Y, ‘Promoting low-carbon energy transition will provide strong impetus for realization of “dual-carbon” goals’, CGTN, 07/21.07.2023, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-07-07/Low-carbon-energy-transition-to-underpin-realization-of-dual-carbon–1lf9Uzqj6bm/index.html.

²4 ‘China leads global renewables race with record-breaking 230 GW installations in 2023’, Wood Mackenzie, 28.11.2023, https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/china-leader-in-renewables/.

²5 L Myllyvirta, ‘Analysis: Monthly drop hints that China’s CO2 emissions may have peaked in 2023’, at Carbon Brief, 28.05.2024, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-monthly-drop-hints-that-chinas-co2-emissions-may-have-peaked-in-2023/.

²6 ‘Has China reached peak emissions?’ in The Economist, 30.05.2024, at https://www.economist.com/china/2024/05/30/has-china-reached-peak-emissions.

²7 ‘China’s striking advances in green technology’, in the Financial Times, 04.01.2024, at https://www.ft.com/content/d90f4b4e-0ca7-49d2-8437-7d567f6edabf.

²8 L Myllyvirta, ‘Analysis: Clean energy was top driver of China’s economic growth in 2023’, at Carbon Brief, 25.01.2024, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-was-top-driver-of-chinas-economic-growth-in-2023/.

²9 C Goodall, The Switch, Profile Books, London, 2016, p 83.

³0 ‘China added more solar panels in 2023 than US did in its entire history’, Bloomberg News, 26.01.2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-26/china-added-more-solar-panels-in-2023-than-us-did-in-its-entire-history.

³1 Mao Kawano, ‘China solar panel glut squeezes European suppliers as prices plunge’, at Nikkei Asia, 01.06.2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-solar-panel-glut-squeezes-European-suppliers-as-prices-plunge.

³2 D Wallace-Wells, ‘America Is Losing the Green Tech Race to China’, in New York Times, at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/opinion/america-green-tech-trade-war-china.html.

³3 Liu X, ‘World’s largest hydro-solar power station fully operational in China’, at CGTN, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-25/World-s-largest-hydro-solar-power-station-officially-operates-in-China-1kV6xfwZ7Pi/index.html.

³4 Xinhua Headlines, ‘Solar power farms on plateau fuel China’s green energy revolution’, at https://english.news.cn/20240609/2f984e1bd1204afdbf8b86064b979d29/c.html.

³5 A Hayley, ‘Explainer: China’s dominance in wind turbine manufacturing’ at Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-dominance-wind-turbine-manufacturing-2024-04-10/.

³6 A Paleja, ‘China installs world’s 1st 18 MW wind turbine, can power 36,000 homes yearly’, at Interesting Engineering, 07.06.2024, https://interestingengineering.com/energy/18mw-turbine-installed-china.

³7 ‘China leads global wind turbine manufacturers’ market share in 2023’, at Wood Mackenzie, 01.05.2024, https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/2024-press-releases/global-wind-oem-marketshare/.

³8 H Chik, ‘“Historic breakthrough”: China’s installed wind turbine cost drops to one-fifth of the US in green energy race’, in South China Morning Post, 28.03.2024, at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3257036/historic-breakthrough-chinas-installed-wind-turbine-cost-drops-one-fifth-us-green-energy-race.

³9 H Ritchie and M Roser, ‘China: CO₂ Country Profile’, at Our World in Data, 2023, https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN#coal-oil-gas-cement-how-much-does-each-contribute-to-co2-emissions.

⁴0 You Y, ‘Promoting low-carbon energy transition will provide strong impetus for realization of ‘dual-carbon’ goals’, at CGTN, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-07-07/Low-carbon-energy-transition-to-underpin-realization-of-dual-carbon–1lf9Uzqj6bm/index.html.

⁴1 ‘China to cut coal use share below 56% in 2021’, at Reuters, 22.04.2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-cut-coal-use-share-below-56-2021-2021-04-22/

⁴2 ‘China dials down coal output to focus on structural reform’, at Reuters, 21.06.2024, https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-dials-down-coal-output-focus-structural-reform-kemp-2024-06-20/.

⁴3 KJ Noh and M Wong, ‘China offers solutions to climate change’, in Asia Times, 12.11.2021, https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/china-offers-solutions-to-climate-change/.

⁴4 J Kemp, ‘China’s renewables rollout signals future peak in coal’, at Reuters, 22.01.2024, https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/chinas-renewables-rollout-signals-future-peak-coal-kemp-2024-01-19/.

⁴5 A Evans-Pritchard, ‘China’s CO2 emissions may be falling already, in a watershed moment for the world’, in The Telegraph 21.11.2023, at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/21/chinas-carbon-emissions-falling-xi-jinping-net-zero/.

⁴6 Xiaoying Y, ‘How China’s buses shaped the world’s EV revolution’, at BBC Future, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231206-climate-change-how-chinas-electric-vehicle-revolution-began-with-buses.

⁴7 Statista, ‘Length of the high-speed railway lines in operation worldwide in 2022, by country’, 2024, at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1265995/length-of-highspeed-railway-lines-in-use-worldwide-by-country/

⁴8 B Jones, ‘Past, present and future: the evolution of China’s incredible high-speed rail network’, at CNN, 09.02.2022, https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd/index.html.

⁴9 D Oxford, ‘Are Chinese electric vehicles taking over the world?’, at Aljazeera, 20.04.2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/20/are-chinese-evs-taking-over-the-car-market.

⁵0 E Huang, ‘China’s making it super hard to build car factories that don’t make electric vehicles’, at Quartz, 19.12.2018, https://qz.com/1500793/chinas-banning-new-factories-that-only-make-fossil-fuel-cars.

⁵1 S Tanabe, ‘Huawei rolls out ultrafast EV chargers in China, taking on Tesla’, at Nikkei Asia, 8.02.2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Electric-cars-in-China/Huawei-rolls-out-ultrafast-EV-chargers-in-China-taking-on-Tesla

⁵2 M McGrath and M Poynting, ‘Climate change: China’s green power surge offers hope on warming’, BBC News, 29.06.2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66043485.

⁵3 C Hemingway Jaynes, ‘China installed more solar panels last year than the US has in total’, at EcoWatch, 29.01.2024, https://www.ecowatch.com/china-new-solar-capacity-2023.html.

⁵4 ‘Cheap solar gives desalination its moment in the sun’, in Financial Times online, 28.04.2024, https://www.ft.com/content/bb01b510-2c64-49d4-b819-63b1199a7f26.

⁵5 K Bradsher, ‘How China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy’, in New York Times, at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/business/china-solar-energy-exports.html.

⁵6 FT Editorial Board, ‘China’s striking advances in green technology’, in Financial Times online, 04.01.2024, https://www.ft.com/content/d90f4b4e-0ca7-49d2-8437-7d567f6edabf.

⁵7 ‘Hyping “overcapacity” in China is the real threat to world’, in Global Times, 29.04.2024, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202404/1311459.shtml.

⁵8 D Vetter, ‘Biden’s China Trade War: could it threaten the green transition?’, in Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2024/05/21/bidens-china-trade-war-could-it-threaten-the-green-transition/.

⁵9 M Roberts, ‘Fixing the climate – it just ain’t profitable’, Michael Roberts Blog, https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/fixing-the-climate-it-just-aint-profitable/.

⁶0 ‘A misguided move on Chinese tariffs’, in Financial Times online, 17.05.2024, https://www.ft.com/content/56685c0b-1bdd-43a5-b039-7bb2cb7c7f87

⁶1 E White, ‘How China cornered the market for clean tech’, in Financial Times online, 09.08.2023, https://www.ft.com/content/6d2ed4d3-c6d3-4dbd-8566-3b0df9e9c5c6.

⁶2 S Schonhardt, ‘China invests $546 billion in clean energy, far surpassing the US’, at Scientific American online, 30.01.2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546-billion-in-clean-energy-far-surpassing-the-u-s/.

⁶3 D Lawder, ‘Yellen pushes for joint G7 response to China’s industrial overcapacity’, at Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/markets/yellen-says-us-europe-must-respond-jointly-chinas-industrial-overcapacity-2024-05-21/.

⁶4 ‘Narrative of ‘overcapacity’ is a complete failure: former UN under-secretary-general’, in Global Times. 11.06.2024, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202406/1313926.shtml.

⁶5 The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, ‘China’s Green Development in the New Era’, January 2023, at http://english.scio.gov.cn/node_9000497.html.

⁶6 National Grid, ‘What is nuclear energy (and why is it considered a clean energy)?’, 27.03.2024, at https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-nuclear-energy-and-why-it-considered-clean-energy.

⁶7 J Weber, ‘Fact check: Is nuclear energy good for the climate?’ at Deutsche Welle, 29.11.2021, https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315.

⁶8 ‘Fukushima disaster: What happened at the nuclear plant?’, at BBC News, 23.08.2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56252695.

⁶9 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, ‘No to Nuclear Power’, at https://cnduk.org/campaigns/no-nuclear-power/.

⁷0 M Berners-Lee, There Is No Planet B: A handbook for the make or break years, Cambridge University Press, 2019, p 73.

⁷1 N Hirst, op cit, p 132.

⁷2 E White, ‘Xi’s climate goals boost China’s nuclear industry’, in Financial Times, 21.06.2024, at https://www.ft.com/content/af88f874-69b2-478e-9d33-ad3b31468258

⁷3 H Ritchie, op cit, p 62.

⁷4 D Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: A story of the future, Allen Lane, London, 2019, p 101.

⁷5 D Murtaugh and K Chia, ‘China’s Climate Goals Hinge on a $440 Billion Nuclear Buildout’, at Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-climate-goals-hinge-on-440-billion-nuclear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s.

⁷6 S Patel, ‘China Starts Up First Fourth-Generation Nuclear Reactor’, at Power, 01.02.2022, https://www.powermag.com/china-starts-up-first-fourth-generation-nuclear-reactor/.

⁷7 A Shen, How China hopes to play a leading role in developing next-generation nuclear reactors, in South China Morning Post, 10.01.2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2181396/how-china-hopes-play-leading-role-developing-next-generation.at. 

⁷8 ‘US falling far behind China in nuclear power, report says’, at Aljazeera, 17.06.2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/6/17/us-falling-far-behind-china-in-nuclear-power-report-says.

⁷9 S Ezell, ‘How innovative is China in nuclear power?’ at Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 17.06.2024, https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-innovative-is-china-in-nuclear-power/.

⁸0 C McFadden, ‘“Green light” given for first thorium molten salt nuclear reactor in China’, at Interesting Engineering, 16.06.2023, https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/thorium-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor-china.

⁸1 A Vlasov, ‘Thorium’s long-term potential in nuclear energy: new IAEA analysis’, at International Atomic Energy Agency, 13.03.2023, https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/thoriums-long-term-potential-in-nuclear-energy-new-iaea-analysis.

⁸2 B Turner, ‘China’s $1 trillion ‘artificial sun’ fusion reactor just got five times hotter than the sun’, at Live Science, 06.01.2022, https://www.livescience.com/chinas-1-trillion-artificial-sun-fusion-reactor-just-got-five-times-hotter-than-the-sun.

⁸3 N Hirst, op cit, p 141.

⁸4 C Campbell, ‘Why an unlikely hero like China could end up leading the world in the fight against climate change’, in Time, 01.06.2017, https://time.com/4800747/china-climate-change-paris-agreement-trump/.

⁸5 Shi Y, ‘China to stop building new coal power projects overseas’, at Dialogue Earth, 22.09.2021, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/china-to-stop-building-new-coal-power-projects-overseas/.

⁸6 P Bindman, ‘Weekly data: 2023 is the China Belt and Road Initiative’s greenest year ever’, at Energy Monitor, 18.10.2023, https://www.energymonitor.ai/policy/weekly-data-2023-is-the-china-belt-and-road-initiatives-greenest-year-ever/.

⁸7 ‘China Belt & Road Initiative brings in 128 GW installed power capacity in 10 years’, at Wood Mackenzie, 20.11.2023, https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/china-belt-and-road-10-years-on/

⁸8 Ma X, ‘China’s shifting overseas energy footprint’, at Dialogue Earth, 08.09.2021, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/chinas-shifting-overseas-energy-footprint/.

⁸9 N Hakeenah, ‘Chinese company expands footprint in South Africa’s energy sector with new solar project’, at China Global South Project, 21.08.2023, https://chinaglobalsouth.com/2023/08/21/chinese-company-expands-footprint-in-south-africas-energy-sector-with-new-solar-project/.

⁹0 ‘Noor Abu Dhabi completes second year of commercial operations’, at Energy Connects, 03.05.2021, https://www.energyconnects.com/news/renewables/2021/may/noor-abu-dhabi-completes-second-year-of-commercial-operations/.

⁹1 D Cai, ‘China Belt and Road: Indonesia opens Whoosh high-speed railway’, BBC News, 02.10.2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66979810.

⁹2 S-A Dojan, ‘China’s Jinko to build 400MW solar power plant in Saudi Arabia’, at Investment Monitor, 26.09.2023, https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/news/jinko-to-build-solar-power-plant-saudi-arabia-investment-china/?cf-view.

⁹3 Z Ebrahim, ‘China helps Pakistan build world’s largest solar farm’, at Dialogue Earth, 07.09.2015, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/8160-china-helps-pakistan-build-world-s-largest-solar-farm/.

⁹4 L Morais, ‘Solar complex of 300 MW in Argentina goes live’, at Renewables Now, 28.09.2020, https://renewablesnow.com/news/solar-complex-of-300-mw-in-argentina-goes-live-715088/.  

⁹5 ‘Construction of Chinese-built hydropower plant in Zambia nears completion’, at XinhuaNet News, 22.07.2022, https://english.news.cn/20220722/4ffbe59cea84447a84b018d2b49d6f3f/c.html

⁹6 ‘China Energy plans 1000 MW floating solar plant in Zimbabwe’, at Reuters, 27.03.2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/china-energy-plans-1000-mw-floating-solar-plant-zimbabwe-2023-03-27/

⁹7 ‘Namibian-Chinese joint venture to build 50 MW wind power plant’, at XinhuaNet News, 18.04.2023, https://english.news.cn/20230418/39c74571e4e0496bacbf2532914a9a6b/c.html.

⁹8 O Opali, ‘China’s clean energy investments growing rapidly in Africa’, at China Daily, 30.08.2022, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202208/30/WS630d6e5da310fd2b29e74f5e.html.

⁹9 K Bartlett, Why China Is Investing in Africa’s Green Energy Future, at Voice of America News, 03.05.2023, https://www.voanews.com/a/why-china-is-investing-in-africa-s-green-energy-future/7077274.html.

¹00 C Devonshire-Ellis, ‘Unlocking US Sanctions: China signs construction & energy deals with Cuba’, at Monthly Review Online, 07.01.2022, https://mronline.org/2022/01/07/unlocking-u-s-sanctions/. 

¹01 J Hickel, Less is More: How degrowth will save the world, Random House, UK, 2020, p 20.

¹02 Xi J, ‘Building a Beautiful China: Promoting Harmony Between Humanity and Nature’, at Qiushi Journal (English), Jan-Feb 2024, http://en.qstheory.cn/2024-03/11/c_968316.htm.

¹03 J Bellamy Foster, interview, ‘Why is the great project of Ecological Civilization specific to China?’, Monthly Review Online, 01.10.2022, https://mronline.org/2022/10/01/why-is-the-great-project-of-ecological-civilization-specific-to-china/.

¹04 M Berners-Lee, op cit, p 213.

¹05 ‘Xi stresses unswerving support for development of private enterprises’, at XinhuaNet News, 02.11.2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-11/02/c_137575231.htm.