China Renewables DA

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1NC China Renewables DA

China is investing heavily in renewables- they’re set to become a global leaderBateman 14 [osh Bateman is a freelance journalist based in Asia. He has covered a variety of topics related to Asia including private equity, entrepreneurship, renewable energy, agriculture, gaming, sports, art, and Chinese consumption trends. 1/13/14, “The New Global Leader in Renewable Energy” http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/01/the-new-global-leader-in-renewable-energy?page=all //jweideman]

China is taking a multipronged approach to addressing its energy shortage. According to Xinhua, China's official press agency, in March 2012, Wen Jiabao, former

Premier of the State Council, said: "we will optimize the energy structure, promote clean and efficient use of traditional energy, safely

and effectively develop nuclear power, actively develop hydroelectric power , tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and

development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption." The Chinese government has introduced a multitude of measures to support the progress of renewables . Zhang said, "China has named 'new energy' — including solar, wind and bioenergy — as one of the seven new strategic

industries. China hopes this can transform the economy from heavy industrialization to a more value-added clean manufacturing capability." Given that the renewable energy sector is capital intensive, the Chinese government has offered subsidies and low or zero interest loans in this space. Talking about how to foster industry growth, Nathaniel Bullard, Director of Content at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a data and news company covering the energy sector, said: "it has mostly to do

with the level of commitment that leads to scale. A huge advantage is enormous scale that allows manufacturers to get costs low. Government commitment and a stable demand scenario [are conducive growth factors]." Innovation & Investment China's leadership in the renewable energy space is an example of its transition from a predominantly manufacturing economy to a more knowledge- and technology-based economy .

Not only has China introduced new policies, but it is also investing heavily in new technologies. According to data from Bloomberg, China will invest as much as $294 billion in renewable energy as part of its current five-year pan . A recent study by researchers at MIT, the Santa Fe Institute, and Indiana University found that “China is now logging more energy patents per year than the European Patent Office and growing much faster than any other nation...China now comes a close second to Japan in terms of cumulative wind patents.” China had the third-most solar patents behind Japan and the U.S. In an August 2013 white paper on China, Bloomberg New Energy Finance stated, "nuclear, power transmission, solar PV, smart grid, onshore wind, as well as energy efficiency across all parts of the economy are likely to be the biggest areas of investment in China over the next 20 years."

Much of China's investment in the renewable energy sector is through State-Owned Enterprises. Talking about commercialization of renewable energy solutions, Rosie Pidcock, who manages strategic partnerships at CGTI, said, "China has the capital to acquire technologies that they might not have domestically." Foreign companies also see opportunities in China. In late 2012, leading an investment consortium, Morgan Stanley's infrastructure group made a second investment in Zhaoheng Hydropower, bringing the group's investment to $300 million in total. Capital flows both

ways. Chinese institutions are also investing outside of its borders. According to World Resource Institute data, "China has made at least 124 investments in solar and wind industries in 33 countries over the past decade." Bullard said, "I think you will start to see movement of more

Chinese companies becoming international companies - companies with Chinese roots and many Chinese executives. There are likely to be many fewer companies you've never heard of."

New U.S. federal support for renewables crowds out chinaMathews 13 [John, Mathews holds the Chair of Strategy at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management at Macquarie University, Sydney. 2/1/13, “The Globalist Debate: Renewable Energy and the Clash of Civilizations” http://www.theglobalist.com/the-globalist-debate-renewable-energy-and-the-clash-of-civilizations/ //jweideman]

Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations is considered one of the foundation texts of our time, given its appearance in the decade prior to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in September 2001. But Huntington’s focus on “the West” and “Islam” has done little to illuminate an even more fundamental and far-

reaching clash — the one pitching the waning fossil fuel civilization against the waxing civilization based on renewables and resource-efficiency. We see the evidence for this “ civilizational clash ” in terms of the struggle of the renewables industries to be born and prosper, while the fossil fuel industries — along with the companies, subsidies, regulations and laws that uphold their privileges — refuse to leave the

field. China and the United States represent the polar extremes in this clash — with China acting to build renewable energy industries. It is racing ahead as fast as is physically possible in order to ensure energy security, even as it builds a coal- and nuclear-fired thermal energy system. The U nited S tates, in contrast, is focusing on innovation, while Congressional leaders are subject to heavy fossil fuel l obbying and act to delay the transition to renewables. The clash is heating up in the current spat over trade in solar photovoltaic modules, where the United States now (and potentially the European Union as well) is levelling countervailing tariffs on Chinese solar PV imports into the United States. This move is

inviting tit-for-tat retaliation by China against U.S. exports of polysilicon and PV equipment, where the United States currently runs a strong trade surplus with

China. The dispute even threatens an all-out trade war. That this is actually a clash of civilizations becomes evident when we examine the ideological support for each side’s position in this dispute. China is supporting its policies to promote its solar PV industry at home, and for companies that then export their product, on the grounds that it is a developing industry that needs support in order to become established in the face of incumbent intransigence. It is a market-oriented strategy that is proving to be extremely effective. The United States, by contrast, is ideologically promoting a transition away from fossil fuels (insofar as any transition is allowed by Congress) through support for innovation and Schumpeterian creative destruction. In its first term, the Obama Administration promoted renewables against fossil fuel incumbents through tax credits and loan guarantees, sometimes at very high levels (such as the $535 million allocated to Solyndra as a loan guarantee, which became a public liability when the company went bankrupt). This policy was aimed at offering strong support for a few chosen recipients to help them bring new versions of existing products to market. In Solyndra’s case, this was CIGS thin-film PV technology, which has been falling rapidly in cost — but not as fast as first-generation crystalline silicon cells, which have overtaken the thin-film innovators and made life very difficult for them. Where things become interesting is on the ideology-based flanking moves undertaken by Washington-based think tanks in support of the U.S. position. Consider the example of the ITIF, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which is very active on this issue. It conveniently labels the two sides in this clash as “innovation” on the one hand (the U.S. approach) and “green mercantilism” on the other (China’s approach). Innovation is “good” and green mercantilism is “bad.” The ITIF (and other think tanks along with it) have taken sides in the current trade dispute, arguing that the U.S. Department of Commerce and the companies urging it forward (a coalition led by SolarWorld) are simply trying to enforce the rules of global competition, while the green mercantilists are threatening the

survival of the rest of the industry. The problem with this position is that it ignores the reasons for China’s success. Chinese firms are not “dumping” product on the rest of the world, but are benefiting from the cost advantages they have reaped through scaling up production. This is a time-honored approach to reducing costs and enlarging the market, perfected in the United States ever since it was applied so effectively by Henry Ford to the (at the time) luxury automotive market . In the solar race, U.S. firms like Solyndra and Konarka are in difficulties not because of Chinese dumping, but because their market in the U nited S tates was not allowed to expand fast enough — thanks to Congressional hostility linked to fossil fuel lobbying. The American slowness to diffuse renewable energies does not so much reflect a lack of innovation as a plethora of regulatory and institutional blockages . Take the case of Google and its promotion of

renewables — a quest launched with much fanfare in 2007 and quietly abandoned in November 2011. Google invested in the Atlantic Wind Connection, an ambitious project to establish wind farms off the Northeast coast and link them to the mainland grid by a single connection. But the project has gone nowhere, as one regulatory barrier after another has had to be negotiated. In China , by contrast, there is strong focus on building a national smart grid as counterpart to policies promoting renewables . This is not just a “fast follower” technology strategy, but one where China intends to take the lead through development of new standards and their promotion through domestic market creation.

Renewable energy is key to china’s economyLaMonica 10 [Martin, independent technology and business reporter writing for MIT Technology Review. 12/1/10, “Ernst & Young: China clear leader in

renewable energy” http://www.cnet.com/news/ernst-young-china-clear-leader-in-renewable-energy/ //jweideman]

Driven by a surge in wind power installations, China is building on its lead in Ernst & Young's ranking of top renewable energy countries. Wind investment in China this quarter is nearly half of global spending , ensuring that one out of every two wind turbines to go live this year will be in China , according to consultants at Ernst & Young which does a quarterly "country attractiveness" index. The U.S. will see a jump in large solar installations before the end of year because developers are rushing to start projects before the end of the year. In place of a tax credit subsidy, renewable energy projects can now get a grant but that policy may not be renewed. Federal policy uncertainty and the financial markets have hurt the U.S. wind industry which is second in the global wind index. Low natural gas prices have also made solar and wind projects harder to finance. The Ernst & Young report noted that South Korea, which is a large consumer of energy, has risen significantly

based on a national policy and well developed supply chain. Beyond solar and wind, China has elevated clean tech nology to a national strategic level, making it core to its future economic growth , said Ben Warren, the infrastructure advisory leader at Ernst & Young's UK Energy and Environmental , in a statement. "Since reaching top

spot in our Index in September, China has opened up a healthy gap from other markets . Cleantech, including renewable energy, represents a significant part of the country's future economic growth plans, " he said. "The Chinese solar industry is also fast becoming of great importance in the global market place."

Chinese economic collapse causes Chinese arms build-up and war with the U.S.Roberts 1 [Brad, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY. “China-U.S. Nuclear Relations: What Relationship Best Serves U.S. Interests?” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dtra/china_us_nuc.pdf //jweideman]

Some experts in the United States dismiss the possibility of a major build-up of China's forces as not possible for a country so poor, especially one that has put

military modernization at the bottom of the list of four modernizations. But this is not for China first and foremost a question of money. It is important to recall that China's original nuclear tests and first system deployments came at a time of huge turmoil and profound economic collapse in the country. Moreover, much of the infrastructure is already in place. In trying to gauge the impact of

BMD on China's strategic modernization program, it is important to understand what will happen regardless of what the United States does on BMD. China's modernization program long predates BMD and will presumably extend for decades into the future. China's force will grow more capable, quantitatively and qualitatively, whatever the United States does. This is a point made by Clinton administration officials in the NMD debate: "Whether or not we proceed with national missile defense, China's nuclear forces would expand in a way that would make this system less threatening to China."19 This theme has been echoed by the Bush administration: "China is already engaged in a substantial effort to modernize its strategic nuclear forces which are currently capable of striking the United States. We do not believe our deployment of limited missile defenses should lead Beijing to further accelerate or expand its buildup of strategic nuclear forces."-0 Washington should not let Beijing blame it for every new deployment. But BMD is hardly irrelevant to how China modernizes its forces. Indeed, it seems likely to have a direct effect on the future trajectory of the Chinese

modernization effort. Chinese analysts are also skeptical that the "limited defense" promised by the Clinton and Bush administrations will not emerge , in timelines relevant to Chinese force modernization, as a "thicker" defense . Americans must understand the very long time- horizons that inform China's investment policies and strategic posture. The DF-31

missile, for example, has been in development for more than two decades. Chinese experts find it virtually impossible to believe that the U nited S tates will stop at some initial capability. Indeed, they fully expect the kind of " open-ended" pursuit of BMD that some in the Bush administration describe . China can also find a great deal of evidence in the U.S. political debate suggesting that thin defenses are merely a prelude to thicker defenses, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but in any case a decade or two hence. And whatever reassurances they might have heard from the Bush or Clinton administration representatives about the nature of Washington's commitment to a limited defense,

the Chinese have also heard a steady dose of expert opinion from Moscow reiterating the long-held view that the U nited S tates will never stop in the effort to construct the maximally effective defense within its reach once its heads down that path. This is another reason for thinking that China may well look beyond the status quo ante.

Nuclear warDoble 11 [John, has an M.A. in International Affairs from American University and a B.A. in Political Science and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Maritime Disputes a Likely Source of Future Conflict” http://www.policymic.com/articles/2279/maritime-disputes-a-likely-source-of-future-conflict December]//jweideman

Yesterday, the U.S. and China were involved in a nuclear exchange . The cause of this conflict was a war brought about between China and the Philippines after the Philippines seized several of the Spratly Islands to secure natural resources and the sea lanes traversing the South China seas, both of which it would use to advance itself in the global economy. China refused to accept

this action and attacked , and the U.S. was dragged in after the president was pressured by Congress and American allies to honor America’s mutual-

defense agreement with the Philippines. The result was disastrous . While this is a hypothetical example, similar scenarios are becoming increasingly probable . Due to increasing economic competition and climate change, a source of future conflict will be the contest for control over the seas. The U.S. must adequately plan for future contingencies to avoid any surprises and to discern what it needs to do to

prevent the worst-case scenario from occurring. Economic competition on the seas can be seen most clearly in terms of port construction. As it stands, over 90% of all goods measured by weight or volume are transported by cargo ship, and port construction greatly increase a nation’s access to foreign markets and appeal as a manufacturing center. Conversely, a nation’s investment in ports reduces the amount of goods traveling to other nations, thus damaging their economies. Unlike other forms of infrastructure investment, maritime infrastructure implicitly affects international security. This competition has already created conflict in the Middle East. Bilateral efforts to improve relations between Iraq and Kuwait were scuttled earlier this year after Kuwait announced it was investing heavily in building a new port (the Mubarak Kabeer) only 20 kilometers away from a port Iraq was building (the Grand al-Faw). Rapprochement swiftly ended over Iraqi fears of economic strangulation and calls for eternal brotherhood were replaced by curses. Nowadays, rumors abound that Iraqi and Kuwaiti forces are infiltrating the border areas and Iraqi militants have already launched rockets from Iraq into Kuwait and threatened to kidnap the contractors building the Mubarak Kabeer port. While threatening, this conflict is unlikely to explode as Iraq is in no shape to wage war and labors under a history of belligerence it is trying to expunge. But what if a similar sequence of events occurred in Southeast/East Asia, where GDP is growing an average of 6%-7% a year(with China at 9.1%) and states can operate more freely? The U.S. is investing more resources in the region at the exact moment when growing economic competition make conflict more likely. Secondly, climate change will soon have a massive impact on the world’s coastal areas. Global sea levels are likely to rise between 80 to 200cm at the end of the century and would submerge large tracts of land, displacing millions of people and wiping out urban and agricultural areas. Since they are built on the coast, this would also damage or destroy many ports worldwide and jeopardize international commerce as we know it. These losses would be difficult to replace given the increased environmental pressures Southeast/East Asian states would face as well as the spillover problems that would arise as low-lying countries sink into the sea

and collapse. Competition over the ports that survive will be fierce as whoever possesses them would likely dominate the sea lanes and international commerce for some time, leading to regional dominance. Similarly, economic competition and climate change are going to going to cause havoc on the military industrial base supporting naval power in the region. It is expensive to build a competitive navy, and many states will be unable to afford it if they need to constantly adapt to economic and environmental pressure. China and India are already building up their naval forces and will likely be naval powers into the foreseeable future, but the U.S. will gain a lot of allies in the future struggling to get the U.S. involved in

every security dispute they have. Like WWI, someone may gamble incorrectly, and a conflict that starts as a minor incident may explode into something much

greater. The U.S . consequently needs to utilize all facets of American power, from military to diplomatic to foreign aid, to confront these complex challenges and prevent them from escalating out of control . We need to promote broader acceptance of free trade on the open seas as well as democratic governance to limit the appeal of coercive power and the ability to use that power arbitrarily. We need a way to maintain the strength of our alliances without getting sucked into conflicts we don’t want, besides selling more weapons that only make war increasingly likely. Regardless of the exact policies, policymakers need to start thinking ahead on how it will deal with the implications economic competition and climate change are going to have on maritime power. Intelligent observers of the Middle East knew for years that the authoritarian status quo was unsustainable, yet no plans were made to respond to

the collapse of those regimes and our response could have been better. Current trends indicate that the current status quo in

Southeast/East Asia is equally untenable . Do we have a plan in place?

UQ

U-China Renewable leader

China is investing heavily in renewables- they’re set to become a global leaderBateman 14 [osh Bateman is a freelance journalist based in Asia. He has covered a variety of topics related to Asia including private equity, entrepreneurship, renewable energy, agriculture, gaming, sports, art, and Chinese consumption trends. 1/13/14, “The New Global Leader in Renewable Energy” http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/01/the-new-global-leader-in-renewable-energy?page=all //jweideman]

China is taking a multipronged approach to addressing its energy shortage. According to Xinhua, China's official press agency, in March 2012, Wen Jiabao, former

Premier of the State Council, said: "we will optimize the energy structure, promote clean and efficient use of traditional energy, safely

and effectively develop nuclear power, actively develop hydroelectric power , tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and

development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption." The Chinese government has introduced a multitude of measures to support the progress of renewables . Zhang said, "China has named 'new energy' — including solar, wind and bioenergy — as one of the seven new strategic

industries. China hopes this can transform the economy from heavy industrialization to a more value-added clean manufacturing capability." Given that the renewable energy sector is capital intensive, the Chinese government has offered subsidies and low or zero interest loans in this space. Talking about how to foster industry growth, Nathaniel Bullard, Director of Content at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a data and news company covering the energy sector, said: "it has mostly to do

with the level of commitment that leads to scale. A huge advantage is enormous scale that allows manufacturers to get costs low. Government commitment and a stable demand scenario [are conducive growth factors]." Innovation & Investment China's leadership in the renewable energy space is an example of its transition from a predominantly manufacturing economy to a more knowledge- and technology-based economy .

Not only has China introduced new policies, but it is also investing heavily in new technologies. According to data from Bloomberg, China will invest as much as $294 billion in renewable energy as part of its current five-year pan . A recent study by researchers at MIT, the Santa Fe Institute, and Indiana University found that “China is now logging more energy patents per year than the European Patent Office and growing much faster than any other nation...China now comes a close second to Japan in terms of cumulative wind patents.” China had the third-most solar patents behind Japan and the U.S. In an August 2013 white paper on China, Bloomberg New Energy Finance stated, "nuclear, power transmission, solar PV, smart grid, onshore wind, as well as energy efficiency across all parts of the economy are likely to be the biggest areas of investment in China over the next 20 years."

Much of China's investment in the renewable energy sector is through State-Owned Enterprises. Talking about commercialization of renewable energy solutions, Rosie Pidcock, who manages strategic partnerships at CGTI, said, "China has the capital to acquire technologies that they might not have domestically." Foreign companies also see opportunities in China. In late 2012, leading an investment consortium, Morgan Stanley's infrastructure group made a second investment in Zhaoheng Hydropower, bringing the group's investment to $300 million in total. Capital flows both

ways. Chinese institutions are also investing outside of its borders. According to World Resource Institute data, "China has made at least 124 investments in solar and wind industries in 33 countries over the past decade." Bullard said, "I think you will start to see movement of more

Chinese companies becoming international companies - companies with Chinese roots and many Chinese executives. There are likely to be many fewer companies you've never heard of."

China is beating the U.S. at all levels of renewable investmentMagill 14 [Bobby Magill is a senior science writer for Climate Central. Journalist. April 2014, “U.S. Lags Behind China in Renewables Investments” http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/05/china-1-renewable-energy-investment-us-2-japan-3-chart/ //jweideman]

For the second year, an annual Pew Charitable Trusts report , “ Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race ?”, shows that China is the world leader in clean energy investment , with $54 billion in investments in renewables in 2013, well above total U.S. investment of $36.7 billion .“No other clean energy market in the world is operating at that scale ,” Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s clean energy program, said during a teleconference Thursday, referring to China. The report was released just days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the second part to its fifth assessment report, which states unequivocally that people will have to adapt to a world in which human fossil fuel emissions have caused the climate to change, threating lives across the globe as temperatures and seas rise and extreme weather becomes more frequent. Developing

renewable energy is seen as one of the primary ways to reduce humans' impact on the climate. The Pew report says China’s efforts to slash poverty, expand economic development and solve its air pollution problems have driven the country to invest heavily in clean energy. Though renewables market share is on the rise globally, the report says that overall worldwide renewables investment has been declining for two straight years. Investments totaled $254 billion last year, a decline of 11 percent from 2012 and 20 percent from 2011 when investments peaked

at $318 billion. Whereas China installed 14 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity from wind farms and 12 gigawatts of solar power generating capacity last year, the U.S. installed less than 1 gigawatt of wind power after a tax incentive for the wind industry expired. The U.S. installed a record 4.3 gigawatts of solar generation capacity in 2013 according to the report.

China leads the world in renewablesMoen 14 [Mike, Current USA Regional Manager at CRCC Asia PastSpecial Events Manager at California Parking Company, Unit Director at YMCA of San Francisco, Staff Development Site Coordinator at Camp Adventur... Education California State University-Chico, University of Northern Iowa, California State University-Chicago. 6/2/14, “China: The New World Leader in Renewable Energy” http://www.crccasia.com/news/china-new-world-leader-renewable-energy/ //jweideman]

Throughout the world, China is synonymous with high population, rapid growth, and financial center of the world, economic powerhouse and pollution. However,

what many individuals don’t realize is in the past decade China has become the largest investor s in the renewable energy sector. In 2013, China invested $56.3 Billion, and maintaining its title as the largest investor in renewable energy, according to Global Status Report. By 2030, China will be able to produce 100% of its electricity needs by wind energy, according to a Harvard and Tsinghua University study . China is a currently

experiencing a renewable energy gold rush. Many foreign owned companies are moving its operations to main land China in hopes of greater opportunity and to make an impact. For a country plagued with heavy pollution from the factories that the worlds markets depends on the Chinese government is facing this issue head on. The Chinese government has continued to invest in hydroelectric dams, wind

and solar farms, biofuel/biomass facilities as well as geo thermal facilities, all being built at a rapid rate. In 2007, China accounted for 80% of new solar hot water heater instillations in the world. China is well known for its state ran public works projects, including their dam/hydroelectric programs. In the past decade China has built over 15 new dams all in accordance with strict international standards. In particular the Gansu Dang River Project has been registered as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in accordance with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Many more dams are currently under construction and have not only resulted in the creation of thousands of

jobs in rural China , but has also allowed China to become a leader in Hydro Power around the world . Since the early 2000’s Wind and Solar farms as well as the manufactures of these products have experienced a massive growth in China . In 2008, China became the largest producers in the world of wind turbines, rising from the fourth largest producer just two years prior. According to a study conducted by Harvard and Tsinghua University, at current production rates China will be able to meet 100% of its electric needs from Wind Power by 2030. In 2010, China also gained the title of the largest manufacture of solar panels which has not only assisted the growth of the solar panel market in China but has also assisted the growth of the solar industry globally. As China becomes more efficient in solar panel production the world will be able to benefit. Biomass and the biofuel industry has experienced significant growth as well in recent years, with a large amount of foreign investors investing into world’s third largest producer of ethanol based bio-fuels. Currently ethanol accounts for 20% of all automobile fuel consumption in China, and biomass stoves are used on a domestic level in

many rural parts of China. In conclusion, although today China maybe one of the largest producer of coal based emissions in the world, the Chinese government is taking the necessary steps to combat the issues. Unlike many of the world super powers that are simply hoping to cut emission by 30% in the next few decades, China is taking a very proactive approach to the situation, investing into its environmental and economic future.

Innovation

China innovates on renewablesChandler 13 [David L. Chandler, MIT News Office October 10, 2013. “Innovation in renewable-energy technologies is booming” http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/innovation-in-renewable-energy-technologies-booming-1010 //jweideman]

Trancik says the team saw the cumulative effect of investment in research, by both governments and industry, and the effect of growth in the market for renewable-energy systems — which also benefitted from government subsidies, incentives and tax breaks.

The trends were similar in the United States and elsewhere, although there were regional differences, Trancik says. While China has sometimes been accused of taking advantage of technologies invented elsewhere , and innovating mainly in production processes, the new data paint a different picture: Patents filed in China for renewable- energy tech nology (which includes patents filed by foreign inventors or companies) have shown dramatic growth over the last few years. “ China’s really taking off ,” Trancik says, adding that “understanding the nature of the technological development represented requires a close look at patent content.” The cumulative, long-term effect of research investment is another significant finding from this study, she says. Investments tend to come in cycles, she says, “so this persistence of knowledge is significant — and comforting, in a way.”

China leads in innovation- they’ve overtaken the USTrancik 14 [Jessika Trancik. Assistant Professor of Engineering Systems. Prof. Trancik's research centers on evaluating the environmental impacts and costs of energy MIT. 19 March 2014, “Renewable energy: Back the renewables boom” http://www.nature.com/news/renewable-energy-back-the-renewables-boom-1.14873 //jweideman]

Certain nations are now clear leaders in innovation. Japan dominates in terms of cumulative energy patents filed. But in the past ten years' growth has been driven by China and the United States, which together account for roughly 60% of renewables patents

published globally per year and 60% of all energy patents. China has been the front runner in coal patents for 15 years and, in the past decade, has overtaken the U nited S tates in annual patent numbers for wind and solar as well. Europe has seen a tripling of renewables technologies patents in the past decade, whereas the region's patents related to fossil fuels have declined. Underlying these cost and patenting trends is a diversity of national or regional policies10, including research funding, market incentives such as feed-in tariffs, subsidies and

regulated adoption levels. China has set a target to supply 15% of energy for electricity production with renewables by 2020, and Germany plans to produce 35% of its electricity through renewables by 2020. In the United States, 29 states and the District of Columbia have adopted renewables portfolio standards that require specified installation levels of renewable energy.

Innovation is the cornerstone of china’s renewable pushGreen and Stern 14 [Fergus Green is a Policy Analyst and Research Advisor to Professor Stern at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. Nicholas Stern is the I.G. Patel Professor of Economics & Government and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. May 2014, “An innovative and sustainable growth path for China: a critical decade” http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Green-and-Stern-policy-paper-May-20141.pdf //jweideman]

China’s plans for reducing GHG emissions, curbing local air pollution and improving the amenity of urban environments are strong, encompassing energy efficiency, renewable and nuclear energy, electricity supergrids, high-

speed rail, electric vehicles, and important actions to improve the sustainability and carbon sink capacity in land-use, forestry and

agriculture (see, e.g., 12FYP; NDRC 2013). The scale and pace involved means that China will in many ways be a leader in decarbonising its economy. And yet, on many of these issues, China will need to move faster still if it is to achieve its ambitions for sustainable structural transformation and urbanisation, and if global emissions are to be brought onto a pathway that could give a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous

climate change.12 China’s current ambitions for more sustainable growth, its urbanisation plans, and its policies towards strategic emerging industries suggest the potential for a powerful vision: over a billion people living and working in appealing cities, in which services, high-tech nology industries, and innovation are the engines of inclusive growth and prosperity . To realise this vision, China’s strategy, which will form the context of and be embodied in its 13th Five Year Plan and related urbanisation plans, is likely to require intensification of

actions across four key areas: energy efficiency; cities; coal; and low-carbon innovation . An intensive, low-carbon focus on these areas could transform China’s growth, ensuring that it remains high while a lso being much more efficient, innovation-led , more equitable and environmentally sustainable. In doing so,

China could set examples to the world of how government policy and structural reform can lay the foundations for strong growth that is also high quality.

OTECOTEC is being developed in chinaWestenhaus 13 [Brian, Brian is the editor of the popular energy technology site New Energy and Fuel. May/1/13, “First Commercial Scale OTEC Plant to be Built in China” http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/First-Commercial-Scale-OTEC-Plant-to-be-Built-in-China.html //jweideman]

Lockheed Martin has announced that it is working with Reignwood Group to develop an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion ( OTEC ) pilot power plant off the coast of southern China . O cean T hermal E nergy C onversion is now a commercial product . It’s the easiest access geothermal/solar energy available. Ocean thermal uses the ocean’s natural thermal gradient to generate power. Where there is warm surface water and cold deep water, the temperature difference can be leveraged to drive a steam cycle that turns a turbine and produces power. Warm surface seawater passes through a heat exchanger, vaporizing a low boiling point working fluid to drive a turbine generator, producing electricity.

China econ

Downward pressure doesn’t matter- the Chinese economy is growingABC 7/7 [ABC News. BEIJING — Jul 7, 2014, 8:37 AM ET. “China's Premier Says Country's Economy Improving” http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-premier-countrys-economy-improving-24448964 //jweideman]

China's economy improved in the latest quarter but faces "downward pressure," and Beijing will increase the strength of targeted policy measures to shore up growth , the country's premier said Monday. Speaking at a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Premier Li Keqiang gave no indication how fast the economy might have grown in the three months ending in June after expanding by 7.4 percent the previous quarter. "China's economic performance in the second quarter has been improved from that in the first quarter. However, we cannot lower our guard against downward pressure," Li said. Manufacturing grew in June at its strongest pace this year , but the expansion was weaker than normal. Chinese leaders are trying to guide the economy toward self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption, rather than exports and investment. Those plans have been complicated by weakness in exports, which support millions of jobs. The premier and other leaders have ruled out an across-the-board stimulus but have tried to head off politically volatile job losses with more spending on building railways and other public works. The ruling Communist Party's official growth target this year is 7.5 percent, but leaders have tried to downplay expectations, saying the expansion might come in under that level. Economic growth also is under pressure from declines in housing sales and prices,

which are dragging on construction and other industries. " The Chinese economy is also facing downward pressure, but we will keep up our composure and not adopt strong stimulus," Li said. "Instead, we will increase the strength of targeted measures." Li promised more market-opening reforms. He has said previously improvement in economic growth must come from structural reforms, rather than stimulus

spending. On Monday, he promised to reduce burdens on small companies and to give them more access to financing. "We must also inspire the vitality of the market and lend support to the real economy ," Li said.

If china keeps on its current path growth will continueHsu 7/15, [Sara Hsu is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at New Paltz, specializing in Chinese economic development, informal finance, and shadow banking. 7/15/14, “How Much Will China’s GDP Continue to Grow?” http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/how-much-will-chinas-gdp-continue-to-grow/ //jweideman]

What we can conclude from this brief and rough thought exercise is that China’s GDP will continue to grow through 2020 , likely at levels above 7 percent , as the leadership does not want to see a dramatic slide, and that expansion is likely if the reforms are successful. The nitty-gritty of what is actually being produced in China may change a great deal, looking to some degree like the rapid reforms witnessed in the nineties. Additional productivity may be squeezed out of transforming state-run practices into market practices. High levels of GDP may mask some volatility, which can be viewed in the measurement checks, as the economy restructures.

Ultimately, some reasonable hypotheses with respect to GDP and its continuing growth can be made, as long as one knows something about the muddle surrounding GDP measurement and its changing components, and as long as China’s reform targets do not change much under the 13th Five Year Plan. At this time, uncertainty remains , but it appears to be, to some extent, restrained .

Stimulus measures solve china’s economy nowCarsten 7/2 [Paul Carsten- Reuters. 7/2/14, “Premier Li says downward pressure still exists for Chinese economy” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/us-china-economy-idUSKBN0F71JV20140703 //jweideman]

The government has unveiled a series of modest stimulus measures in recent months to give a lift to economic growth , which dipped to an 18-month low of 7.4 percent in the first quarter, China's slowest annual growth since the third quarter of 2012.

Such measures have included targeted reserve requirement cuts for some banks to encourage more lending, quicker fiscal disbursements and hastening construction of railways and public housing projects. China is targeting a 2014 GDP growth rate of 7.5 percent. Analysts believe the worst for the economy is

over as the stimulus measures kick in, but have said Beijing may have to announce more stimulus measures in the coming months to offset the increasing drag from the cooling property sector.

AT: No Grid connections

Ultra high voltage transmission solves china’s grid problemsKemp 6/19 [John joined Reuters in 2008 as one of its first financial columnists, specialising in commodities and energy. 6/19/14, “Column - Super-grid: China masters long-distance power transmission” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/19/us-china-electricity-grid-kemp-idUSKBN0EU19B20140619 //jweideman]

(Reuters) - China’s power engineers have become world leaders in ultra-high-voltage transmission systems connecting far-off power sources with cities hungry for electricity. China already has seven ultra-high- voltage ( UHV) lines in operation, more than any other country, carrying power over thousands of kilometers at around 800,000 or even 1 million volts. In April, the government gave the go-ahead to build another line operating at 1 million volts between rural Anhui province and the cities of Nanjing and Shanghai. The National Energy Administration, which is part of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic regulator, has ambitious plans for as many as 12 inter-regional ultra-high-voltage transmission corridors spanning the country. Most of the existing and planned transmission lines run broadly west to east and are intended to take power from western and central regions, where there are abundant hydro, coal, gas, solar and wind resources, to major industrial cities near the east coast. With so many projects planned,

State Grid Corp of China (SGCC) is looking forward to a “golden era” of UHV development at home and likens its UHV experience to a “golden business card” to help it win business overseas, according to a company release (“China enters a golden era of UHV development”, May 16). CUTTING POLLUTION State Grid says

UHV will give China a unified national electricity market for the first time as well as helping to meet booming electricity demand and cut pollution . UHV is intended to link the country’s existing regional grids in a national network. But it is also meant to herald much bigger changes in the way China uses energy. SGCC wants the coal- and oil-fired boilers used in factories, offices and district heating systems across northern China to be replaced by electric heating to cut the air pollution that kills millions of people every year. Much of the electricity for the grid would still be generated from coal, a source of greenhouse emissions as well as air pollution. But large central power stations are likely to be more efficient than the small and old boilers used in many northern areas to provide winter heating, and it would be easier to fit them with scrubbers and other technology to cut pollution. Shifting from coal to electric heating would also enable China to integrate more clean sources of power such as wind and solar into the energy mix. State Grid calls it the “coal-to-electricity” program and says it would help meet many of the government’s plans for increasing energy efficiency, cutting pollution, and reducing dependence on imported oil. Coal-to-electricity aims to replace coal-burning stoves for industrial and residential purposes with electric ones to curb air pollution, SGCC Executive Vice-President Yang Qing told a conference on green electricity in November 2013. Oil-to-electricity could help develop the market for electric vehicles and electric irrigation in rural areas, to cut reliance on gasoline and diesel, Yang explained (“SGCC proposes coal-to-electricity to control smog”, Xinhua, Nov. 8, 2013). Under a program launched last year, SGCC intends to replace many district heating boilers with large-scale heat pumps, according to Xinhua. SGCC’s strategy for cleaning up China’s pollution problem and cutting greenhouse emissions is essentially similar to the climate plans being pursued by governments in Europe and North America. The strategy consists of two separate transitions: electrification and decarbonization. It would shift more energy consumption away from direct use of fossil fuels onto the electricity grid, then cut emissions from power plants by replacing fossil fuels with more renewables and nuclear power. LOST

IN TRANSMISSION China’s problem is that main sources of fossil fuels and renewables for power generation are hundreds and even thousands of kilometers from where the electricity is most needed . All transmission systems lose energy between generation and the end consumer as the electricity encounters resistance in the wires along the way and some energy is lost as heat. On average, about 6 percent of the electrical energy transmitted and distributed in the United States was lost between 1990 and 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The further electricity is transmitted, the more is lost. Economic considerations therefore tend to cap transmission distances. One reason why solar power stations in North Africa and the Sahara cannot

currently be used to supply electricity to Northern Europe is that the transmission losses would be too great. But it is possible to reduce the proportion of energy lost by stepping up the voltage, which is why China and a number of other countries have begun developing ultra-high-voltage systems to carry power over much longer distances .

In the U nited S tates, most long-distance transmission lines operate at 230 kV, 345kV, 400kV or sometimes 500kV, where kV stands for thousand volts. In Britain, most of the National Grid operates at 275kV or 400kV. But China’s existing UHV systems mostly operate at 800kV, nearly twice as high, or even 1,000 kV in some cases.

China is fixing its grid problemShen 13 [Feifei Shen, Bloomberg, 1/11/13, “China Working to Cut Idled Wind Farm Capacity” http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/01/china-working-to-cut-idled-wind-farm-capacity //jweideman]

China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, is making progress in connecting idled wind farms to the electricity grid , helping to address a roadblock slowing the development of wind power . "The issue is in the process of improvement, given

the efforts made by grid companies," Jiang Liping, vice president of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, said in a phone interview on Jan. 10, without disclosing the connection rate. The adoption of wind power in China has been damped by the electricity grid's ability to handle the influx of energy, forcing the government to impose stricter approvals on new projects. The rate of wind capacity sitting idle could fall to as low as 10 percent this year, compared with 25 percent at the end of 2011, Jun Ying, Bloomberg New Energy Finance's head of research in China, said by e-mail. "It's the lack of economic incentives that discourage grid companies to

take in more renewable power," said Beijing-based Ying. "It means extra work and costs, but no extra benefits for grid companies to do so." China this year plans to add 49 gigawatts of renewable- energy capacity , including hydro power, to boost power production without increasing its reliance on fossil fuels, the National Energy Administration said in a statement on its website earlier this week. Installed capacity totaled about 39 gigawatts in 2012, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

They are successfully connecting tons of energy to the gridLee 7/16 [Andrew Lee, writer for Recharge news. 7/16/14, “China to smash wind target – Insight” http://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1369540/China-to-smash-wind-target-%E2%80%93-Insight //jweideman]

China is likely to smash its target of 150GW of installed wind capacity by 2017 – but may find it ambitious solar goals

more of a challenge, according to two new research notes from the Recharge Insight analysis service. Wind and solar are both central to the Chinese government's plans to clean up its polluted urban air, meet growing power need and reduce dependence on imports, explains Recharge Insight. That led planners at China's National Development Reform Commission (NDRC) to aim for 150GW of wind and 70GW of solar by 2017 under its latest set of mid-term targets. The wind target looks "relatively undemanding and will comfortably be overshot" , according to Recharge Insight, which looks at risk factors such as grid-connection shortfalls, feed-in tariffs and subsidy

payment delays before offering its own forecast for 2017. It noted that China already had 91GW of wind power installed by the end of last year, with 75.5GW grid-connected.

AT: Tariffs

WTO ruling solves tariff problemsWillis 7/15 [Ben, Solar Media's Head of Content. Ben is an award-winning journalist and editor with a background in environmental, development and social policy. 7/15/14, “WTO: US solar duties broke trade rules” http://www.pv-tech.org/news/wto_us_solar_duties_broke_trade_rules //jweideman]

The World Trade Organization ( WTO ) has ruled that US import duties applied to Chinese solar products in 2012 broke global trade rules. A WTO panel yesterday upheld a complaint from China that the US had violated trade rules when it imposed punitive anti-subsidy duties on solar equipment in 2012. The US imposed heavy duties after an investigation concluded that state support offered to Chinese PV suppliers had allowed them to undercut American competitors. Importantly,

the WTO yesterday agreed that in certain countervailing or anti-subsidy duties imposed on Chinese companies, the US had wrongly presumed that state-owned or partially state-owned enterprises (SOE) were necessarily “ public bodies ”. This assumption was used by the US as part of its justification for the duties , as it maintained that certain SOEs bodies were passing on subsidies from the Chinese government. But the WTO deemed this to be "inconsistent" with its own rules. In a statement, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the US should revoke all anti-subsidy measures against Chinese products. "China urges the US to respect the WTO rulings and correct its wrongdoings of abusively using trade remedy measures, and to ensure an environment of fair competition for Chinese enterprises," a MOFCOM statement said. However, with the WTO throwing out many of the complaints made by China, the US response was largely bullish, with Michael Froman declaring the ruling a “victory for American businesses and workers”.

Froman nevertheless acknowledged that the US government would need to reconsider those duties deemed by the WTO to be in breach of its rules.

China circumvents tariffsTracer 11 [Zachary Tracer is a reporter for Bloomberg News. 2011, “Chinese Solar Companies May Move Production to Dodge U.S. Tariff” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-22/chinese-companies-prepare-to-move-to-dodge-u-s-solar-tax.html //jweideman]

Circumventing Tariffs “There are way to circumvent” tariffs, Jesse Pichel, an analyst at Jefferies Group Inc. in New York, said yesterday in an interview. Chinese companies may avoid the tariffs by buying solar cells from Taiwanese companies and assembling them into modules outside China , Pichel said. Suntech and Canadian Solar Inc.,

which makes panels in China, already have plants in North America, and JA Solar has an existing relationship outside China with a company to which it could outsource some manufacturing . SolarWorld Industries America Inc., the Hillsboro, Oregon- based unit of Germany’s SolarWorld AG (SWV), and six unnamed U.S. manufacturers filed the trade complaint last month with the U.S. International Trade Commission and Commerce Department, asserting that import duties on Chinese imports will compensate for unfair financial support China provides to its solar industry.

Link

Generic link

US Renewables Link

New U.S. federal support for renewables crowds out chinaMathews 13 [John, Mathews holds the Chair of Strategy at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management at Macquarie University, Sydney. 2/1/13, “The Globalist Debate: Renewable Energy and the Clash of Civilizations” http://www.theglobalist.com/the-globalist-debate-renewable-energy-and-the-clash-of-civilizations/ //jweideman]

Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations is considered one of the foundation texts of our time, given its appearance in the decade prior to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in September 2001. But Huntington’s focus on “the West” and “Islam” has done little to illuminate an even more fundamental and far-

reaching clash — the one pitching the waning fossil fuel civilization against the waxing civilization based on renewables and resource-efficiency. We see the evidence for this “ civilizational clash ” in terms of the struggle of the renewables industries to be born and prosper, while the fossil fuel industries — along with the companies, subsidies, regulations and laws that uphold their privileges — refuse to leave the

field. China and the United States represent the polar extremes in this clash — with China acting to build renewable energy industries. It is racing ahead as fast as is physically possible in order to ensure energy security, even as it builds a coal- and nuclear-fired thermal energy system. The U nited S tates, in contrast, is focusing on innovation, while Congressional leaders are subject to heavy fossil fuel l obbying and act to delay the transition to renewables. The clash is heating up in the current spat over trade in solar photovoltaic modules, where the United States now (and potentially the European Union as well) is levelling countervailing tariffs on Chinese solar PV imports into the United States. This move is inviting tit-for-tat retaliation by China against U.S. exports of polysilicon and PV equipment, where the United States currently runs a strong trade surplus with

China. The dispute even threatens an all-out trade war. That this is actually a clash of civilizations becomes evident when we examine the ideological support for each side’s position in this dispute. China is supporting its policies to promote its solar PV industry at home, and for companies that then export their product, on the grounds that it is a developing industry that needs support in order to become established in the face of incumbent intransigence. It is a market-oriented strategy that is proving to be extremely effective. The United States, by contrast, is ideologically promoting a transition away from fossil fuels (insofar as any transition is allowed by Congress) through support for innovation and Schumpeterian creative destruction. In its first term, the Obama Administration promoted renewables against fossil fuel incumbents through tax credits and loan guarantees, sometimes at very high levels (such as the $535 million allocated to Solyndra as a loan guarantee, which became a public liability when the company went bankrupt). This policy was aimed at offering strong support for a few chosen recipients to help them bring new versions of existing products to market. In Solyndra’s case, this was CIGS thin-film PV technology, which has been falling rapidly in cost — but not as fast as first-generation crystalline silicon cells, which have overtaken the thin-film innovators and made life very difficult for them. Where things become interesting is on the ideology-based flanking moves undertaken by Washington-based think tanks in support of the U.S. position. Consider the example of the ITIF, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which is very active on this issue. It conveniently labels the two sides in this clash as “innovation” on the one hand (the U.S. approach) and “green mercantilism” on the other (China’s approach). Innovation is “good” and green mercantilism is “bad.” The ITIF (and other think tanks along with it) have taken sides in the current trade dispute, arguing that the U.S. Department of Commerce and the companies urging it forward (a coalition led by SolarWorld) are simply trying to enforce the rules of global competition, while the green mercantilists are threatening the

survival of the rest of the industry. The problem with this position is that it ignores the reasons for China’s success. Chinese firms are not “dumping” product on the rest of the world, but are benefiting from the cost advantages they have reaped through scaling up production. This is a time-honored approach to reducing costs and enlarging the market, perfected in the United States ever since it was applied so effectively by Henry Ford to the (at the time) luxury automotive market . In the solar race, U.S. firms like Solyndra and Konarka are in difficulties not because of Chinese dumping, but because their market in the U nited S tates was not allowed to expand fast enough — thanks to Congressional hostility linked to fossil fuel lobbying. The American slowness to diffuse renewable energies does not so much reflect a lack of innovation as a plethora of regulatory and institutional blockages . Take the case of Google and its promotion of

renewables — a quest launched with much fanfare in 2007 and quietly abandoned in November 2011. Google invested in the Atlantic Wind Connection, an ambitious project to establish wind farms off the Northeast coast and link them to the mainland grid by a single connection. But the project has gone nowhere, as one regulatory barrier after another has had to be negotiated. In China , by contrast, there is strong focus on building a national smart grid as counterpart to policies promoting renewables . This is not just a “fast follower” technology strategy, but one where China intends to take the lead through development of new standards and their promotion through domestic market creation.

U.S. boom and bust renewable policy gives china the lead- the plan reverses thatMorales 12 [Alex, writer for Bloomberg business week. 4/11/12, “U.S. Renewables Lead Over China Threatened by Policy” http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/42246?type=bloomberg //jweideman]

U.S. government policies are creating a “boom-and-bust” in renewable energy investment, threaten a lead the nation regained over China for the technologies last year, the Pew Charitable Trusts said. U.S. investment reached $48.1 billion in 2011, largely in wind and solar power, the Washington-based research group said today in a report based on Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. Those funds trumped the $45.5 billion China allocated to renewables, for lead for the U.S. since 2008. The jump to the top of the G-20 ranking followed developers'

efforts to finish projects before incentives expire. With China taking on long-term renewable energy targets and an American tax-break for wind lapsing in 2012, the U.S. again risks losing its edge, said Phyllis Cuttino, Pew’s clean energy

director. “ China is sending that important policy signal which the U nited S tates is failing to do to investors ,” Cuttino said in an interview. “Even though China has fallen to number two, it seems as though investment there is going to continue at a very significant level for the foreseeable future. They are going to continue to be a

dynamic clean-energy hub for the world.” The U.S. doesn’t have any comparable targets to China’s goals of installing a total of 160 gigawatts of wind power and 50 gigawatts of solar power by 2020, she said . At the same time, a production tax credit benefiting wind producers expires at the end of the year. That’s a threat to the wind industry and has prompted Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world’s largest wind turbine maker, to say 1,600 U.S. factory jobs are at risk. Germany, Italy “ In the absence of long-term policy, it’s hard to see how the U.S. can grow significantly in the future,” Cuttino said. “The boom-and-bust cycle of U.S. energy policy sends a very different signal to investors” from China . U.S. President Barack Obama took office three years ago pledging to generate jobs in the wind and solar industries. Since then, carbon cap-and-trade legislation has stalled and lawmakers have attacked assistance to renewables after solar manufacturer Solyndra LLC filed for bankruptcy in September. Globally, the installed capacity for renewable power now totals 565 gigawatts, 133 of it in China, 93 in the U.S. and 61 in Germany, according to today’s report. Cuttino said Pew had expected an increased deployment of renewables in 2011, with investment falling, and was surprised spending rose. “This sector is like the little engine that could -- it just keep growing somewhere, somehow,” she said. Germany ranked third for investment in clean energy in 2011, with $30.6 billion, followed by Italy on $28 billion, India on $10.2 billion and the U.K. with $9.4 billion, Pew said.

Zero sum

Renewables competition is zero sumBennhold 10 [Katrin, Writes for the New York Times Business. 1/29/10, “Race Is on to Develop Green, Clean Technology” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/business/global/30davos.html?dbk&_r=0 //jweideman]

It is shaping up to be the Great Game of the 21st century. To top officials and business executives here at the World Economic Forum, Topic A this year was the race to develop greener , cleaner tech nology, which is emerging as one of the critical factors in reshaping the world economy as emerging powers snap at the heels of battered Western economies. With the U nited S tates and China sizing each other up across the Pacific and Europe seeking to maintain its economic stature, it is a battle for potentially millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in export revenues. The outcome — which pits a venture capital -driven market approach relying on government subsides against a top-down system of state capitalism — has the potential to influence how economic and

political systems evolve. Concern that China may be edging ahead in potentially lucrative growth sectors like renewable energy was palpable here, where senior officials from the United States and Europe warned that the West could not afford to be complacent. “Six months ago my biggest worry was that an emissions deal would make American business less competitive compared to China,” said Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who has been deeply involved in climate change issues in Congress. “Now my concern is that every day that we delay trying to find a price for carbon is a day that China uses to dominate the green economy.” He added:

“China has made a long-term strategic decision and they are going gang-busters.” Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, agreed. “It’s a race and whoever wins that race will dominate economic development ,” she said. “The emerging markets are well-placed.” The global economic downturn, which hit the aging developed world far harder than fast-growing emerging markets, has focused attention on the job-creating potential of green technology, seen by many here as the next industrial revolution. In the energy sector alone, the deployment of new technologies, like wind and solar power, has the potential to support 20 million jobs by 2030 and trillions of dollars in revenue, analysts estimate. Ms. Lagarde estimated that as many as 240,000 jobs could be added in France over the next few years, helping offset the 400,000 lost last year in the slump. While new energy sources will initially be more expensive than fossil fuels, politicians in the West, mindful of a stagnant or shrinking manufacturing base, are hopeful that clean technology offers a way of

rebuilding older industrial areas by creating a comprehensive green supply chain. The quest for a new comparative advantage, economists say, is all the more urgent as the crisis has left the financial-services sector reeling — a sector that was long considered one of the last bastions of Western sophistication . From China’s perspective , experts here said, climate change offers the opportunity to leapfrog Western competitors . “The low-carbon economy is the future,” said David Li Daokui, a professor at the Center for China in the World Economy in Beijing.

Specific links

US incentives link

US incentives tradeoff with china—manufacturingAtkinson et al 9 [Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, Devon Swezey, Teryn Norris, Jesse Jenkins, Leigh Ewbank, Johanna Peace and Yael Borofsky. Breakthrough institute and The information, technology, and innovation foundation. “Rising tigers, sleeping giant” http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Rising_Tigers.pdf //jweideman]

Currently, China , Japan and South Korea are far outpacing the United States in manufacturing and producing the clean energy technologies that will underpin a new wave of economic growth . While low-carbon technology

development bene"ts the entire world, real economic advantages are at stake for particular nations in the form of increased tax revenues, jobs, and the emergence of related industries and businesses along the clean energy technology value chain. The Chinese government is actively supporting the development of clean energy manufacturing centers in the country and is linking them with supporting "nancial and research institutions. T o establish a competitive clean energy manufacturing industry in the U nited S tates, the government should provide or secure low-cost "nancing,29 incentives ,30 and technical assistance31 to retool the nation’s industrial base and ensure that U.S. factories are commercializing and building the clean, cheap energy technologies to power America’s economy and export abroad. Furthermore, a signi"cant portion of U.S. research and development efforts should be located close to regional industry clusters and targeted to address manufacturing challenges and improve the design and production of clean technologies at scale.32

Offshore Wind link

Lack of U.S. production lets china dominate the offshore wind marketZoninsein 10 [Manuela, writer for the new York times. 9/7/10, “Chinese Offshore Development Blows Past U.S.” http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/07/07climatewire-chinese-offshore-development-blows-past-us-47150.html?pagewanted=all //jweideman]

As proposed American offshore wind -farm projects creep forward -- slowed by state legislative debates , due diligence and environmental impact assessments -- China has leapt past the U nited S tates, installing its first offshore wind farm. Several other farms also are already under construction , and even the Chinese government's ambitious targets seem low compared to industry dreaming. "What the U.S. doesn't realize ," said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, is that China "is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world ." The first

major offshore wind farm outside of Europe is located in the East China Sea, near Shanghai. The 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm began transmitting power to the national grid in July and signals a new direction for Chinese renewable energy projects and the initiation of a national policy focusing not just on wind power, but increasingly on the offshore variety. Moreover, "it serves as a showcase of what the Chinese can do offshore ... and it's quite significant," said Rachel Enslow, a wind consultant and co-author of the report "China, Norway and Offshore Wind Development," published in March by Azure International for the World Wildlife

Fund Norway. Planned to strategically coincide with the World Expo in Shanghai, which is being fed electricity from the offshore farm, China is ready to show the world what its own homegrown wind tech nology can do . All of Donghai Bridge's 34 turbines, 3 MW capacity each, were built by Sinovel Wind Group, China's largest wind turbine manufacturer, though

designed in cooperation with American Superconductor. The Beijing-based company began building the farm at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta in September 2008. CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co. Ltd., also based in Beijing, installed the turbines, completing construction in February 2010. Shanghai's Zhongtian Technologies Submarine Optic Fiber Cable Co. Ltd. manufactured the 78 km of submarine cable. Powering 200,000 households while reducing CO2 In China, one key challenge will be developing foundations for the soft seabed commonly found off the coast of the East China Sea, especially since "most offshore wind farms that will be developed in China will be intertidal," said Gerald Page, managing director of Equinox Energy Partners, a venture capital firm in Beijing. The $337 million project, located 8 to 13 km (about 5 to 8 miles) from the coast, was erected on soft seabed conditions using a multi-pile foundation structure. About eight to 10 legs are placed on concrete piles, on top of which are stacked a concrete tack and then the turbines. Shanghai Investigation, Design and Research Institute conceived the foundation. During low tide, the turbine foundations are exposed; during high tide, they become submerged in about 5 meters (16 feet) of water. Unlike in Europe, which is much more focused on developing deepwater

(greater than 50 meters, or 164 feet, deep) turbine technology, China is exploring unique foundation technology and demonstrating innovative pursuits. The farm is expected to eventually generate an annual 267 million kilowatt-hours of electricity -- enough to power 200,000 Shanghai households. China's government claims that annually, the wind farm will cut use of 100,000 tons of coal, reducing carbon emissions by 246,058 tons. Currently, the wind farm's capacity is equivalent to only 1 percent of the city's total power production of about 18,200 MW, which is generated mostly from traditional fuel-based sources, according to China Daily, the state-run English-language daily newspaper in Beijing. Construction of the Donghai project's second phase, on the west side of the bridge, has been approved by authorities. It, too, is projected to produce about 100 MW. An additional four farms surrounding Shanghai are currently under negotiation, and the city hopes to complete 13 wind farms by 2020, with the majority of the expected 1,000 MW capacity supplied by offshore wind farms. An industry's itch to expand The "Development Plan on Emerging Energies" released July 20 outlines wind production goals through 2020 by the Chinese government. According to the plan, offshore wind power is expected to reach 30 gigawatts, and coastal provinces were required to start drafting offshore wind-grid implementation plans. This includes Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. In the next three to four years, according to the Azure-WWF report, in total, 514 MW should be installed along this coastline. As of March this year, pipelines accommodating 17 MW were already installed between Donghai and a pilot wind project in Bohai Bay near Tianjin. The expected long-term cumulative pipeline, at 13.7 GW, is nearly halfway to the estimated 2020 goal, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the Mandarins are fully behind renewable technologies and warmly welcoming a greener future. "The top-level people are cautiously optimistic," explained Andrew Grieve, a senior researcher at J Capital Research, an equities research company based in Beijing. "They are far more optimistic on the local and provincial level." Behind closed doors, industry insiders hear buzz and speculation that coastal provinces' plans far exceed the existing Chinese central government's plans. Grieve stressed that the real force for wind comes from manufacturers that are itching to expand the market. "Comparatively speaking," he said, "the central government is the most conservative of the lot." All this is without official numbers, as the 12th Five-Year Plan (for the 2011-2015 time period) has still not been formally unveiled. It remains in final draft form, and though the original release date was slated for March, approval keeps moving backward. Analysts expect the implementation date should, at the latest, arrive on Jan. 1, 2011. The central government's aim was to hit 10 GW by 2010, a goal that was quickly surpassed. "Industry is either going to take their number and beat it, or government is going to have to step in and calm down growth," Grieve said. Rumors support the latter, but given historical trends, the former would seem more likely. The Azure-WWF report describes the offshore wind energy generation potential in China as huge -- calculated as 11,000 terawatt-hours, similar to that of the North Sea in western Europe. "China has the largest wind resources in the world, and three-quarters of them are offshore," Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Beijing office, told Scientific American. The existing industry is nowhere near that large. As Grieve explained, "apart from the 1 gigawatt of bids this year, there are no central government national targets for offshore wind, although possible national targets of 5 gigawatts by 2015 and 30 gigawatts by 2020 have been suggested." The provincial government-proposed provincial offshore development plans amount to 10.2 GW by 2015 and 22.7 GW by 2020. The growth in China's wind manufacturing market remains focused on the domestic market -- for now. Dheeraj Choudhary, who runs Parker Hannifin Corp.'s Global Renewable Energy business

unit, said "60 to 70 percent of wind turbine market growth has come from domestic manufacturers, and not the international guys." Joanna Lewis, an assistant professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University who works as a China program adviser to the Energy Foundation, agreed: " No one has nearly as much capacity [as China ] installed in the world." As a result, there is still "very strong demand for wind turbines in China, and they're not at stage where supply

exceeds demand." Eyeing markets abroad Talk to wind turbine and technology experts and manufacturers , and they see a day not too far off when Chinese-produced (and in some cases, Chinese-invented) turbines will service foreign markets. Anthony Fullelove, project manager for North Brown Hill Wind Farm, based in Sydney, Australia, expects that his country, as well as Europe and the U nited S tates, will see a sharp increase in turbines sourced from China -- as the technology rises to meet global standards and prices drop -- to make wind farms viable especially

in a generation sector without a carbon price. "Turbine manufacturers in China are starting to look for markets abroad upon seeing Chinese market getting tighter and tighter , with more companies selling in China ," Lewis added. For the time being, Chinese manufacturers still work hand in hand with foreign engineers and designers. But that is starting to shift. "Reliance is much lower," noted Choudhary. Instead, Chinese manufacturers look to foreign companies to provide subsystems and components. All of China's top five turbine manufacturers have

worked with foreign engineers yet retained the intellectual property rights on the technologies. Meanwhile, as China moves forward with installing water-based wind farms as well as developing its domestic technological know-how, not a single offshore wind turbine is in use in the U nited S tates. Though the 130-turbine Cape Wind project, in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, has received federal approval, several potential regulatory and judicial hurdles lurk. Similarly, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission recently approved a power purchase agreement proposed for the Block Island farm off of Rhode Island, which would start with an initial eight turbines as a model, yet Attorney General Patrick Lynch (D) has vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. When discussing the creation of an Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium in February, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it currently takes seven to nine years for offshore wind project to receive approval. At this point, Cape Wind is moving into its 10th year of negotiations. In comparison, China's Renewable Energy Law was implemented in January 2006. By November 2007, the Bohai model turbine was installed. So important was the Donghai farm to the Chinese Communist Party, it footed the bill to ensure the project would be

completed in time for Expo 2010 in Shanghai, during which time China has the eyes of the whole world watching.

More US offshore wind undermines china’s market policyWind energy update 14 [Wind Energy Update is a central information and networking platform for the Global wind industry. We help business leaders interact, share cutting edge information and broker major contracts. 6/2/14, “China offshore: too big of an opportunity to ignore?” http://social.windenergyupdate.com/emerging-markets/china-offshore-too-big-opportunity-ignore //jweideman]

Other emerging markets, such as the U nited S tates , have excellen t wind resources offshore, and many projects are on the table for discussion or ‘under development’, but there is no offshore wind power installed yet, placing the advantage on European, and especially the UK offshore wind supply chain, to tap into China’s ambitious offshore wind plans.

China's centralised decision-making could deliver a national market -based climate policy ahead of the U nited S ates, where divided government and anti-tax sentiment , among other factors, continue to stall movement on comprehensive climate policy . "This if anything should encourage all countries, the US in particular, to take stronger action and go towards a strong international treaty being agreed at the UN climate change summit in 2015," says GWEC.

Natural gas

Natural gas causes a shift to renewable energyTrembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”, http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)Gas -fired power provides cheap, low-carbon, and flexible backup support for intermittent wind and solar. Grid operators depend on reliable power production from power plant operators to match grid supply and demand and ensure consistent price signals. As intermittent renewables — particularly wind — continue to occupy a greater share of the nation’s electricity output , power system operators will need to increasingly rely

on capacities of backup and firming power . Natural gas –fired power plants offer the best currently

available solution . By contrast, the majority of coal plants in the United States were designed to provide steady baseload power to the grid, with very little flexibility. Today’s coal plants have low ramping rates (1.5 percent to 3

percent per minute) and become inefficient if they are operated below maximum output, increasing marginal

emissions of CO2, NOx, and SO2 pollutants.93 Conventional nuclear power cannot be counted on for flexible power in any context today, given extreme technical difficulties in cycling and ramping nuclear generators. Although grid-scale

energy storage options are expanding, the technology is still limited in its commercial applicability. Natural gas power — and particularly

power from natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants — provides a readily substitutable alternative to baseload and older load-following coal plants . Flexible gas plants provide support for electric power grids that are

increasingly occupied by intermittent wind and solar. A study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggests that for

every 4 MW of wind capacity, 3 MW of NGCC capacity will be needed to operate the grid reliably.94 The expansion of gas -fired

power plants could accelerate the integration of intermittent power into existing grid systems .95 New

natural gas plants have ramping rates of approximately 8 percent per minute and can reduce their output to 80 percent capacity with minimal heat rate penalty. New NGCC plants that are specifically designed to offer flexibility to a renewables-heavy grid system can ramp to 150 MW in 10 minutes and to full load in 30 minutes.96 General Electric’s new fleet of gas-fired power plants is designed to optimize integration with variable power sources and can ramp as fast as 100 MW per minute.97

Natural gas accelerates the integration of renewables – acts as a bridge to wind, and solarLuke and Trembath, policy analysts at the Breakthrough Institute, 13 (Max, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, and Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, “The Bridge to Zero Carbon: Can natural gas catalyze the transition to a clean energy future?”, http://ensia.com/voices/the-bridge-to-zero-carbon/)One of natural gas’s most important strengths as a bridge technology is its ability to support the continued

expansion and deployment of wind, solar and other zero-carbon energy . Renewables such as wind and solar complicate the traditional operation of electricity power systems. For example, utility-scale wind generation, a particularly volatile intermittent power source, requires electricity operators to make significant adjustments to balance generation and load,

creating inefficiency in the system. By providing backup and firming capacity , the expansion of gas -fired power

plants can accelerate the integration of intermittent power into existing electricity grids . New natural gas plants can power up and reduce output very quickly with minimal efficiency loss , and new NGCC — natural

gas combined cycle — plants are specifically designed to offer flexibility to a renewables-heavy grid system. Countering concern that cheap natural gas undercuts the deployment of renewables, wind and solar have seen rapid growth in recent years thanks to federal tax incentives, state mandates and other subsidies. And while there may be cases where cheap natural gas

has challenged the economics of renewable power, the far bigger threat to renewables is subsidy dependence and regulatory uncertainty . Likewise, the existential threats to nuclear power have more to do with high capital costs and regulatory

challenges than with recent price competition by cheap natural gas. (Another report published this month by the Breakthrough Institute details the reforms needed to accelerate innovation in nuclear energy to make it cheaper and more scalable.) Finally, cheap natural gas presents opportunities for development of adva nced carbon capture tech nologies . While carbon capture has typically only been considered for coal-fired power, the cleaner pollution stream emitted from natural gas plants makes them more amenable to carbon capture than coal.

Natural gas can only increase renewable development – no correlation between low prices and crowd outTrembath et al 13 (Alex, policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough Institute, where he researches and writes about renewable energy technologies, American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation, and Max Luke, policy associate in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, where his research focused on a range of energy issues and topics including nuclear power, natural gas, renewables, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, national energy subsidies, and electricity systems, with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, “Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution”, http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/Breakthrough_Institute_Coal_Killer.pdf)The evidence reviewed here confirms that fears of gas “crowding out” other low-carbon technologies are largely misplaced. There is no correlation between wind deployment and natural gas prices (see Figure 8).

Rather than being undermined by shale gas, intermittent renewables like solar and wind have benefited from it as an inexpensive source of backup power. While low natural gas prices have added marginally to the challenges faced by the nuclear industry, they have not significantly altered the trajectory of nuclear power, which is faced with a number of unique historical challenges. With lower capital costs and a cleaner stream of power-plant emissions than coal , natural gas

also offers a potential development and demonstration platform for nascent carbon-capture technologies. And cheap natural gas, which has added $100 billion annually to the US economy since 2007 in the form of lower electricity prices,

creates the national wealth required to continue investing in ever-cleaner and evercheaper energy sources. It is public policies, not fossil energy prices , that overwhelmingly determine whether zero-carbon energy sources get deployed or not. Renewables deployment is dependent on public subsidies and state utility mandates; new nuclear deployment is dependent on loan guarantees, ratepayer tariffs, and innovation funding. Recent wind deployment trends are proof of the industry’s subsidy dependence. In 2012, uncertainty over whether Congress would renew the key wind subsidy led to a rush of wind installations, the largest in US history. It is predicted that less than half as much new wind will be installed in 2013 as was installed in 2012.

Rare Earth Link

New market competiters crowd out china for rare earthPothen 13 [Frank, center for European economic research. 2013, “Dynamic Market Power in an Exhaustible Resource Industry. The Case of Rare Earth Elements” http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp14005.pdf //jweideman]

Rare Earth Elements are crucial inputs for many high-tech industries and Europe, the US, as well as Japan are

dependent on importing them from China . This paper quantifies the market power China can exert on Rare Earth markets until 2020 using its export barriers and calculates the corresponding welfare effects. A dynamic partial equilibrium model for metal markets is developed. It allows for a disaggregated representation of the mining sector and endogenous investment in capacities. The model is calibrated on a novel database on non-Chinese Rare Earth mines. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first dynamic partial equilibrium model applied on a metal market. Furthermore, this paper presents the first

numerical study on Chinese market 27power on Rare Earths. The results show that China’s market power is of temporary nature. The decline of market power differs by type of Rare Earth . Assuming for export restrictions to remain as they are in

2013, the People’s Republic increases prices for Light Rare Earths in the rest of the world by 21 per cent compared to free trade in 2014 and 2015. China’s capability to exert market power declines quickly thereafter due to market entry of new suppliers . Market power is more persistent for Heavy Rare Earths. Status-quo export barriers more than double prices outside China in 2014 and 2015. China’s market power only

vanishes by the end of the decade. Non-Chinese Heavy Rare Earth producers have longer lags until they are able to commence production, thus China’s monopoly is less contested by foreign suppliers. Current Chinese export restrictions imply a welfare loss of US$ 1.96 billion outside China until 2020

China monopoly on REE key to maintain tech companies which is key to their economyTroianiello, 12 Antonio, University of French Polynesia, Associate Professor of Law, “1¶ Deep Sea Mining, A New Frontier for International Environmental Law,” http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=antonino_troianiello After the low cost of labor has allowed the relocation of traditional industries in China , rare earths are used as a lever to encourage the relocation in China of research and technology industries. This transition from an economy¶ mainly based on the industry is at the heart of the economic development plan of China. Rare earths monopoly is used as a lever to achieve this goal. High-tech companies wishing to ensure a steady supply of rare metals are thus encouraged to relocate their production there, or to grant technology transfer. "With this program planned asphyxia, China is in a position to turn into a great power on the high-value segment of high-tech industries." 46

Chinese monopoly key artificially raising global prices and forcing companies to move to China for productionPerry, 4/14 Bill, Perry was an attorney with the Office of General Counsel, U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC"), and Office of Chief Counsel and Office of Antidumping Investigations, U.S. Department of Commerce., “US CHINA TRADE WAR DEVELOPMENTS–TRADE, IP, ANTITRUST AND SECURITIES,” http://uschinatradewar.com/us-china-trade-war-developments-trade-ip-antitrust-and-securities/The Chinese export restraints challenged in this dispute include export duties and export quotas, as well as related export quota

administration requirements. These types of export restraints can skew the playing field against the United States and other countries in the production and export of downstream products. They can artificially increase world prices for these raw material inputs while artificially lowering prices for Chinese producers . This enables China’s domestic downstream producers to produce lower-priced products from the raw materials and thereby creates significant advantages for China’s producers when competing against U.S. and other producers both in China’s market and other countries’ markets. The export restraints can also create substantial pressure on foreign downstream producers to move their operations, jobs and technologies to China.

Chinese monopoly of REEs is key to clean tech development Reuters, 10 – (Reuters, “Analysis: Rare earth monopoly a boon to Chinese clean tech firms,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/12/us-china-rareearth-idUSTRE67B0BT20100812)

(Reuters) - In the race to build hybrid cars and wind turbines to feed growing demand for green technology, China has one clear advantage , it holds the world's largest reserves of rare earth metals and dominates global

production.¶ Wind turbines, made by No.2 wind turbine maker Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, and hybrid cars, being developed by Warren Buffet-backed Chinese automaker BYD are among the biggest guzzlers of rare earth minerals, which analysts say are facing a global supply crunch as demand swells . ¶ This little-known class of 17 related elements is also used for a vast array of electronic devices ranging from Apple's iPhone to flat screen TVs, all of which are competing for the 120,000 tons of annual global supply.¶ China controls 97 percent of rare earth production.¶ "Rare earth for China is like oil to the Middle East," said Yuanta Securities analyst Min Li.¶ Worldwide demand for rare earth is expected to exceed supply by some 30,000 to 50,000 tons by 2012 unless major new production sources are developed, say officials at Australian

rare earth mining company Arafura Resources.¶ China has curbed exports of the mineral since 2005 through quotas and duties,

saying it needs additional supplies to develop its domestic clean energy and high-tech sectors. On Wednesday, it said it would cut export quotas in 2010 by 40 percent.¶ "Export restrictions may provide an advantage to Chinese turbine makers, again because of the cost advantage," said CIMB analyst Keith Li.¶ He said Chinese green companies would have priority in securing supply of the metals over international peers and their proximity to sources of the minerals ensures quicker and cheaper long-term supply.¶ China's domestic consumption of the metals poses the biggest threat to global supply. The country, which holds a third of the world's reserves, eats up to 60 percent of global rare earth supply for a wide range of applications from consumer gadgets and medical equipment to defense weapons.¶ For related factbox click:¶ China's trading partners have grown increasingly vocal about its move to cut its export quotas, but Beijing is determined to control the rare earth market.¶ "Foreign companies could be facing some material supply risks, unless they decide to move production to China," warned Yuanta's Min Li.¶ NO GUARANTEES¶ But while China may ensure its first-tier green companies are given access to the rare elements, analysts agree this alone is unlikely to guarantee success for the Chinese clean tech firms.¶ New technologies free of rare earth elements could emerge that may undermine China's advantage, while further cuts in rare earth quotas could trigger a political backlash which could force the nation to keep supply open for its trading partners.¶ "Chinese technology needs to develop quickly enough to make full use of that advantage," said CIMB's Li.¶

"That window closes if its existing technologies fail to evolve."¶ Still China will have the upper hand in the global rare earth market for a while yet.¶ There are currently many new mine projects outside of China in the pipeline but few will be able to compete with it on price unless governments offer production subsidies.¶ Low prices for rare earth metals from China have undermined production and led to closure of several mines overseas. Lax environmental rules and cheap labor also allow China to sell rare earth metals at low prices.¶ Also, the development of new rare earth mines could take as many as 10 years.¶ China's leading rare earth company, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech Co., is building 200,000 tonnes in rare earth oxide reserves, and state media reported that the company is joining forces with Jiangxi Copper Corp to set unified prices for rare earth metals.¶ If supply becomes extremely tight as experts suggest, Chinese green companies may take upon themselves to secure the mineral by getting involved in the actual process of making rare earth products, analysts said.¶ BYD is scouting for new sources of lithium, an important ingredient for its high-performance batteries.

Chinese monopoly is necessary to maintain low costMorrison and Tang, 12 – (**Wayne, Specialist in Asian Trade and Finance, AND **Rachael Analyst in Asian Affairs, “China’s Rare Earth Industry and Export¶ Regime: Economic and Trade Implications for¶ the United States,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42510.pdf)

In recent years, China has been restructuring its domestic rare earth industry while putting more¶ restrictions on rare earth exports, which has greatly affected the price and quantity of rare earths ¶ available in the global market. This has caused concern among businesses and foreign¶ governments about potential business risks and geopolitical implications. Such concerns became¶ more acute when China reportedly suspended shipments of rare earths to Japan, due to a months-¶ long diplomatic crisis with Japan in September of 2010

Its independently key to chinese economy and tech transfer for green industries --- low costs are keyMorrison and Tang, 12 – (**Wayne, Specialist in Asian Trade and Finance, AND **Rachael Analyst in Asian Affairs, “China’s Rare Earth Industry and Export¶ Regime: Economic and Trade Implications for¶ the United States,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42510.pdf)

To many observers, China’s rare earth policies are part of a complex web of Chinese government¶ industrial policies that seek to promote the development of domestic industries deemed essential ¶ to economic modernization. In the late 1980s, the United States was the global leader in rare earth¶ production. However, preferential policies by the Chinese government and lax environmental¶ standards there quickly enabled China to become a dominant, low-cost producer of rare earths by¶ the late 1990s. Many analysts contend that China’s recent actions to consolidate its rare earth¶ production and restrict exports are intended to promote the development of domestic downstream¶ industrie s , especially those engaged in high technology and green technology

industries, by¶ ensuring their access to adequate and low-cost supplies of rare earths . It is further argued that¶

China’s rare earth export policies are intended to induce foreign rare earth users to move their¶

operations to China, and subsequently, to transfer technology to Chinese firms. China denies that¶ its rare earth policies are political, discriminatory, or protectionist, but rather, are intended to¶ address environmental concerns in China and to better manage and conserve limited resources.

AT: link defense

AT: Other renewables thump

Past renewable projects are irrelevant- erratic us policyMcArdle 12 [John McArdle, E&E reporter. 6/15/12, “Bingaman says ‘erratic’ policies hurt U.S., help China in clean-tech market” http://www.governorswindenergycoalition.org/?p=2581 //jweideman]

As Congress continues a fierce debate over the extension of federal subsidy programs for alternative energy, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) today said that the inconsistent approach that the U.S. government has taken to promote clean technology is providing an advantage to China. “Many of the efforts we have to promote clean tech in the U.S. are addressed in an unpredictable fashion, with funds and incentives that expire and come back to life and then expire again, and a lack of clear directional policy that would allow industry to plan for the future , ” Bingaman said at a hearing today to study U.S. and Chinese clean energy efforts. Several key alternative energy subsidy efforts adopted in recent years — through the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and other laws — face an uncertain future. Among the incentives now enjoyed by the solar industry is a 30 percent investment tax credit that is set to expire in 2016. But a key wind energy tax credit could sunset this year unless Congress acts. And a popular grant-in-lieu-of-tax-credit program that had been hailed by the solar industry ended Dec. 31 despite vigorous efforts by the industry to get Congress to

extend the program. Meanwhile, a decade of Chinese government policies and financial incentives has turned China into an unquestioned clean energy giant . China now manufactures half of the world’s wind turbines and solar photovoltaic modules and is home to four of the world’s 10 largest wind turbine manufacturers and eight of the top 10 solar manufacturers. “I believe that the inconsistent approach that we’ve been pursuing has put the United States at a disadvantage in competing with China for a share of clean energy markets — at

home and abroad,” Bingaman said. “The U.S. cannot compete on a level playing field with countries that have strong industrial policies when our

own policies have been so inconsistent and erratic.”

AT: EU pounds

The EU doesn’t pound- they buy their tech from China Yang 7/12 [Liu, CCTV. 7/12/14. “Challenges and risks of renewable energy use in China” http://english.cntv.cn/2014/07/12/VIDE1405150680580613.shtml //jweideman]

"I think a lot of the people do looking at the risk, so on the wind, for example, people worry about getting the electricity on to the grid, when talk about the solar, lots of the companies got bankrupted, both of the issues needs to be addressed, but I think they are being addressed, I should say we should not forget what

China have done to global energy is a global significance, it is not just the largest investors in renewable energies in developing countries, it is the largest investors of the world drive n down the cost of the renewable , including the solar to such huge investors and revolutionized into the solar, the global market in renewable energy ," said the Prosperity Consular John Edwards . "One of the hot topics people discussed during the forum was clean energy use in small sized municipalities, what is the top challenge or risk for developing clean energies in mega cities?" said Liu. "All of your urbanization planning and energy planning has to be integrated, if you talk about a city has 20 million people, which growing 1 million people every 5 years, like Beijing, shanghai, and Chongqing, that is extrememly challenge and

difficult, I think in China local government and government is doing a good stuff, and again it is an opportunity here. One of the things we are doing in the UK, for example in London… because Chinese companies provid ing the cheapest solar PV in the world ," John Edwards said.

AT: Coop

Cooperation gets politically blockaded Hart 13 (Melanie Hart is a Policy Analyst for Chinese Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress. She would like to extend many thanks to Richard Caperton for his comments on and contributions to this issue brief. “Increasing Opportunities For Chinese Direct Investment In U.S. Clean Energy,” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/11/1571781/increasing-opportunities-for-chinese-direct-investment-in-us-clean-energy/)

Legally, Chinese and other foreign enterprises are eligible to receive clean energy loan guarantees from the

Department of Energy as long as the project itself is located in the United States. In reality, though, in the current political climate it would be a serious liability for the Department of Energy to provide loan guarantees to a foreign company, particularly a Chinese company. U.S. politicians routinely attack clean energy deals that appear to allow Chinese companies to

benefit from U.S. government funding. In 2010, for example, some U.S. senators protested a clean energy program that provided stimulus funding to U.S. wind farms that were importing their wind turbines from China . Similar protests arose last year when China’s Wanxiang Group moved to acquire A123, a U.S. battery company that had

received federal clean energy funding before going bankrupt. Even when Chinese companies are not involved , the D epartment o f E nergy already has its hands full defending clean energy loan guarantees from fossil-fuel lobbying efforts. Adding Chinese companies into the mix would make that difficult job even harder.

Impact

China econ

1nc scenario- econ

Renewable energy is key to china’s economyLaMonica 10 [Martin, independent technology and business reporter writing for MIT Technology Review. 12/1/10, “Ernst & Young: China clear leader in

renewable energy” http://www.cnet.com/news/ernst-young-china-clear-leader-in-renewable-energy/ //jweideman]

Driven by a surge in wind power installations, China is building on its lead in Ernst & Young's ranking of top renewable energy countries. Wind investment in China this quarter is nearly half of global spending , ensuring that one out of every two wind turbines to go live this year will be in China , according to consultants at Ernst & Young which does a quarterly "country attractiveness" index. The U.S. will see a jump in large solar installations before the end of year because developers are rushing to start projects before the end of the year. In place of a tax credit subsidy, renewable energy projects can now get a grant but that policy may not be renewed. Federal policy uncertainty and the financial markets have hurt the U.S. wind industry which is second in the global wind index. Low natural gas prices have also made solar and wind projects harder to finance. The Ernst & Young report noted that South Korea, which is a large consumer of energy, has risen significantly

based on a national policy and well developed supply chain. Beyond solar and wind, China has elevated clean tech nology to a national strategic level, making it core to its future economic growth , said Ben Warren, the infrastructure advisory leader at Ernst & Young's UK Energy and Environmental , in a statement. "Since reaching top

spot in our Index in September, China has opened up a healthy gap from other markets . Cleantech, including renewable energy, represents a significant part of the country's future economic growth plans, " he said. "The Chinese solar industry is also fast becoming of great importance in the global market place."

Chinese economic collapse causes Chinese arms build-up and war with the U.S.Roberts 1 [Brad, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY. “China-U.S. Nuclear Relations: What Relationship Best Serves U.S. Interests?” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dtra/china_us_nuc.pdf //jweideman]

Some experts in the United States dismiss the possibility of a major build-up of China's forces as not possible for a country so poor, especially one that has put

military modernization at the bottom of the list of four modernizations. But this is not for China first and foremost a question of money. It is important to recall that China's original nuclear tests and first system deployments came at a time of huge turmoil and profound economic collapse in the country. Moreover, much of the infrastructure is already in place. In trying to gauge the impact of

BMD on China's strategic modernization program, it is important to understand what will happen regardless of what the United States does on BMD. China's modernization program long predates BMD and will presumably extend for decades into the future. China's force will grow more capable, quantitatively and qualitatively, whatever the United States does. This is a point made by Clinton administration officials in the NMD debate: "Whether or not we proceed with national missile defense, China's nuclear forces would expand in a way that would make this system less threatening to China."19 This theme has been echoed by the Bush administration: "China is already engaged in a substantial effort to modernize its strategic nuclear forces which are currently capable of striking the United States. We do not believe our deployment of limited missile defenses should lead Beijing to further accelerate or expand its buildup of strategic nuclear forces."-0 Washington should not let Beijing blame it for every new deployment. But BMD is hardly irrelevant to how China modernizes its forces. Indeed, it seems likely to have a direct effect on the future trajectory of the Chinese

modernization effort. Chinese analysts are also skeptical that the "limited defense" promised by the Clinton and Bush administrations will not emerge , in timelines relevant to Chinese force modernization, as a "thicker" defense . Americans must understand the very long time- horizons that inform China's investment policies and strategic posture. The DF-31

missile, for example, has been in development for more than two decades. Chinese experts find it virtually impossible to believe that the U nited S tates will stop at some initial capability. Indeed, they fully expect the kind of " open-ended" pursuit of BMD that some in the Bush administration describe . China can also find a great deal of evidence in the U.S. political debate suggesting that thin defenses are merely a prelude to thicker defenses, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but in any case a decade or two hence. And whatever reassurances they might have heard from the Bush or Clinton administration representatives about the nature of Washington's commitment to a limited defense,

the Chinese have also heard a steady dose of expert opinion from Moscow reiterating the long-held view that the U nited S tates will never stop in the effort to construct the maximally effective defense within its reach once its heads down that path. This is another reason for thinking that China may well look beyond the status quo ante.

Nuclear warDoble 11 [John, has an M.A. in International Affairs from American University and a B.A. in Political Science and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Maritime Disputes a Likely Source of Future Conflict” http://www.policymic.com/articles/2279/maritime-disputes-a-likely-source-of-future-conflict December]//jweideman

Yesterday, the U.S. and China were involved in a nuclear exchange . The cause of this conflict was a war brought about between China and the Philippines after the Philippines seized several of the Spratly Islands to secure natural resources and the sea lanes traversing the South China seas, both of which it would use to advance itself in the global economy. China refused to accept

this action and attacked , and the U.S. was dragged in after the president was pressured by Congress and American allies to honor America’s mutual-

defense agreement with the Philippines. The result was disastrous . While this is a hypothetical example, similar scenarios are becoming increasingly probable . Due to increasing economic competition and climate change, a source of future conflict will be the contest for control over the seas. The U.S. must adequately plan for future contingencies to avoid any surprises and to discern what it needs to do to

prevent the worst-case scenario from occurring. Economic competition on the seas can be seen most clearly in terms of port construction. As it stands, over 90% of all goods measured by weight or volume are transported by cargo ship, and port construction greatly increase a nation’s access to foreign markets and appeal as a manufacturing center. Conversely, a nation’s investment in ports reduces the amount of goods traveling to other nations, thus damaging their economies. Unlike other forms of infrastructure investment, maritime infrastructure implicitly affects international security. This competition has already created conflict in the Middle East. Bilateral efforts to improve relations between Iraq and Kuwait were scuttled earlier this year after Kuwait announced it was investing heavily in building a new port (the Mubarak Kabeer) only 20 kilometers away from a port Iraq was building (the Grand al-Faw). Rapprochement swiftly ended over Iraqi fears of economic strangulation and calls for eternal brotherhood were replaced by curses. Nowadays, rumors abound that Iraqi and Kuwaiti forces are infiltrating the border areas and Iraqi militants have already launched rockets from Iraq into Kuwait and threatened to kidnap the contractors building the Mubarak Kabeer port. While threatening, this conflict is unlikely to explode as Iraq is in no shape to wage war and labors under a history of belligerence it is trying to expunge. But what if a similar sequence of events occurred in Southeast/East Asia, where GDP is growing an average of 6%-7% a year(with China at 9.1%) and states can operate more freely? The U.S. is investing more resources in the region at the exact moment when growing economic competition make conflict more likely. Secondly, climate change will soon have a massive impact on the world’s coastal areas. Global sea levels are likely to rise between 80 to 200cm at the end of the century and would submerge large tracts of land, displacing millions of people and wiping out urban and agricultural areas. Since they are built on the coast, this would also damage or destroy many ports worldwide and jeopardize international commerce as we know it. These losses would be difficult to replace given the increased environmental pressures Southeast/East Asian states would face as well as the spillover problems that would arise as low-lying countries sink into the sea

and collapse. Competition over the ports that survive will be fierce as whoever possesses them would likely dominate the sea lanes and international commerce for some time, leading to regional dominance. Similarly, economic competition and climate change are going to going to cause havoc on the military industrial base supporting naval power in the region. It is expensive to build a competitive navy, and many states will be unable to afford it if they need to constantly adapt to economic and environmental pressure. China and India are already building up their naval forces and will likely be naval powers into the foreseeable future, but the U.S. will gain a lot of allies in the future struggling to get the U.S. involved in every security dispute they have. Like WWI, someone may gamble incorrectly, and a conflict that starts as a minor incident may explode into something much

greater. The U.S . consequently needs to utilize all facets of American power, from military to diplomatic to foreign aid, to confront these complex challenges and prevent them from escalating out of control . We need to promote broader acceptance of free trade on the open seas as well as democratic governance to limit the appeal of coercive power and the ability to use that power arbitrarily. We need a way to maintain the strength of our alliances without getting sucked into conflicts we don’t want, besides selling more weapons that only make war increasingly likely. Regardless of the exact policies, policymakers need to start thinking ahead on how it will deal with the implications economic competition and climate change are going to have on maritime power. Intelligent observers of the Middle East knew for years that the authoritarian status quo was unsustainable, yet no plans were made to respond to

the collapse of those regimes and our response could have been better. Current trends indicate that the current status quo in

Southeast/East Asia is equally untenable . Do we have a plan in place?

XT: internal link

Renewables spur Chinese growth and coal reliance is unsustainableSolidiance 13 [Asia's premier marketing & innovation strategy consulting firm. 1/8/13, “CHINA'S RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR AN OVERVIEW OF KEY

GROWTH SECTORS” http://www.solidiance.com/whitepaper/china-renewable.pdf //jweideman]

China's rapidly expanding urban population and push for continued GDP growth make its reliance on non-renewable energy sources unsustainable . Continued investment in renewable energy is required to meet government growth targets . China's investment in renewables has grown at around 80% per annum since 2004, clearly demonstrating China's commitment to pursuing global leadership in renewable energies and building a sustainable support structure for the continued growth and development of its national economy. CHINESE GOVERNMENT TARGETS THE 2006 RENEWABLE ENERGY LAW The China Renewable Energy Law was accepted on 1 January 2006 and

was China's first state-supported mandate to help develop the use of renewable energy in China. The law is still a key driver of renewable energy development in China. The 2006 Renewable Energy Law not only encourages the continued construction of renewable energy facilities, but also puts pressure on the Chinese grid operators to purchase the power generated by approved renewable facilities . The excess cost between the lower cost traditional power and the higher cost renewable energy is subsidised by the government and collected through a surcharge on the price of consumer electricity , collected from all customers on the grid. This surcharge was doubled in December 2011, increasing from 0.04 RMB per kWh of electricity to 0.08 RMB per kWh, creating a total subsidy fund of around 50 billion

RMB.all of which is used to further develop the use of renewable energy in China. However, despite the implementation of legal obligations at a national level, provincial and industrial level infrastructure problems still create challenges for thefuture of renewable energy growth in China, thus more specific targets and schemes must still be developed during each of Chinas five year planning periods.

XT: Impact

Collapse goes nuclear- it causes massive instabilityMead 9 [Walter Russell Mead is James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine. Until 2010, Mead was the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow. 2/4/9, “Only makes you stronger” http://www.newrepublic.com/article/only-makes-you-stronger-0 //jweideman]

The greatest danger both to U.S.-China relations and to American power itself is probably not that China will rise too far, too fast; it is that the current crisis might end China's growth miracle . In the worst-case scenario,

the turmoil in the international economy will plunge China into a major economic downturn. The Chinese financial system will implode as loans to both state and private enterprises go bad. Millions or even tens of millions of Chinese will be unemployed in a country without an effective social safety net . The collapse of asset

bubbles in the stock and property markets will wipe out the savings of a generation of the Chinese middle class. The political consequences could include dangerous unrest--and a bitter climate of anti- foreign feeling that blames others for China's woes. (Think of Weimar Germany, when both Nazi and communist politicians blamed the West for Germany's economic travails .) Worse, instability could lead to a vicious cycle, as nervous investors moved their money out of the country, further slowing growth and, in turn, fomenting ever-greater bitterness.

Thanks to a generation of rapid economic growth, China has so far been able to manage the stresses and conflicts of modernization and change; nobody knows what will happen if the growth stops. India's future

is also a question. Support for global integration is a fairly recent development in India, and many serious Indians remain skeptical of it. While India's 60-year-old democratic system has resisted many shocks, a deep economic recession in a country where mass poverty and even hunger are still major concerns could undermine political order, long-term growth, and India's attitude toward the United States and global economic integration. The violent Naxalite insurrection plaguing a significant swath of the country could get worse; religious extremism among both Hindus and Muslims could further polarize Indian politics; and India's

economic miracle could be nipped in the bud. If current market turmoil seriously damaged the performance and prospects of India and China , the current crisis could join the Great Depression in the list of economic events that change d history , even if the recessions in the West are relatively short and mild. The United States should stand ready to assist Chinese and Indian financial authorities on an emergency basis--and work very hard to help both countries escape or at least weather any economic downturn. It may test

the political will of the Obama administration, but the U nited S tates must avoid a protectionist response to the economic slowdown. U.S. moves to limit market access for Chinese and Indian producers could poison relations for years. For billions of people in nuclear-armed countries to emerge from this crisis believing either that the U nited S tates was indifferent to their well-being or that it had profited from their distress could damage U.S. foreign policy far more severely than any mistake made by George W. Bush.

Even limited conflict goes nuclearWarden et al 13 [John k, executive director of the center for strategic and international studies. Elbridge A. Colby Abraham M. Denmark= cochairs. March 2013, “Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations A WAY FORWARD” http://csis.org/files/publication/130307_Colby_USChinaNuclear_Web.pdf //jweideman]

Chinese scholars have also suggested that, notwithstanding the NFU policy, any adversary would still need to act cautiously to minimize the risk of nuclear escalation because it would be unsure of whether Beijing would adhere to NFU in a severe crisis. As Shen Dingli acknowledges, "Frankly speaking, in a military contingency, no adversary would fail to prepare for a change in China's policy on NFU as this choice is always an option for China " 16 Nonetheless, Shen concludes that "the political costs to the Chinese leadership due to such a change would be prohibitive, which acts as a real restraint against

China's altering its professed position." In the debate over maintaining the NFU policy, some Chinese analysts have considered scenarios under which Beijing might lower the threshold for first use. One apparent area of discussion in Chinese circles has been the potential for U.S. conventional strikes on the Chinese mainland , as reflected in Gen. Zhu Chenghu's remark that "if the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China 's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons. "17 Although

Chinese officials regularly offer assurances that its no-first-use policy will not change, a 2008 report by the Pentagon on Chinas military power states that "doctrinal materials suggest additional missions for China's nuclear forces include deterring conventional attacks against (Chinesel nuclear assets or conventional attacks with WMD-like effects."18 Chinese writings also suggest that there is some ambiguity when it comes to determining what constitutes first use by an adversary . As two Chinese authors state,

because conventional attacks may have equally devastating effects in certain cases, "definitely establishing whether the adversary has broken the nuclear threshold is not necessarily a straightforward issue." Specifically, they raise the question of whether a conventional attack on a country's nuclear forces could be considered tantamount to the first use of

nuclear weapons. "On the surface, this is merely a conventional attack," they write, "but in effect , its impact is little different than suffering a nuclear strike and incurring similarly heavy losses." The result could be that the conventional attack would "be seen as breaking the nuclear

threshold," with the result that the party suffering the attack "will find it difficult to refrain from a nuclear counterattack ."19

CCP collapse

The economy is key to CCP stability- reverse causalSaich 1 [Tony Saich Daewoo Professor of International Affairs Kennedy School of Government Harvard University. March 2001. “China on the Threshold of a Market Economy” http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/asaich/China-on-the-Threshold-of-a-Market-Economy.pdf //jweideman]

It is also difficult to see from where a new counter elite would emerge. The CCP has always moved to crush any organizations that might develop an alternative to its political rule. As a result, it has effectively fulfilled its own prophecy that without the rule of the CCP there would be chaos . Two challenges remain for it to keep this grip on power. First, it must continue to co-opt new élites to prevent them from forming political opposition. Incorporation within the existing power structures of the new entrepreneurs and private business people is vital to CCP rule but it is still resisted by some who claim that it would totally change the nature of the party. They may be right but the days are

gone when the CCP would rely on claiming to represent the traditional working-class and the peasantry to justify its rule. Second, the CCP has to ensure sufficient economic growth not only to minimize instability in society but also to prevent differences within the elite about the future policy from becoming destructive and spilling over in to society . This is what happened in the 1960s and in 1989 and these have been the only times that party-rule has been seriously challenged. Thus, unless there is a systemic crisis that causes the elite to fall apart, the CCP will control the nature and pace of political change. Only such change that is in its own interests for self-preservation will be undertaken

Collapse causes loose nukes, risks extinction Yee and Storey 2002 [Herbert Yee, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the Hong Kong Baptist University, and Ian Storey, Lecturer in Defence Studies at Deakin University, 2002 The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality, RoutledgeCurzon, pg 5]

The fourth factor contributing to the perception of a China threat is the fear of political and economic collapse in the PRC, resulting in territorial fragmentation, civil war and waves of refugees

pouring into neighbouring countries. Naturally, any or all of these scenarios would have a profoundly negative impact on regional stability. Today the Chinese leadership faces a raft of internal problems, including the increasing political demands of its citizens, a growing population, a shortage of natural resources and a deterioration in the natural environment caused by rapid industrialisation and pollution. These problems are putting a strain on the central government's ability to govern effectively. Political disintegration or a Chinese civil war might result in millions of Chinese refugees seeking asylum in neighbouring countries .

Such an unprecedented exodus of refugees from a collapsed PRC would no doubt put a severe strain on the limited resources of China's neighbours. A fragmented China could also result in another nightmare scenario - nuclear weapons falling into the hands of irresponsible local provincial leaders or warlords.'2 From this perspective, a disintegrating China would also pose a threat to its neighbours and the world.

Turns case

Turns: Carbon capture

Chinese renewables key to carbon captureAtkinson et al 9 [Rob Atkinson, Ph.D, Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, Devon Swezey, Teryn Norris, Jesse Jenkins, Leigh Ewbank, Johanna Peace and Yael Borofsky. Breakthrough institute and The information, technology, and innovation foundation. “Rising tigers, sleeping giant” http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Rising_Tigers.pdf //jweideman]

China has two major domestic CCS e ff orts currently underwa y. e "rst is GreenGen, an integrated gasi"cation combined cycle

plant (IGCC), approved for construction in June 2009. GreenGen will be China’s first commercial-scale IGCC facility equipped with CCS technology.233 e "rst stage, to be completed by 2011, is to build a 250 MW IGCC power plant with a domestic gasi"er. A 400 MW demonstration plant equipped with CCS technology will be completed by 2016 , as part of the last stage of the project.234 e aim is to capture 25,000 to 35,000 tons of CO2 per year starting in 2012. 235 ere have also been a number of joint international partnerships established to explore regional opportunities for carbon capture and storage in China. One of the key initiatives is the Cooperation Action within CCS China-EU (COACH), jointly managed by China and the European Union. e goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate

advanced, near-zero coal emissions technology in China and the EU. Phase II of the project, started in 2008, is a site-speci"c design of a demonstration plant, and Phase III (to be completed by 2020), will be the construction and operation of a full-scale coal -"red demonstration plant with near-zero emissions CCS technology.236

Turns: global econ

China’s economy is key to the global economyChina daily 12 [Chinese news agency. 2012-09-08, “Chinese infrastructure investment conducive for global recovery” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-09/08/content_15745141.htm //jweideman]

But more importantly, the package will serve as an important step in reviv ing the global econom y, which has been dragged into a recession by the international financial crisis. The International Monetary Fund estimated that the world's economy will grow by only 3.5

percent this year, less than the 5.3- and 3.9-percent growth seen in 2010 and 2011, respectively. China has become a global powerhouse after decades of development, with its massive economic growth benefiting developed and undeveloped countries alike. China's demand for goods, services and technology has kept the factories of other countries humming, despite slower exports to the United States and Europe following the 2008 financial crisis. Therefore, the economic situation in China has great global significance . A slowdown in China's economy is perceived as a great risk , especially for the Asia-Pacific region. Saving China's economy will maintain the country's status as the "world's factory," allowing it to continue to provide the world with an abundance of cheap , high-quality products , as well as help the world recover from the global financial crisis.

Turns: renewables

Chinese renewables are key to a global transition-cost competitionHook and Crooks 11 [Leslie Hook joined the Financial Times in June 2010 as Beijing Correspondent covering Chinese energy and commodities. and Ed Crooks, writes for financial times. 11/28/11, “China’s rush into renewables: The way the world turns” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0502a28a-15c9-11e1-a691-00144feabdc0.html#axzz26682tjcd //jweideman]

For the country’s leadership, renewables are both an antidote to a national energy crisis and a cure for the air pollution – mostly caused by burning coal – that is taking a heavy toll on lives. China is still powered largely by coal, but Beijing has a target of sourcing 15 per cent of its energy from non-fossil fuels by 2020, up from 8 per cent today. That is the equivalent of shifting a country the size of Italy from coal to renewables. As China’s demand for renewable energy has taken off, its manufacturing capacity has been growing even more rapidly . Two Chinese companies, Sinovel and Xinjiang Goldwind, now rank among the world’s three-largest wind turbine manufacturers by megawatts of capacity sold . (Vestas of Denmark is the other.) In solar photovoltaic modules – the panels that generate electricity by the effect of sunlight falling on semiconductors – seven of the world’s 10 top manufacturers are Chinese. These include LDK Solar, Suntech Power, Yingli and Trina Solar. In 2007, there were just two in the top 10. Many of China’s wind and

solar chief executives are among the country’s richest men. . . . Growth has been driven by some of the same advantages that power the rest of China’s manufacturing – cheap labour and a large home market – along with support from local governments and state banks. Baoding moved into solar in 2002, when it christened a new development zone Power Valley, and offered preferential land deals and tax breaks to attract desired industries. Other cities have similar strategies. State-controlled banks have provided some $47bn in credit lines to clean energy companies, although only a fraction of that has been drawn down, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Analysts say the arrangements were not unusual. “We haven’t seen any concrete evidence of Chinese solar firms getting land for free or getting cheaper loans [than other industries],” says Nipun Sharma at Mirae

Asset Securities in Hong Kong. “The main reason behind their lower cost structure is economies of scale, and the flexibility in labour costs and also that of raw materials.” Whatever its elements, the approach brought about a sea change not just in China but around the world. The “China price” for solar panels and wind turbines has up-ended the economics of renewable energy. The cost of a wind turbine today is roughly one-third of what it was in 2007 , while solar panel prices have fallen about 40 per cent in the past year alone.

Turns: warming

Only curbing Chinese emissions solves warmingEkstrom 12 [Vicki, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change MIT. May 24, 2012. “Report: China’s actions are crucial on climate change” http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012/china-focus-addressing-climate-change //jweideman]

As climate negotiators wrap-up talks in Bonn, Germany, this week, a major point of contention is who needs to do what to slow global warming. Nations such as

China and the United States have held back from making substantial emission reduction pledges in the past, as both nations waited for the other to act. But new research out of MIT shows the importance of all major nations taking part in global efforts to reduce emissions — and in particular, finds China's role to be crucial . The report — titled "The Role of China in Mitigating Climate Change" — published in the journal Energy Economics, compares the impact of a stringent emissions reduction policy with and without China's participation. It finds that China's actions are "essential." "As the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, without China, climate goals — like the 2 degrees Celsius target that most agree is necessary to prevent serious irreversible consequences — are out of reach," says Sergey Paltsev, the lead author of the study and the assistant director for economic research at MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Specifically, the study finds that with China's help the global community is able to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, relative to pre-industrial levels. But without China, we miss that mark by about 1 degree Celsius. Not only will it be close to impossible to achieve the 2 degrees mark without China 's participation, but emissions reductions will also be more expensive because substantial costs would shift to only some countries. That is why the researchers argue for a global economy-wide greenhouse gas tax that spreads the burden of responsibility. But even in this best-case scenario, reducing emissions comes with a steep price tag. China could experience substantial GDP losses by the end of the century under the most stringent policy cases. These losses come from higher energy prices, which influence consumption and export dynamics. "While strong reductions may turn out to be costly in China and may require some incentives from developed countries," Paltsev says, "that doesn't make China's actions any less important." The researchers stress, however, that reaching that 2 degrees threshold with China's participation is only possible in the most optimistic case. And these days, there isn't much cause for optimism. The researchers tested various levels of emission reduction plans — a global carbon tax of $10, $30 or $50. The various taxes would slow warming to 3.5, 2.4 and 2 degrees, respectively, by the end of the century, according to their analysis. With no global policy, the increase in warming is projected to be about 5.5 degrees Celsius. These scenarios show that, "Even more modest and realistic goals require near universal participation of major greenhouse gas emitters," Paltsev says.

Turns: Environment

Chinese coal pollution trashes the global environmentBradsher and Barboza 6 [Keith Bradsher is the Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times, covering Asian business, economic, political and science news. David Barboza has been a correspondent for The New York Times based in Shanghai, China, since November 2004. Won the Pulitzer prize. 6/11/6, “Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 //jweideman]

HANJING, China — One of China 's lesser-known exports is a dangerous brew of soot, toxic chemicals and climate-changing gases from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants . In early April, a dense cloud of pollutants over Northern China sailed to nearby Seoul, sweeping along dust and desert sand before wafting across the Pacific . An American satellite spotted the cloud as it crossed the West Coast. Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors . These microscopic particles can work their way deep into the lungs , contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer. Filters near Lake Tahoe in the mountains of eastern California "are the darkest that we've seen" outside smoggy urban areas, said

Steven S. Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis. Unless China finds a way to clean up its coal plants and the thousands of factories that burn coal, pollution will soar both at home and abroad. The increase in global-warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years, surpassing by five times the

reduction in such emissions that the Kyoto Protocol seeks. The sulfur dioxide produced in coal combustion poses an immediate threat to the

health of China's citizens, contributing to about 400,000 premature deaths a year. It also causes acid rain that poisons lakes, rivers, forests and crops. The sulfur pollution is so pervasive as to have an extraordinary side effect that is helping the rest of the world, but only temporarily: It

actually slows global warming. The tiny, airborne particles deflect the sun's hot rays back into space. But the cooling effect from sulfur is short- lived . By contrast, the carbon dioxide emanating from Chinese coal plants will last for decades, with a cumulative warming effect that will eventually overwhelm the cooling from sulfur and deliver another large kick to global warming, climate scientists say. A warmer climate could lead to rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases in previously temperate climes, crop failures in some regions and the extinction of many plant and animal species, especially those in polar or

alpine areas. Coal is indeed China's double-edged sword — the new economy's black gold and the fragile environment's dark cloud.

Turns: Water

Chinese coal causes massive water scarcityLiu 13 [Coco, Asia correspondant for energy and environment publishing. 7/1/13, “As China's demand for coal soars, so does its water scarcity” http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059983712 //jweideman]

XILINHOT, China -- By many measures, this northern Chinese city is an ideal candidate for being China's Wyoming. It has more brown coal reserves than any other Chinese region, and it is only 600 kilometers away from power-hungry Beijing. The sparsely populated landscape here provides enough space for

new coal mines and downstream businesses. There's just one problem: The coal industry consumes huge amounts of wate r, while this land is one of China's driest. Informal ads offering well-drilling services hang everywhere outside of Xilinhot's coal fields, signaling how pressing the conflict is.

China's demand for coal is creating a fierce competition for water . The nation has been scrambling for ways to ease the water scarcity , but proposed remedies raise more questions than answers. Currently, more than half of China's industrial water usage is in coal-related sectors, including mining, preparation, power generation, coke production and coal-to-chemical factories, according to China Water Risk, a nonprofit initiative based in Hong Kong. That means that the water demand of the Chinese coal industry surpasses that of all other industries

combined. A geographic mismatch worsens the water stress. Statistics from China Water Risk show that 85 percent of China's coal lies

in the north, which has 23 percent of the country's water resources. As the majority of the Chinese coal industry is built where coal reserves are, those water-scarce regions are increasingly pressured to give more water.

Turns: SCS

Renewable solve Chinese energy demandJian 9 [Dr. Zhang Jian Consultant, Office of the Chief Economist, World Bank CNAPS Visiting Fellow, China. 2011, “CHINA’S ENERGY SECURITY: PROSPECTS, CHALLENGES, AND OPPORTUNITIES” THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION CENTER FOR NORTHEAST ASIAN POLICY STUDIES http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/7/china%20energy%20zhang/07_china_energy_zhang_paper.pdf //jweideman]

China has been able to increase its energy production in the past decade, including expanded production of renewable

and nuclear energy. The National Bureau of Statistics reported that use of hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear power increased to 9.5 percent of total energy use in 2008 . Plans are underway to increase the share of renewable energy to 15 percent by 2020 . 6 Hydropower increased from one percent of China’s total energy consumption in 1949 to 7.4 percent in 2008; in that year China’s hydropower capacity topped 170 million kw, making China the largest hydropower consuming nation in the world. China's wind energy production has doubled every year in the past three years; current capacity of 12.21 million kw ranks fourth in the world. 7 In 2008, the solar energy sector produced about 6,000 tons of polycrystalline silicon and 2 million kw of solar photovoltaic cells and nuclear power installed capacity was at 8.85 million kw. 8

Energy shortages are conflict catalysts in the south china seaKaplan 11 [Robert, ational Correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, was a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. 2011, “SPECIAL REPORT The South China Sea Is the Future of Conflict” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/the_south_china_sea_is_the_future_of_conflict?page=full //jweideman]

It is not only location and energy reserves that promise to give the South China Sea critical geostrategic importance, but also the coldblooded territorial disputes that have long surrounded these waters. Several disputes concern the Spratly Islands, a mini-archipelago in the South China Sea 's southeastern part. Vietnam, Taiwan, and China each claim all or most of the South China Sea, as well as all of the Spratly and Paracel island groups. In particular, Beijing asserts a historical line: It lays claim to the heart of the South China Sea in a grand loop (widely known as the "cow's tongue") from China's Hainan Island at the South China Sea's northern end all the way south 1,200 miles to near Singapore and Malaysia. The result is that all nine states that touch the South China Sea

are more or less arrayed against China and therefore dependent on the United States for diplomatic and military support. These conflicting claims are likely to become even more acute as Asia's spiraling energy demands -- energy consumption is expected to double by 2030, with China accounting for half that growth -- make the South China Sea the ever more central guarantor of the region's economic strength. Already, the South China Sea has increasingly become an armed camp, as the claimants build up and modernize their navies, even as the scramble for islands and reefs in recent decades is mostly over. China has so far confiscated 12 geographical features, Taiwan one, Vietnam 25, the Philippines eight, and Malaysia five.

AT: Impact turns

AT: Growth= war

Chinese growth doesn’t cause warDobbins et al 11 [James Francis Dobbins, Jr. is an American diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to the European Union, as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. David C. Gompert officially joined the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on November 10, 2009 as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. David A. Shlapak, Senior International Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Andrew Scobell, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. 2011, “Conflict with China Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence” https://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/rand_op344.pdf //jweideman]

Over the next twenty years, Chinas gross domestic product ( GDP) and defense budget could grow to exceed those of the U nited S tates , allowing it to become a true peer competitor. Despite this potential, we believe Chinas security interests and military capabilities will remain focused on its immediate periphery . Possible conflicts might arise there involving Korea, Taiwan, one or more countries of Southeast Asia, or India, more or less in that descending order of probabil- ity. A U.S.-China conflict might also

start in—and perhaps be entirely confined to—cyber- space. We do not assess armed conflict between the United States and China as probable in any of these instances, but that judgment is based on an assessment that the United States will will retain the capacity to deter behavior that would lead to such a clash.

AFF

UQ

Solar

Chinese solar is crashing- high tariffsCCTV 7/14, [China Central Television. 7/14/14, “China's solar panel industry seeks new markets at home & abroad” http://english.cntv.cn/2014/07/14/VIDE1405286401672829.shtml //jweideman]

China is the world's biggest solar panel manufacturer, but its high dependency on exporting the product makes the industry vulnerable to blows from overseas markets. The US and EU have been imposing heavy duties on Chinese solar panels since 2012, to counteract subsidiary and dumping practices. Last month, the US decided to levy tariffs of anywhere between 18 and 35 percent . This May, the EU announced they would impose duties of up to 36 percent on China’s solar panels . Australia also claimed anti-dumping

investigations into China’s solar products would be launched. As a result, China’s solar panel exports have taken hard hits globally . For example, in 2012 , China’s solar panel exports to the EU made up 67 percent of its total exportation . But this number dropped to 30 percent in 2013, and in 2014 only 19 percent . China is now seeking other markets and making every effort to encourage domestic demands on solar power. According to industrial observing institute CCID, China’s domestic market for solar panels is growing. In 2013, nearly 13 additional gigawatts of power was able to be generated thanks to additional installations being set up by China’s solar panel companies, an increase of 186 percent when compared to 2012.

Tariffs destroy Chinese solar exportsPuttre 7/10 [Michael, Solar Industry news department. 7/10/14, “PV Industry Leaders See A 'Second Gold Rush' Coming In The Solar Sector” http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.14357 //jweideman]

Interesting times can be a curse as well as a blessing, however. Tim Larrison, vice president at Yingli Green Energy Americas, said tariffs on Chinese solar cells are not only impos ing additional costs on PV generation, but also squelch ing innovation by reducing research and development budgets and preventing new tech nologies from reaching key markets , particularly in the U.S . "The irrational behavior [on tariffs] has been shocking to me," Larrison said, especially given the volumes of PV products large Chinese manufacturers represent. " It's not a good idea to kill the supplier. You need your supplier for the 25 years of the warranty." Over and above the effect of restrictive trade policies, Larrison said Chinese solar cell manufacturers have wrung about all of the cost out of their products, and those hoping for additional LCOE efficiencies will have to look elsewhere. Citing his company's 12 straight quarters of financial losses, he said he could not imagine where such cost savings could come from on the cell production front.

AT: circumvention

Chinese circumvention was stoppedBusiness Wire 7/15 [Business wire news source. 7/15/14, “Solar-Industry Coalition for Fair Trade Swells above 250 Employers of 25,000 Americans” http://www.sys-con.com/node/3122211 //jweideman]

CASM has supported SolarWorld’s campaign to restore fair competition within the U.S. solar market since the company filed anti-subsidy and anti-dumping petitions against the state-controlled Chinese solar industry in late 2011. In December 2012, the U.S. government i mposed duties averaging 31 percent on Chinese solar imports . Chinese solar pro ducers circumvented those duties through a loophole in the trade-remedy order, enabling them to avoid tariffs by outsourcing solar cell production ,

particularly to Taiwan, according to SolarWorld. To close the loophole, SolarWorld filed new trade cases against China and Taiwan on Dec. 31. In a preliminary anti-dumping determination on June 4, Commerce imposed preliminary subsidy duties against China averaging 27 percent . The agency is expected to announce its preliminary determination on anti-dumping duties on July 25. With its trade cases, SolarWorld, the largest U.S. solar manufacturer for nearly 40 years, represents the domestic solar manufacturing industry, which invented and pioneered manufacturing of the mainstay crystalline silicon technology.

AT: WTO ruling

The ruling doesn’t matter- the US won’t complyWillis 7/15 [Ben, Solar Media's Head of Content. Ben is an award-winning journalist and editor with a background in environmental, development and social policy. 7/15/14, “WTO: US solar duties broke trade rules” http://www.pv-tech.org/news/wto_us_solar_duties_broke_trade_rules //jweideman]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that US import duties applied to Chinese solar products in 2012 broke global trade rules. A WTO panel yesterday upheld a complaint from China that the US had violated trade rules when it imposed punitive anti-subsidy duties on solar equipment in 2012. The US imposed heavy duties after an investigation concluded that state support offered to Chinese PV suppliers had allowed them to undercut American competitors. Importantly, the WTO yesterday agreed that in certain countervailing or anti-subsidy duties imposed on Chinese companies, the US had wrongly presumed that state-owned or partially state-owned enterprises (SOE) were necessarily “public bodies”. This assumption was used by the US as part of its justification for the duties, as it maintained that certain SOEs bodies were passing on subsidies from the Chinese government. But the WTO deemed this to be "inconsistent" with its own rules. In a

statement, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the US should revoke all anti-subsidy measures against Chinese products. " China urges the US to respect the WTO rulings and correct its wrongdoings of abusively using trade remedy measures, and to ensure an environment of fair competition for Chinese enterprises," a MOFCOM statement said. However , with the WTO throwing out many of the complaints made by China, the US response was largely bullish, with Michael Froman declaring the ruling a “victory for American businesses and workers”. Froman nevertheless acknowledged that the US government would need to reconsider those duties deemed by the WTO to be in breach of its rules.

Inevitable

Renewable sector collapse is inevitableAdams and Yuach 13 [Patricia Adams, Financial Post. Brady Yuach, financial post staffer. 12/9/13, “Why China’s renewables industry is headed for collapse” http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/12/09/why-chinas-renewables-industry-is-headed-for-collapse/ //jweideman]

China’s aggressive push to “green” its economy and become the world leader in renewable energy is admired by many commentators in the West. Those

admirers need to look again. The country’s solar panel industry, which went from zero to become the world’s largest in five years, has crashed, with most producers now suffering from negative profit margins, soaring debt levels and idle factories . Solar panel manufacturer Suntech, a national champion which became the world’s largest thanks to lavish state subsidies, filed for bankruptcy in March after it defaulted on payment of $541-million of bonds. The government is scrambling to tidy up the mess by offering tax breaks to all solar companies that acquire or merge with their competitors. One state-owned company recently tabled a $150-million lifeline to Suntech as it works its way through bankruptcy proceedings. Likewise LDK Solar, another leading Chinese producer, was forced this year to turn to both provincial and local governments for protection from its creditors. The brainchild of the local Communist Party Secretary, LDK, received millions of dollars in state subsidies and cheap financing, land and electricity in 2005. The local government is now funnelling funds into the company to keep it from sinking, without complete success it seems – the company has shed 20,000 of its 30,000 employees and its shares

are 98% below their peak in September 2007.Yet China’s solar panel sector remains massively overbuilt. According to Bloomberg, if all of China’s solar producers were to run their factories at full speed, they could produce 49 gigawatts of panels annually – a ten-fold increase from 2008 and 61% more than global installed capacity last year. But demand for those panels has been shrinking as governments in the West cut many of the subsidies that made solar power attractive. China’s experience with wind power is little different. Sinovel – one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers – went from earning hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in 2010 when the renewable energy industry was booming to millions in losses that grow by the day. Revenues are now just a fifth of what they were in 2010. The company has closed its overseas offices and recently laid off thousands of employees. All told, in 2012 17% of all windmills lay idle , their power too expensive to connect to the grid. In some regions, 50% of all windmills remain unconnected to the grid . Advertisement China’s green crash is a textbook example of what happens when central planners substitute their economic decrees for the complex supply and demand decisions of a market. Compounding the missteps of China’s green planners was a belief that the West’s love affair with green power was here to stay, despite its higher cost and unreliability. Believing that it could meet the world’s surging demand for solar and wind power, the Chinese state – from the supreme planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission down to city governments and state-owned banks – gave Chinese manufacturers near-monopoly powers and all-but-free money. The torrid expansion of manufacturing capacity saw wind turbine capacity doubling every year until 2010. According to the China

Renewable Energy Society in Beijing, half of China’s 600 cities have at least one factory producing photovoltaic products. The ensuing flood of solar panels and wind systems on the global market caused prices for those panels to plummet and, in turn, negative profit margins for many of the world’s largest producers. Those in the West almost all failed; those still standing, if

tottering, are now mostly based in China. The worldwide renewables collapse left China’s renewables industry looking supreme only because it is the last corpse to fall. It is only by default that China makes seven out of 10 solar panels across the world and is home to eight of the 10 largest panel producers, many of which are on government life support. The combination of too much supply from years of over-

expansion and too little demand produced low prices that have left most producers in China on the ropes. Their prospects are likely to get even worse. The Bank of China, one of the country’s largest state-owned commercial banks, says that 21% of its solar loans are in or near default. By Bloomberg’s calculation, the country’s 10 largest solar manufacturers hold $28.8-billion worth of liabilities, most of which is owed to government-backed institutions. The average debt ratio of those companies – the amount of debt as a percentage of total assets – is 75.8%. The wind industry fares no better, as seen by the consequence of its wind turbines not being plugged into the grid. The 12.3 billion kilowatts of power wasted last year by windmills amounted to $1.73-billion in lost revenue — nearly double the amount in 2011. Many solar companies in China are resorting to cutting corners in production to try and make themselves profitable. According to a New York Times report, many producers are turning to cheaper, untested materials. Some solar power generators now say that some of their panels are under-performing or failing prematurely. To save the renewables industry, and to save face, China’s central planners have changed tack. The state is now switching from subsidizing suppliers to subsidizing demand by mandating local power producers to meet green targets in the domestic market. With a market the size of China’s, and the power of government fiat to force Chinese consumers to buy solar, this industry-on-life-support may yet be resuscitated. If it is, it will be another grim green victory. Chinese power consumers will pay the price in more expensive and less reliable power.

Economy

China’s economy is faltering- they won’t meet growth targetsDefang and Yinan 7/14 [kong and gao, editors for Xinhua- Chinese news agency. 7/14/14, “Downward pressure burdens Chinese economy” http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/business/n/2014/0714/c90778-8754993.html //jweideman]

BEIJING, July 13 -- Although Chinese leaders have stressed the flexibility of the GDP growth target, an inspection group dispatched by the State Council found that attaining "reasonable" growth remains a struggl e . The group inspected government work in Hebei, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Beijing from June 25 to July 5. It noted that slowed economic growth , particularly in Hebei and Heilongjiang, needs to be addressed . Hebei Province's GDP growth fell by 4 percentage points to 4.2 percent in the first quarter, marking the worst performance in the past 20 years. Hebei, which borders Beijing, is making painstaking efforts to cut cement, steel and glass facilities as the province is partly blamed for

the smog in the Chinese capital. These polluting facilities, however, are the major powerhouse driving Hebei's economy. The economy in northeast China 's Heilongjiang Province also suffered a heavy blow in the first three months with GDP expansion decelerating to 4.1 percent from 9 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Its growth was the lowest of China's provincial-level

regions. Oil exploitation, coal mining and lumber , the three pillars of Heilongjiang's economy, shrank quickly due to low energy prices and strict felling bans. The inspection group found that although the economy in Liaoning Province

was generally stable, it suffered from weak exports and low investment enthusiasm, especially in the property market. The group said in a report that secondary industry plays a decisive role in the economy in these provinces. An unbalanced economic structure leaves them vulnerable to macroeconomic fluctuation . Like Hebei, Heilongjiang and Liaoning, China 's other provinces are confronted with downward pressure as the country adapts to an economic slowdown and reshuffles the economic structure. For the first time, China set a flexible GDP target of around 7.5 percent for this year and came up with the term "reasonable range," giving GDP growth more room to fall. Although there is no specific lower limit to the range, an abruptly stalled economy could lead to rising unemployment, less government spending on improving livelihood, and even social unrest. Yang Chuantang, head of

the inspection group, said he thought the growth rate in Heilongjiang and Hebei fell out of the reasonable range in the first quarter. "If pro-growth measures do not kick in immediately, it will be very hard for them to secure the yearly target ," he added.

Link

Pounders

New EU investment pounds the link- includes solar, wind and ocean energyEteris 7/9 [Eugene, writer for the Baltic course. 7/9/14, “Innovative renewable and low-carbon projects supported by the EU” http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/good_for_business/?doc=93791 //jweideman]

The Commission has awarded €1 billion to 19 innovative renewable energy projects in 12 EU member states. The projects cover a wide range of low-carbon technologies: oxyfuel technology, bioenergy (including advanced biofuels), production of solar,

geothermal and wind power, photovoltaics, ocean energy and smart grids. The projects will be hosted also in four Baltic Sea states – Denmark, Estonia,

Latvia and Sweden. The EU so-called “NER 300 program ” is one of the world's largest funding programs for innovative low-carbon energy demonstration projects. The program aims to successfully demonstrate environmentally safe carbon

capture and storage (CCS) and innovative renewable energy (RES) technologies on a commercial scale with a view to scaling up production of low-carbon technologies in the EU. NER 300 is so called because it is funded from the sale of 300 million emission allowances from the new entrants' reserve (NER) set up for the third phase of the EU emissions trading system. The funds from the sales are to be distributed to projects selected through two rounds of calls for proposals. Grants under the first call were awarded in December 2012.Commission’s support.

U.S. companies are investing in renewables at a massive scale- congress is inconsequential Silverstein 7/15 [Ken, Forbes contributor and has a csmonitor column. 7/15/14, “Corporate America Steadily Steering Climate Solutions Despite Congressional Stalemate” http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2014/07/15/corporate-america-steadily-steering-climate-solutions-despite-congressional-stalemate/ //jweideman]

While science may be the motivating force behind climate activism, the movement will be likely led by major corporations that are attaching their brands and their

revenues to environmental progress. The race is on, now that dozens of publicly-traded companies are positioning themselves at the forefront of the cause. True, President Obama is trying to facilitate change by using the regulatory levers, most notably a

call to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030. And it is equally true that his congressional opponents are working to overturn his calls for tougher restrictions on heat-trapping emissions — moves that will invariably prevent any type of

legislative resolution. However , some of corporate America wants to get ahead of the curve and to reduce emissions by either buy ing renewable energy credits or by directly investing in green energy projects.

Indeed, a study by Calvert Investment, Ceres , David Gardiner & Associates and the World Wildlife Fund says that 43 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have set targets to either reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, improve their energy efficiencies or procure more green energy. The companies, which include UPS, Cisco Systems CSCO +0.37%, PepsiCo PEP -0.88%, United Continental and General Motors, have said that they are saving a total of $1.1 billion each year, since 2012. UPS, for example, is pocketing the most at $200 million while Cisco, PepsiCo, United Continental and GM are saving $151 million, $120 million, $104 million, $73 million, respectively. “These companies make it their mission to reduce their carbon footprint because it is making good business sense,” says Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under the second President Bush, in an interview. “They are also holding their supply chains to similar standards.” Whitman says that others are taking similar steps and she is also calling out United Technologies, SC Johnson, Texas Instruments, Mars and Wal-Mart,

which has vowed to buy all of its electricity from renewable sources.Other corporations are even further along, including chipmaker Intel Corp., which is already meeting its energy needs through green power and which tops the list in terms of using renewable power, says the EPA. It is followed by Kohl’s Department Stores, Microsoft Corp., and Whole Foods, with Google at number five. In Google’s case, it has invested $1 billion in actual wind and solar assets . In other instances, it is buying renewable energy credits that essentially give developers the assurance that they need to erect such expensive projects. For example, it agreed to buy those certificates from Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican Energy so that it could build a wind facility — a purchase that equates to 407 megawatts of

electricity. “These companies are going beyond any regulations or proposals,” says Whitman. “Now they are getting pressure from shareholders who are concerned and who coming forward with resolutions. They are asking companies to benchmark themselves, which they are doing as a way to distinguish themselves from competitors.”

Cooperation

The US and china cooperate over energyECP 13 [US China Energy Cooperation Project. 2013-11-20, “U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP) and Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE) Launch Joint U.S.-China Green Data Center Industrial Initiative,” http://www.uschinaecp.org/en/News/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=f74ebbdf-f9be-418a-8147-a12a7e31088b&cid=d952ba0f-3ba2-4372-8b26-ef635b67d638 //JWEIDEMAN]

On November 20, 2013, with support of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), the U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP) and Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE) jointly launched the U.S.-China Green Data Center Industry Partnership at the US China Green Data Center Workshop at the Xiyuan Hotel in Beijing. The key related issues of the develop ment of the energy efficient /green data center sector, which includes: market , needs, opportunities , challenges, technology solutions and best practices , evaluation methods and etc, have been addressed and discussed at the workshop. At the workshop, the two sides on behalf of the participating U.S. and Chinese industries, signed a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING For Cooperation on Green Data Center to promote US-China Industry cooperation in China’s green data center sector. Senior officials from the Department of Energy Efficiency and Resources Utilization of MIIT, USTDA, Foreign Commercial Service and the U.S. Department of Energy China Office of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing witnessed the signing ceremony. Industry experts from Intel, UTC, Caterpillar, Cisco, Emerson, Fuxing Xiaocheng, NewCloud, Neusoft, Huawei, Inspur, ZTE attended

the workshop. The three-year joint program between ECP and CIE aims to provide valuable reference and living best practices for green data center development in China through deeply cooperation between both US and China industries. Specifically, these include: 1. Green data center technical guideline, technology catalogue, and green data center best practice portfolio. 2. Green data center related incentive plan, business model, monitoring and evaluation method and system and etc. 3. Green data center energy saving demonstration projects, needs assessment, and industry entry study etc. 4. Capacity building: green data center expert committee establishment, practical training, and certificate training and study tour.

Innovation in the us helps china- cooperationDepartment of energy 11 [United states department of energy. January 2011, “U.S.-China Clean Energy Cooperation A Progress rePort by the U.s.

DePArtment of energy” http://www.us-china-cerc.org/pdfs/US_China_Clean_Energy_Progress_Report.pdf//jweideman]

The U nited S tates and the People’s Republic of China have worked together on science and technology for more than 30 years. Under the Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement of 1979, signed soon after

normalization of diplomatic relations, our two countries have cooperated in a diverse range of fields, including basic research in physics and chemistry, earth and atmospheric sciences, a variety of energy-related areas , environmental management, agriculture, fisheries, civil industrial technology, geology, health, and natural disaster planning. More recently, in the face of emerging global challenges such as energy security and climate change, the United States and China entered into a new phase of mutually beneficial cooperation. In June 2008, the U.S.-China Ten Year Framework for Cooperation on Energy and the Environment was created and today it includes action plans for cooperation on energy efficiency , electricity, transportation, air, water, wetlands, nature reserves and protected areas. In November 2009, President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao announced seven new U.S.- China clean energy initiatives during their Beijing summit . In doing so, the leaders of the world’s two largest energy producers and consumers affirmed the importance of the transition to a clean and low-carbon economy—and the vast opportunities for citizens of both countries in that transition.the following joint initiatives were announced in november 2009: • U.S.-China Clean Energy Research

Center. Scientists and engineers from both countries are working together to develop clean energy technologies, initially focusing on building energy efficiency, clean coal and clean vehicles. Both countries are contributing equally to $150 million in financial support from public and private sources over five years. • Electric Vehicles Initiative. This initiative includes the joint development of standards for charging plugs and testing protocols of batteries and other devices, demonstration projects in paired cities to collect and share data on charging patterns and consumer preferences, joint development of technical roadmaps, and public education projects. • Energy Efficiency Action Plan. Both governments are working together with the private sector to develop energy efficient building codes and rating systems, benchmark industrial energy efficiency, train building inspectors and energy efficiency auditors for industrial facilities, harmonize

test procedures and performance metrics for energy-efficient consumer products, and exchange best practices in energy efficiency labeling systems. Energy

innovation in one country accelerates clean energy deployment in all countries. And the combined research expertise and market size of the U.S. and China provide an unprecedented opportunity to develop clean energy solutions that will reduce pollution and improve energy security while enhancing economic growth globally.

Impact

Turn- China growth bad

Continued Chinese growth collapses heg and causes warArt 10 [Robert Jeffrey Art is Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations at Brandeis University, and Fellow at MIT Center for International Studies. 2010, “The United States and the Rise of China: Implications for the Long Haul” http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Art%20Rise%20of%20China.pdf //jweideman]

Today, economically wounded though it is. the U nited S lates nonetheless remains the world's most powerful state when power is measured in terms of economic and military assets . In the future, the U.S. economy will continue to grow, and the United States will remain the most powerful military nation on earth for some time to come. However, America's economic and military edge relative to the

world's other great powers, will inevitably diminish over the next several decades. The country best positioned to challenge America's preeminence , first in East Asia, and then perhaps later globally, is China. If China's economy con- tinues to grow for two more decades at anything close to the rate of the last two decades, then it will eventually rival and even surpass the U nited S tates in the size of its gross domestic product (GDP— measured in purchasing power parity terms, not in constant dollar terms), although not in per capita GDP.1 Even if its economy never catches up to America's, China's remarkable economic growth has already given it significant political influence in East Asia, and that influence will only grow as China's economy continues to grow. Moreover, having emerged as the low-cost manufacturing platform of the world, China's economic influence extends well beyond East Asia and affects not only the rich great powers but also the struggling smaller developing ones, because of both its competitive prices for low-cost goods and its voracious

appetite for raw materials. China is determined to climb up the technological ladder and may well give the United States a run for its money.2 China is already the dominant military land power on the East Asian mainland, and it has made significant strides in creating pockets of excellence in its armed forces. If it continues to channel a healthy portion of its GDP into its military forces over several more decades, and if it makes a determined naval and air power projection effort, China might be able to deploy a maritime force that could contest America's supremacy at sea in East Asia, much as the German fleet built by Alfred von Tirpitz in the

decade before World War I posed a severe threat to the British fleet in the North Sea. Historically, the rise of one great power at the expense of the dominant one has nearly always led to conflictual relations between the two, and, more often than not, eventually to a war between them that has dragged in other great powers. 3 Is the history of

rising versus dominant great-power competi- tions, including great-power war, the future for U.S.-China relations? Clearly, there will be political and economic conflicts and friction between the United States and China as China's economic and military power in East Asia and its global economic and political reach continue to expand . Clearly, there will also be some arms racing between China and the United States as each jockeys for advantage over the other, as each is driven by its respective military necessities of intimidating and defending Taiwan, and as the United States responds to China's growing power projection capabilities. Historically, dominant powers have not readily given up their position of number one to rising challengers, and rising challengers have always demanded the fruits to which they believe their growing power entitles them. There is no reason to expect that things will be different in this regard with China and the United States. Thus, they will not be able to avoid a certain level of conflictual rela- tions and political friction over the next several decades.

Continued Chinese growth causes conflictMearsheimer 5 [John J. Mearsheimer is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is an international relations theorist. 11/18/5, “The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful at All” http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/P0014.pdf //jweideman]

THE question at hand is simple and profound: will China rise peacefully? My answer is no. If China continues its impressive economic growth over the next few decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war . Most of China's neighbours , to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam, will join with the US to contain China 's power. To predict the

future in Asia, one needs a theory that explains how rising powers are likely to act and how other states will react to them. My theory of international politics says that the mightiest states attempt to establish hegemony in their own region while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region. The ultimate goal of every great power is to maximise its share of world power and eventually dominate the system . The international system has several defining characteristics. The main actors are states that operate in anarchy which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. All great powers have some offensive military capability, which means that they can hurt each other. Finally, no state can know the future intentions of other states with certainty. The best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible, relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another

state will attack it. The great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest great power, although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon , the only great power in the system. But it is almost impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony in the modern world, because it is too hard to project and sustain power around the globe. Even the US is a regional but not a global hegemon. The best that a state can hope for is to dominate its own back yard. States that gain regional hegemony have a further aim: to prevent other geographical areas from being dominated by other great powers. Regional hegemons, in other words, do not want peer competitors. Instead, they want to keep other regions divided among several great powers so that these states will compete with each other. In 1991, shortly after the Cold War ended, the first Bush administration boldly stated that the US was now the most powerful state in the world and planned to remain so. That same message appeared in the famous National Security Strategy issued by the second Bush

administration in September 2002. This document's stance on pre-emptive war generated harsh criticism, but hardly a word of protest greeted the assertion that the US should check rising powers and maintain its commanding position in the global balance of power. China -- whether it remains authoritarian or becomes democratic -- is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western hemisphere. Specifically, China will seek to maximise the power gap between itself and its neighbours, especially Japan and Russia. China will want to make sure that it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the wherewithal to threaten it. It is unlikely that China will pursue military superiority so that it can go on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries, although that is always possible.

AT: turns warming

Other countries emissions matter more than chinaPidcock 14 [Roz, writes about new research in the climate sciences and media coverage of climate change. She has a PhD in physical oceanography from the University of Southampton. Her research examined how mesoscale eddies - the ocean equivalent of atmospheric storms - supply the surface of the ocean with nutrients. 1/16/14, “UK tops list of world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters” http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/01/uk-tops-list-of-world%E2%80%99s-biggest-greenhouse-gas-emitters/ //jweideman]

The U nited S tates is responsible for a whopping 20 per cent of the warming the world's experienced over the industrial period, according to new research. But when you look at emissions per person, the UK beats the US into first place. So which other countries are taking more than their fair share of the global warming pie? Countries have

contributed differently to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So some countries could be considered more or less to blame for global warming than others. A new study published in Environmental Research Letters puts that theory into action, ranking countries in order of how much their historical emissions have contributed to observed temperature rise over the industrial period. Global rankings The scientists from Concordia University in Canada examined each country's greenhouse gas emissions between 1750 and 2005. Alongside carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and land use change, they included methane, nitrous oxide and sulphate aerosol emissions. Some of the results perhaps aren't too surprising. They show a small number of countries account for a large share of total greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest emitters - US, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany and the UK - are together responsible for 63 per

cent of total emissions. The US is way out in front, contributing more than double the emissions of China in second place.