風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
生活在中國，“常讓我感覺生活在未來世界”
江蘇一家建造風電塔筒的工廠。 -/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESWhy Living in China Is Like ‘Living in the Future’
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/china-clean-energy-technology.html?
By David Gelles Feb. 12, 2026
A Times correspondent talks about life in China as it outpaces the United States in developing clean energy technology, self-driving cars and other innovations.
Wind turbine towers under construction in a factory in Jiangsu Province, China.Credit...-/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Trump administration on Thursday erased the scientific finding that requires the government to regulate the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.
Read more on what the repeal of the “endangerment finding” means here.
China’s clean energy future
In a series of articles published last year, my colleagues and I charted the remarkable rise of clean energy in China, and the degree to which the United States is falling behind in the race to adopt low-carbon technologies like solar power and electric vehicles. Importantly, these products are often less expensive and provide greater convenience than fossil fuel technologies.
We explored the extraordinary scale of Chinese solar farms, including one that covers some 162 square miles, and its construction of thousands of miles of ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines.
We examined how China was exporting cheap solar panels and electric vehicles around the globe, reshaping economies from South Africa to Brazil. And we looked at China’s rapid advances in emerging fields including fusion, self-driving cars and rare earths.
With each passing week, the headlines reinforce the central idea of this series.
At the same time, China has not slowed its global efforts. Canada last month agreed to lower tariffs on some Chinese vehicles, opening the door to popular electric cars from automakers like BYD. Chinese state media this week reported that researchers had developed a lithium battery that can retain its electrical charge in extreme cold.
Clean energy technologies, including solar and electric vehicles, were responsible for more than a third of China’s economic growth last year, generating some $2.1 trillion in economic activity, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief.
To get a sense of how fast things are moving, I called my colleague Keith Bradsher, who is based in Beijing.
“China is way ahead of the rest of the world,” he told me. “Not just in installing a lot of renewable energy and new transportation technologies, but also in scoring research breakthroughs.”
The U.S. turns back the clock
The contrast between Beijing and Washington is stark.
The Chinese government has been a patient supporter of the country’s clean technologies for decades now — its policies governing rare earths, which are essential components in everything from electric cars to supersonic jets, date back some six decades. U.S. policy, by contrast, has been all over the place.
After four years during which the Biden administration worked to nurture the wind, solar, battery and electric vehicle industries, the Trump administration is now doing precisely the opposite.
And just as China is accelerating its shift to clean energy, the Trump administration continues to find new ways to penalize renewables and promote fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
Just yesterday, the White House ordered the Pentagon to buy more electricity generated from coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. (China remains the world’s largest user of coal, but is working to decrease its usage. Overall, Chinese carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 21 months now.)
President Trump received an “Undisputed Champion of Coal” award at the White House on Wednesday during an executive order signing ceremony. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
Last month, the Energy department canceled $30 billion in loans for clean energy projects. And as Brad Plumer and Rebecca Elliott reported this month, the White House and its allies are delaying approvals for wind and solar projects on both federal land and private property, creating what one renewable energy group called a “blockade” that is stalling hundreds of developments nationwide.
“The U.S. is really turning its back on a lot of 21st century energy and transportation technologies,” Bradsher told me.
Couple all that with the Trump administration’s attacks on the offshore wind industry, its sweeping efforts to roll back environmental regulations, its expanded support for fossil fuels, and its cuts to scientific research, and a picture emerges of the world’s two biggest economies diverging on the central issue of how to power the future.
What’s more, Bradsher told me, the playing field is expanding with each passing month, as China’s policies have begun leading to a cycle of ever more innovation.
“China has a vast research effort to develop new inventions from rare earths, even as the U.S. has almost abandoned basic chemistry.,” Bradsher said.
Shaping the world
As the United States doubles down on domestic fossil fuels, China continues to extend its influence around the globe.
Last year, Chinese exports of electric vehicles hit a record $70 billion, and China’s carmakers saw sales in more than 150 countries and territories. And in the first half of 2025, Chinese exports of solar cells jumped sharply, even as exports of finished panels stagnated because of oversupply.
“We’re shifting away from an oil-powered world to a much less expensive solar-powered world,” Bradsher said. “And every other country is buying more and more of their electricity in effect from China, because China has a near-monopoly on solar panels. And that’s all that anybody wants to buy now in much of the developing world, because it’s a cheaper way to get your electricity than anything else.”
I asked Bradsher, who has covered China for 24 years, what it was like living in a country where these technologies were commonplace.“China’s high-speed rail, and ultramodern subways and growing numbers of self-driving electric cars often make me feel like I’m living in the future,” he said.
