If the United States hopes to make global progress with green energy, it may have to work around China.
This week, President Joe Biden went to Capitol Hill to promote his spending bill after cuts were made to appease some Democrat holdouts. Supporters of the plan have expressed confidence their fellow Democrats will get on board.
"I will tell you there is a will to do it," Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) told the New York Times.
Biden later revealed a revised package prior to the start of the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. According to the Times, the revised climate provisions are estimated to cost $555 billion.
Funding for programs enticing the country to move toward using more electric vehicles and for utilities to move away from creating electricity using coal and natural gas remain. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was successful in removing penalties for not following emissions guidelines.
Biden's climate-plan goals might be stymied by more than moderate Democrats, however.
China, the world leader in several pollution-measuring metrics, has directed its coal mines to increase operations, according to CNN. The ramp-up in production is intended to eliminate rolling blackouts such as those that have been plaguing the country the past few weeks.
The move was not well received by participants in the COP26 global energy summit, CNN reports.
In addition to emitting more carbon dioxide than any other nation – including nearly double the United States' output – according to a 2018 report by The Union of Concerned Scientists, China also leads the world in the making of photovoltaic products used in solar panels, and manufactures 80% of all solar panels globally, according to Reuters.
There have been reports that many of China's solar panels were made using forced labor. The U.S. State Department recently reported that the country is involved in a series of atrocities against its Uyghur population, including forced labor.
Further, Sheffield Hallam University, a public research organization in the United Kingdom, released a study concluding that China's forced labor of Uyghurs is responsible for the production of 45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon, which 95% of solar modules require. The study also reported that "labor transfer programs" have impacted in some way every polysilicon producer in the Uyghur region.
Of the top 10 solar manufacturers in the world, eight are in China, setting the country up to become the "Green OPEC."
“One of the biggest mistakes the West has done on green policies to cut CO2 emissions and trying to reduce dependence on oil- and gas-producing nations is that the transition to renewable energy puts the West at the mercy of China,” David Zaikin, an energy industry consultant and founder of Key Elements Group in London, told Forbes.
China’s prominence in the solar supply chain remains a threat to America’s outlined energy plan and the United States needs to increase its solar supply-chain operations so that they will not be dependent on China, according to the Coalition for Prosperous America.