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Loss of labour caused by heat stress wiped out the equivalent of 4% of Africa’s GDP in 2022, warns a new report from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.

The eighth iteration of the annual report features 47 different indicators of climate change and human health, such as heat mortality, food insecurity and air pollution exposure. For the first time, the report includes a dedicated section on regional trends, highlighting the inequalities between developed and less developed regions.

On extreme heat, for example, it finds that in small island developing states, 103 days of health-threatening temperatures every year are attributable to climate change over 2018-22. Across Europe, North America and Oceania, this number is less than 30.

This is also the first Lancet Countdown report to include projections on how the indicators might worsen in a warmer world. Under a 2C warming scenario, for example, 525 million additional people will experience food insecurity by 2041-60, compared with the 1995-2014 baseline.

Many indicators suggest that the world is “accelerating in the wrong direction”, the report warns. It finds that the strategies of the world’s 20 largest oil and gas companies would result in emissions surpassing levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C by 173% in 2040.

However, the lead author of the report told a press briefing there is also reason for “hope”. The number of people who died due to fine particulate air pollution decreased from 1.4 million in 2005 to 1.2 million in 2020, for example. And scientific research and media engagement with health and climate change have both continued to grow, the report says.

Heat stress

In a “major addition”, the report presents attribution analyses of key indicators, to quantify the influence of climate change on them for the first time.

Over 2018-22, the average person experienced 86 days of “health-threatening high temperatures” per year, according to the report. Around 60% of these temperatures were made more than twice as likely due to climate change, it says.

Heat-related deaths often follow exposure to extreme heat – and people under the age of one or over the age of 65 are particularly vulnerable to high temperatures.

Globally, heat-related deaths in people aged over 65 were 85% higher in 2013-22 than in 1991-2000, the report finds. This rise is “substantially higher” than the 38% increase expected if the climate had remained constant and only demographics had changed, it adds.

For the first time, the report also includes projections of what key indicators may show in the future. The report authors developed these with the help of the Climate Vulnerable Forum – a group of countries highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

They find that if global temperature rise is only limited to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, stabilising at 1.8C by the end of the century, then annual heatwave exposure for people older than 65 will rise by more than 2,500% by 2080-2100, compared to 1995-2014 levels.

The report warns that outdoor workers are the “most exposed to climate hazards”. It estimates that in 2022, around 1.6bn paid workers – mainly “young or middle-aged” men – worked outside. However, the report notes that unpaid labour, which is often disproportionately carried out by women, is not included in these figures.

The graphs below show the average annual hours per person over 1991-2022 when “light physical activity” entailed at least a moderate (light orange), high (dark orange), or extreme (red) heat stress risk.

From left to right, countries are grouped according to their human development index – a measure of a country’s development, where higher numbers indicate greater development. Least developed countries (low HDI) are shown in the left-most chart and the most developed countries (very high HDI) are in the right-most chart.

Average annual hours per person over 1991-2022 when light physical activity entailed at least a moderate (light orange), high (dark orange), or extreme (red) heat stress risk, for countries with a low (left), medium (middle left), high (middle right) and very high (right) human development index.
Average annual hours per person over 1991-2022 when light physical activity entailed at least a moderate (light orange), high (dark orange), or extreme (red) heat stress risk, for countries with a low (left), medium (middle left), high (middle right) and very high (right) human development index. Source: Lancet Countdown report (2023).

Heat exposure caused 490bn potential labour hours to be lost globally in 2022, amounting to 143 hours per person, the report estimates. This is nearly a 42% increase from the 1991-2000 average, it adds.

The authors find that loss of labour due to heat exposure resulted in a $863bn loss of “potential income” in 2022. The agriculture sector was hit the hardest by the loss of labour, accounting for 82% of losses in low HDI countries, they add.

Dr Marina Romanello is the executive director of the Lancet Countdown, a climate change and health researcher at University College London and lead author on the report. She told a press briefing that workers in the agricultural sector are “heavily exposed to the elements” and often have few resources to protect themselves.

She added that in countries with a low HDI, agricultural workers are often in charge of local food production, meaning that heat-related labour loss has direct implications for food security.

Loss of labour due to heat stress wiped out the equivalent of 4.1% of Africa’s GDP in 2022, mainly from losses in the agricultural sector, the report finds. Meanwhile, Europe and North America only saw labour losses equivalent to 0.1% and 0.2% of their GDP, respectively.

The graph below shows effective income losses in 2022 due to heat stress in agriculture (blue) and other sectors (red), as a percentage of GDP, by continent.

Effective income losses in 2022 due to heat stress in agriculture (blue) and other sectors (red), as a percentage of GDP.
Effective income losses in 2022 due to heat stress in agriculture (blue) and other sectors (red), as a percentage of GDP. Source: Lancet report (2023). Chart by Carbon Brief.

Unequal impacts

The authors also explore how the changing climate affects people indirectly, including through changes in agriculture and the spread of disease.

The report finds that the global land area affected by at least one month of “extreme drought” per year increased from 18% in 1951-60 to 47% in 2013-22. The map below shows the change in the number of months of extreme drought between these two time periods, where red indicates an increase in drought and blue a decrease.

Global land area affected by at least one month of “extreme drought” per year.
Global land area affected by at least one month of “extreme drought” per year. Source: Lancet Countdown report (2023)

Africa was also the region most affected by droughts over 2013-22, with 64% of its land area affected by at least one month of extreme drought per year – up from 9% in 1951-60 – the report finds.

Year-round drought affected many “vulnerable areas” in 2022, the report warns. It highlights the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa, where millions of people have been pushed into famine. (Separate analysis has found that the drought “would not have happened” without climate change.)

The Lancet adds that the higher frequency of droughts and heatwaves in 2021 pushed 127 million more people into “moderate or severe” food insecurity, compared to 1980-2010. This was one of the most “shocking” findings of the report, Romanello told the press briefing.

The report projects that under a 2C warming scenario, 525 million more people will face food insecurity by 2041-60 than in the 1995-2014 baseline.

Climate change is also increasing the range of certain pathogens. Warmer seas have already increased the area of coastline suitable for Vibrio bacteria – a pathogen that can cause sickness in people and animals.

Meanwhile, a combination of climate change, urbanisation and human movement are driving up cases of dengue fever, the report finds. It says that “cases of dengue have doubled every decade since 1990, and almost half of the world population is now at risk of this life-threatening disease”.

However, the report also points to positive developments, such as the increase in research on climate change and health.

The number of scientific papers investigating the links between health and climate change in 2022 was three times higher than in 2012, the report finds. It adds that most research focuses on Asia and studies the impacts of climate change on health, although there is a rising number of papers addressing mitigation and adaptation too.

‘Unjust transition’

The report also assesses the progress of the global energy transition, stating that the world is “often moving in the wrong direction”.

Developed countries still have much higher per-capita emissions than less developed ones. In 2020, per-person CO2 emissions in Oceania, for example, were 14 times higher than in Africa and more than three times higher than in Asia, according to the report.

The authors paint a picture of uneven progress in the push to decarbonise. Developed nations are making “steady but insufficient progress towards transitioning”, while less developed nations are not receiving the funding they need to do the same.

“Modern renewables” such as wind and solar accounted for 90% of new electricity capacity in 2022, the report finds. However, it notes that only 1% of renewable energy investments in 2022 were in Africa. It adds that modern renewables make up 11% of all electricity generated in very high HDI countries, but account for 2% of electricity in low HDI countries.

The graph below shows the carbon intensity of the energy system, both globally (dashed) and by HDI (solid coloured lines).

The carbon intensity of the energy system in countries with different HDIs.
The carbon intensity of the energy system in countries with different HDIs. Source: Lancet Countdown report (2023).

“Access to stable, non-polluting energy is crucial for advancing health and wellbeing,” the report says. It estimates that in 2022, 77 million people had no access to electricity – mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia – while millions of others only have access to “dirty” energy sources.

Biomass burning – which the report calls “highly polluting” – accounted for 92% of household energy in low HDI countries and 8% in very high HDI countries in 2020. Women and girls are often “tasked with household energy-related activities”, meaning they are disproportionately affected by air pollution-related diseases, the report notes.

Overall, air pollution caused by particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) was responsible for 1.2 million deaths in 2020, down from 1.4 million in 2005, the report finds. “Reduced coal pollution contributed to about 80% of the decrease,” it adds.

The figure below shows the mortality rate due to PM2.5 in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 for countries with low (top), medium (second from the top), high (second from the bottom) and very high (bottom) HDI levels.

The colour of each bar indicates which sector produced the pollution, for example light blue for agriculture and purple for households. The shading on each bar indicates the type of fuel.

Mortality rate due to PM2.5 split by fuel type, sector, year and HDI level.
Mortality rate due to PM2.5 split by fuel type, sector, year and HDI level. Source: Lancet countdown report (2023).

“The uptake of clean energies has been unjust and way too slow,” Romanello told the press briefing.

However, Romanello said the report also gives reason for “hope”. For example, the report finds that employment in the renewable energy sector increased by 5.6% in 2021 reaching a record of 12.7 million employees.

The graph below shows employment in different renewable energy sectors (bars) and in fossil fuel extraction (orange dots).

Employment in different renewable energy sectors and in fossil fuel extraction.
Employment in different renewable energy sectors and in fossil fuel extraction. Source: Lancet countdown (2023)

‘Wrong direction’

The final section of the report focuses on finance. It finds that investment into low-carbon energy increased globally by 15% in 2022 to $1.6tn, exceeding fossil fuel investment by 61%. Meanwhile, lending to the low-carbon energy sector has “radically increased”, reaching near-parity with lending to the oil and gas sector.

However, the authors warn that financing to the fossil fuel sector is still on the rise. Over 2017-21, the 40 banks that lent most to the fossil fuel sector collectively invested $489bn annually in fossil fuels – a 52% increase from their 2010-16 lending – the report finds. In addition, global fossil fuel investment increased by 10% in 2022, reaching more than $1tn.

In 2020, 78% of the countries assessed generated collective fossil fuel subsidies of $305bn – a value higher than 10% of national health spending in 26 of the countries – the report adds.

It adds that the strategies of the world’s 20 largest oil and gas companies as of February 2023 would result in emissions surpassing levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C by 173% in 2040, if they were carried out as planned.

The report warns that inequalities between developed and developing countries “are aggravated by the persistent failure of the wealthiest countries to deliver the promised modest annual sum of $100bn to support climate action”.

However, it also highlights the “transformative health benefits that could come from the transition to a zero-carbon future”, and emphasises the need for a central role that the health community can play in securing these benefits.

The post Lancet report: Heat stress wiped out equivalent of 4% of Africa’s GDP in 2022 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Lancet report: Heat stress wiped out equivalent of 4% of Africa’s GDP in 2022

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Hardline Conservative Wins Republican Primary for Texas Oil and Gas Regulator

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Bo French prevailed over incumbent Jim Wright after a primary campaign focused more on Islamophobia and deportations than oil and gas regulation.

Bo French has won the Republican nomination to help run a little-known but influential regulatory office in Texas that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry.

Hardline Conservative Wins Republican Primary for Texas Oil and Gas Regulator

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Q&A: Can China turn hydrogen into its next clean-energy industry?

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China has said that hydrogen is a key “future industry”, important to both its energy transition and its industrial policy.

Hydrogen frequently goes through hype cycles, most recently driven by rising oil and gas prices due to the conflict in the Middle East.

Yet, even in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of the fuel, hydrogen remains expensive and inefficient to produce.

This is especially the case for “green” hydrogen derived from renewables.

Moreover, there is limited supporting infrastructure and there is little incentive to use hydrogen over other energy sources.

As a result, uptake in China of hydrogen as an alternative fuel remains low.

Nevertheless, these challenges echo the early circumstances of another key clean-energy technology – electric vehicles (EVs).

In China, EVs benefited from a policy environment that included consistent signals of support, financial aid and the development of supporting infrastructure.

Many similar policies are now being deployed – and in some cases improved upon – to support the development of China’s hydrogen industry.

This article examines China’s approach to developing hydrogen and how its evolving industrial policy could make the fuel viable.

How is China using hydrogen and where does it come from?

Electrification and rising installations of solar and wind power have been the biggest drivers of China’s decarbonisation story so far. However, how China will address the more energy-intensive, hard-to-electrify segments of its economy remains an open question.

Hydrogen is seen by some in China as a potential solution for reducing emissions in a range of “hard-to-abate” industries, from steel and chemicals to aviation and shipping.

The country is the world’s foremost producer and consumer of hydrogen. It produced 36.5m tonnes of the gas in 2024, with maximum production capacity standing at 50m tonnes that year.

It also consumed nearly a third of the world’s hydrogen in 2024, as shown below.

Share of global hydrogen consumption in select regions in 2024
Share of global hydrogen consumption in select regions in 2024, %. Source: IEA.

Most of China’s production capacity is in regions with potential for high demand, such as Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Shanxi and other provinces with significant heavy industry.

In 2024, the vast majority of China’s hydrogen – around 78% – was produced using fossil fuels, predominantly coal and gas, as shown in the figure below.

Another 21% was produced as an industrial by-product, while only 1% – just 320,000 tonnes – was derived from renewable-powered electrolysis of water.

Production of hydrogen in China by energy source in 2024
Production of hydrogen in China by energy source in 2024, %. Source: National Energy Administration.

One study found that, for every kilogram of hydrogen produced, 38.6kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted if the hydrogen is produced using coal-fired power. Hydrogen made through coal gasification results in 28.5kg of CO2 for every kilogram of hydrogen, while gas-based hydrogen creates 13kg of emissions.

By contrast, one kilogram of renewables-based hydrogen results in 0.5kg of CO2.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels could help China avoid close to 16bn tonnes of CO2 cumulatively by 2060 – but only if it comes from low-carbon sources.

The biggest reductions, it adds, would come from heavy industry, particularly chemicals and steel, with the maritime and shipping sectors also seeing some benefit.

Currently, around half of the hydrogen produced in China is used in synthetic ammonia and methanol production.

Ammonia is primarily used to manufacture fertiliser and is seen as a possible fuel technology for shipping. Methanol is used as a fuel for the transport industry, as well as for heating.

Another quarter of China’s current hydrogen usage is consumed by the oil refining and coal-to-chemical sectors. The remaining amount is used in other industries, including transport, heating and metallurgy.

What are the barriers to scaling up hydrogen?

Although China is the largest producer and consumer of hydrogen globally, the industry faces several barriers to becoming a viable clean-energy technology.

Agora Energiewende, a thinktank focused on the energy sector, says that, in order to make hydrogen a practical clean-energy solution, China would need to expand the scale and range of its application, as well as improving the conversion efficiency of production and use.

Both BloombergNEF and the IEA highlight the importance of China creating demand for hydrogen, such as through quotas for industrial usage.

Hydrogen “suffers from a relatively large efficiency loss during various conversion processes”, adds Agora. For example, it notes that only around 22% of the energy put into hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) is converted into motion, compared to 73% for battery electric vehicles. Producing hydrogen with renewable energy is also less efficient than coal-to-hydrogen processes.

Cui Chuansheng, technical director at East China Engineering Science and Technology, tells state news agency Xinhua that the variability of wind and solar power often leads to low utilisation of electrolysers, resulting in “efficiency losses”.

Meanwhile, the cost of producing hydrogen – particularly green hydrogen – remains high.

One study placed the cost of hydrogen produced through alkaline water electrolysis (AWE), the most common method for producing green hydrogen in China, at $4-6 per kilogram, compared with $1.20-2.50/kg for steam methane reforming and $1.30-2 for coal gasification.

In some specific cases, such as blending hydrogen with gas, researchers find that hydrogen prices would need to fall to one-third of gas prices to incentivise uptake.

These constraints are all “interdependent”, Kevin Tu, managing director of Agora Energy China, tells Carbon Brief, with the need to ensure “bankable demand” while also reducing costs and developing infrastructure. He adds:

“Without credible offtake in the right sectors, costs will not fall; without lower costs and better logistics, downstream users will not commit.”

The IEA says that green hydrogen “could become cost-competitive by the end of this decade due to low technology costs and cost of capital”.

For now, however, the China Hydrogen Bulletin Substack reports that China’s four listed hydrogen equipment manufacturers all reported significant losses in 2025.

Meanwhile, a senior executive at a Chinese hydrogen company told economic news outlet Jiemian that he expected 40% of companies in the sector to have closed down by the end of 2026, with surviving companies only turning a profit in 2029 at the earliest.

The industry also lacks refueling and pipeline infrastructure. China’s development of a pipeline network for hydrogen remains in its early stages, with around 400km of pipelines currently in operation. By contrast, its long-distance gas network stands at 128,000km. Similarly, storage remains expensive and inefficient, creating a further obstacle to wider uptake.

How is China supporting hydrogen development?

China began considering the use of hydrogen as an energy source in earnest in the early 2000s, to address concerns around pollution and dependence on imported oil for the transport sector.

A clearer signal of its importance came in 2015, when the State Council included the technology in a 10-year national industrial strategy known as the “Made in China” initiative. This pitched hydrogen as a way to contribute to electrification of China’s road-transport system through the development of FCEVs.

Yuki Yu, founder of research firm Energy Iceberg, tells Carbon Brief that, from 2018-2021, hydrogen was treated as a “FCEV and manufacturing technology challenge”.

This has since evolved, she says, given that battery electric vehicles have emerged as the more popular technology.

Shen Xinyi, senior advisor at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), agrees, telling Carbon Brief that recent policy documents suggest the aim is now for hydrogen to be targeted at areas where direct electrification is harder, such as hydrogen-based chemicals, hydrogen metallurgy and some heavy-duty transport applications.

This is in line with the “hydrogen ladder”, an analysis of how likely different possibilities for applying hydrogen as a clean alternative are to become significant. The ladder sees significant future use of hydrogen in these hard-to-electrify areas as much more likely than for light vehicles.

Notable policy moves are being made in “three layers”, says Agora’s Tu, which are combining to improve the technology’s chances of scaling up. These are: the “legal and institutional” layer; “application-oriented” policies; and targeted measures to address “practical bottlenecks” at the local level.

One of the documents underpinning this pivot was the “medium- and long-term plan for the development of the hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)”, issued in March 2022.

According to a report by the National Energy Administration (NEA), the plan is an attempt to develop an “industrial ecosystem” for hydrogen that features “diverse stakeholders, coordinated innovation and clustered development”.

The plan was the first government document to “lay out a long-term vision for China’s hydrogen economy”, unifying a previously disparate policy push into one document, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a UK-based thinktank.

Following on from the 2022 plan, the importance of hydrogen as a broad clean-energy solution has been emphasised in a number of policies. These include its classification being changed from a hazardous chemical to an energy carrier in China’s Energy Law, a 2024 action plan to “accelerate” the use of low-carbon hydrogen in industry and a new pilot scheme offering subsidies for projects that achieve specific targets.

The table below sets out the timeline and content of China’s hydrogen-related policies over the past 25 years.

Policy Year published Key features
10th five-year plan (2001–2005) 2001 Calls for “actively developing” low-emission vehicles, understood to include hydrogen vehicles
Made in China 2025 2015 Pledges to “continue to support” development of fuel cell vehicles and “master core technologies” for low-carbon vehicles
Notice on implementation of demonstration projects for fuel cell vehicles 2020 Creates a dedicated subsidy programme for finding breakthroughs in FCEV core technologies and industrial applications
14th five-year plan (2021-2025) 2021 Hydrogen listed as a future industry
Medium- and long-term plan for the development of the hydrogen energy industry (2021–2035) 2022 Aims to reach 100,000-200,000 tonnes of green hydrogen production [this target has been met]. Also aims to get 50,000 FCEVs on the road by 2025, leading to a “diversified” hydrogen industry by 2035
Opinions on accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development 2024 Promotes further development of hydrogen production, transport, storage and applications
Implementation plan for accelerating the application of clean and low-carbon hydrogen in the industrial sector 2025 Outlines tasks to promote use of low-carbon hydrogen to reduce emissions in heavy industries, such as steel and chemicals
Energy law 2025 Sees hydrogen included in national legislation for the first time, re-classifies it from a hazardous chemical to an energy carrier
15th five-year plan (2026-2030) 2026 Again lists as a future industry, and calls for the development of green fuels derived from green hydrogen
Notice on the implementation of pilot projects for the comprehensive application of hydrogen energy 2026 Provides subsidies to projects to reduce hydrogen costs to 15-25 yuan/kilogram ($2.20-3.67/kg) and help develop a fleet of 100,000 FCEVs

Key policies in the development of China’s hydrogen sector.

In addition, the NEA said in 2025 that local governments across China had issued more than 560 hydrogen-related energy policies by the end of 2024.

Tu notes that these local policies cover everything from permitting reforms and pipeline planning to exempting FCEVs from paying road toll.

Different provinces across China adopt distinct strategies for developing hydrogen industries, based on local conditions, says the US-based Center on Global Energy Policy, such as energy mix, availability of coal and industrial needs.

However, these local policies and targets are frequently more ambitious than the “conservative” national-level targets, it adds.

Could a new pilot programme boost hydrogen’s prospects?

A new pilot programme, announced in March 2026, aims to commercialise the country’s hydrogen industry by funding projects to reduce the cost of the fuel to 15-25 yuan/kilogram ($2.20-3.67/kg) by 2030, as well as other targets.

Unlike the 2020 subsidies, which focused on FCEVs, the new programme reaffirms China’s interest in a broader series of sectoral applications for hydrogen, including in clean heating, production of low-carbon iron and steel, and production of “green fuels” and other chemicals.

This new pilot is the “strongest financial instrument ever released for China’s green hydrogen application” in terms of creating a comprehensive hydrogen policy that covers a broad swathe of the economy, supporting it with financial backing and targeting application scenarios, Yu says.

However, she argues that strict grant caps – 240m yuan ($35m) per project and 1.6bn yuan ($235m) per selected region across only five regions – limited the overall funding scale available to the industry.

Energy Iceberg has calculated that only around 60-70 projects nationally could receive funding under the current rules, out of more than 670 active green hydrogen proposals in China.

Shen agrees that the pilot programme is significant and that it will expand the use of hydrogen in China’s climate strategy, particularly green hydrogen.

She notes a provision that “explicitly states that coal-based ammonia and methanol projects cannot be labelled as ‘green’ ammonia or methanol”, suggesting that policymakers are increasingly paying attention to the “integrity” of definitions for hydrogen and hydrogen-derived fuel.

The “real value” of the pilot scheme, says Tu, is that it focuses on developing “integrated city-cluster ecosystems linking supply, transport, infrastructure and end-use demand”, rather than only supporting individual projects.

This “should help identify viable business models, accelerate cost discovery and concentrate support on applications with stronger scale potential”, as well as boost investor confidence, adds Tu.

However, he continues that the broader effect it will have on boosting production of hydrogen will “depend on how quickly the selected clusters can translate the programme into real offtake and lower delivered hydrogen prices”.

How does this compare to China’s EV policy push?

The debate around the viability of hydrogen is reminiscent of critiques of EVs.

Until recently, EVs were seen as too expensive for consumers, inefficient and challenging to use without supporting infrastructure. As a result, many western automakers chose to temper their focus on EVs, while continuing to develop internal combustion engines.

However, China has managed to develop a competitive EV industry with products that top global sales.

Part of the playbook that spurred China’s success on EVs included consistent policy signalling in favour of the technology, including mentions in high-level documents and committing resources to building charging infrastructure.

“The defining features of China’s industrial-policy success are its persistence and adaptability,” says Kyle Chan, fellow at the Brookings Institution, adding that “long before the technology and economics of EVs and batteries were proven, China was making long-term investments and policy bets [in the sectors]”.

More tangible measures included direct and indirect subsidies and policy support in the shape of favourable loan rates and low-cost land. One estimate by US-based thinktank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) pegs the amount of support allocated to the EV industry between 2009-2023 at $230.9bn.

This coupled with the success of private Chinese manufacturers in creating innovative, nimble companies that “forc[ed] policymakers to adapt”, as well as growing links between the automotive and information technology industries, according to a separate CSIS report.

But this progress on EVs also reportedly came with significant fraud. In 2016, one investigation found that 33 companies were involved in subsidy fraud totalling 9.2bn yuan ($1.3bn).

(It should also be noted that profitability in the industry lags far behind the average for downstream industrial sectors, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, which says that “only a handful” of nearly 50 EV makers have reported profits.)

Being the subject of an industrial policy push alone does not guarantee success, states CSIS. It says the strength of the EV industry “was neither inevitable nor the result of a single master plan” and that China’s aims to develop globally-competitive industries in areas such as commercial aviation remain unaccomplished.

China’s approach to hydrogen has been markedly different.

Instead of offering blanket subsidies, the fuel cell demonstration programme it established in 2020 focused on performance-based rewards.

To avoid the subsidy issues seen in the solar and EV industries, the ministry of finance deliberately chose this indirect funding model, says Yu.

However, Yu argues, the programme did not work as well as hoped, due to the funding ceiling and the siloed attempts made by different regional governments to develop hydrogen ecosystems .

But Chinese policy thinking is becoming more selective and pragmatic for hydrogen compared with EVs, says Shen. She says:

“Electrification remains the primary decarbonisation pathway [for road transport], while hydrogen is increasingly positioned for applications where direct electrification is more difficult.”

Tu echoes this, adding that China is “clearly moving toward a more supportive policy environment for hydrogen”.

But its approach is “unlikely to replicate the EV story one-for-one”, he adds.

China’s concerted hydrogen push is also unlikely to echo the EV story at a global level, according to the IEA.

In terms of green hydrogen, around 60% of global electrolyser manufacturing capacity is currently in China, prompting concerns from the EU about a repeat of China’s global dominance in the solar and EV sectors.

However, the IEA says, electrolysers made in China “might not supply other markets at scale in the short term”, due to difficulties transporting the bulky technology globally, expectations that costs will only fall gradually, uncertainty around global demand and questions over how well Chinese electrolysers perform against global alternatives.

China’s industrial focus on hydrogen is centred more on domestic use, Shen argues. “It is less about near-term export competitiveness and more about building domestic industrial ecosystems,” she says.

The post Q&A: Can China turn hydrogen into its next clean-energy industry? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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In Venezuela, Anxiety About Ramping Up Oil Production in the Heavily Polluted Lake Maracaibo Region

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Experts and local activists, wary of past exploitation, are hoping it will be different this time—but aren’t confident it will be.

There is a joke Mónica Godoy Molero likes to make with her family: if you swim in Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo after an oil spill, you’ll sprout a third eye.

In Venezuela, Anxiety About Ramping Up Oil Production in the Heavily Polluted Lake Maracaibo Region

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