China’s Economic Overhaul: A Blueprint for Renewable Dominance

By Haley Zaremba – Oilprice.com

The Chinese economy is changing, and the aftershocks of its tectonic shift will be felt around the world. After decades of growth and massive infrastructural buildout, the capacity for further additions is diminishing. As a result, China’s economy is slowing down, the nationwide property bubble is bursting, and unemployment rates are punishing. A record high of 11.79 million students are expected to graduate from university this year in China, at which point they will join legions of jobseekers, many of whom have been unemployed since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic four years ago.

As a result of all of this economic turmoil, the country’s production and consumption patterns are going to change considerably, with ramifications for the entire global economy and the worldwide energy trade, as well as for international climate pledges and the environment writ large. As the International Energy Agency reported in their 2023 flagship World Energy Outlook, “China has changed the energy world, but now China is changing.”