Thread by @EvanDHynes

Virtually the entire $12 billion US solar energy industry has ground to a halt last week.

In today's @Climatebase Weekly newsletter, we examine:

🌤 the cloudy skies settling over the American solar industry

🌏 and how the new reality will resonate across the Pacific

🧵..
1/20

Carbon superpowers 🇨🇳China and the 🇺🇸United States have been locked in a tug of war over the direction of global climate action for years.

Those tensions came to a head this week with potentially enormous consequences for the emissions goals of each nation...

2/20

The $12 billion American solar energy industry has virtually ground to a halt as the US Commerce Department investigates whether China has skirted tariffs on its solar products imported into the US by re-routing them through Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia.

3/20

It’s the latest in a decade-plus long saga between the two countries surrounding accusations from the United States that China is dumping solar panels in the American market at uncompetitive prices that stifle American panel producers.

4/20

The trouble started when California-based solar panel producer Auxin Solar petitioned the Commerce Department in March to launch a probe into possible violations of tariffs established in 2014.

5/20

The investigation has set off a series of cascading impacts across the United States solar industry that was just hitting its stride. Roughly 80 percent of all solar panels being installed in major U.S. energy projects come from the four countries now under the microscope.

6/20

As many of 318 projects have been frozen, leading to layoffs across the sector and nothing short of a panic on that part of investors who are jumping ship from solar projects

7/20

Auxin’s founder has said that he has no regrets about asking for the Commerce Department to intervene on its behalf, even it potentially tanks the entire market for the foreseeable future.

8/20

Then the plot thickened when a Canary Media reporter visited Auxin’s solar factory in San Jose, California to find solar panels that were either burnt, defective and scarce.

9/20

Beyond that, financial records seem to show minimal solar panel output from the company that would put it in the league of distributors now under scrutiny.

10/20

For its part, the Biden Administration has curiously come up empty-handed when pressed by climate activists to intervene in an investigation being conducted by an office in its administration.

11/20

🚧 BORDER BARRIER

Meanwhile in Washington, Rhode Island Senator and climate hawk Sheldon Whitehouse appeared optimistic that Congress can pass a carbon border-adjustment tax that would primarily affect Chinese imports.

12/20

The tax would amount to a tariff on carbon-intensive products, mainly industrial goods like steel, cement, glass and “fossil fuels themselves,” according to the Democratic Senator.

13/20

The European Council recently approved a similar measure designed to reduce what is called “carbon leakage”.

The idea is to incentivize trade partners to decarbonize their industrial sectors, while making domestic products more competitive in the short term.

14/20

The plan has gained support from conservatives as a means of undermining China, but the measure can also be seen as a recognition of the extent to which the United States, like other developed countries, has outsourced its carbon emissions overseas in recent decades.

15/20

US politicians, most often those skeptical of aggressive emissions cuts, frequently tout the fact that the US's emissions over the past decade have been trending downward.

This framing of the data suggests that carbon emissions problem is taking care of itself. (It’s not)

16/20

In reality, the US and other Western nations have offloading as much as 25% of their emissions onto manufacturing countries — namely, China — which is still largely dependent on coal for the energy needed to produce products for countries with aggressive emissions targets.

17/20

That dynamic could potentially become a lot more expensive for consumers and Chinese manufacturers alike.

18/20

As far as climate action goes, the relationship between China and the United States is one of the best examples of collaboration in the world, although the balance may be skewing more toward the competitive nature of great power politics.

19/20

This thread was adapted from today's edition of "This Week In Climate", a column written by
@juliantheomoore for the @Climatebase Weekly newsletter.

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