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Renewable energy for sustainable development in China: Discourse analysis

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  • Baohong Jiang
  • Muhammad Yousaf Raza

Abstract

China is the world’s largest renewable energy installer with a capacity of 1020 gigawatts in 2021. This study aims to analyze the public discourse around China’s green energy and green technology and the paths to sustainable development by comparing public policy. The public discourse analysis approach and Grey Prediction Model are applied to analyze the motives for the distinct inferences being reached over the influences of renewable energy initiatives (REIs). The findings show that the modeling and assumptions are found different in theoretical perspectives, especially in the case of economic and environmental sustainability. The results are close to the other jurisdictions following REIs, including feed-in-tariff, standards and renewable liabilities. Based on statistics during 2012–2021 Five-year plan period, three major renewables are forecasted under base, reference and aggressive scenarios with interesting results. The wind would rise by 109 terawatt hours in an aggressive scenario while solar will rise from 83–99% with a rise of four times in the next decade. Finally, China’s current energy policy has been proven to be a series of effective public policies by making the discourse analysis, which can energetically widen the subsidy funds’ sources, discover miscellaneous financing techniques, standardized the subsidy process, supervise in applying the renewable energy technologies, and enhance the feed-in-tariff attraction of consumers and private investors.

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  • Baohong Jiang & Muhammad Yousaf Raza, 2024. "Renewable energy for sustainable development in China: Discourse analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(11), pages 1-20, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0298347
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298347
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