Despite increased renewable capacity, the country will still need more oil and gas to grow

China’s wind and solar power generation surged last year and is now almost equal to household demand for electricity, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on Monday. However, the share of residential intake is only a fraction of overall consumption, meaning that the Asian country is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

In 2022, wind and solar energy production soared 21% to 1,190 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, according to the NEA.

Despite the surge in Chinese wind and solar power installations and generation, only 17% of electricity use in the country was classified as residential in 2020, while industry accounts for around 60% of all electricity demand, according to the International Energy Agency.

Beijing is ramping up the rollout of solar and wind capacity in line with its ambitious plans to produce 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 in order to reduce carbon emissions. At least 30 Chinese provinces have unveiled more renewable installation programs.

In December, China launched a massive clean energy project worth more than $11 billion in its seventh-largest desert in the province of Inner Mongolia. The solar and wind power base with an overall installed capacity of 16 million kW will be the world’s largest renewable electricity generation facility of its kind in a desert area, according the company in charge of its construction.

However, some economists warn that this year, the Chinese economy will expand much faster after lifting Covid restrictions, meaning that even with increased wind and solar capacity, the country will still need more fossil fuel-powered energy generation to keep its economy growing.

KYIV, Ukraine — President Biden swept unannounced into Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jabbing his finger for emphasis on his podium, against a backdrop of three flags from each country, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, consulting with Zelenskyy on next steps, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and seeing U.S. embassy staff in the besieged country. Altogether he was on Ukrainian territory for about 23 hours, traveling by train from and back to Poland.

The visit came at a crucial moment: Biden is trying to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up delivery of promised weapon systems and calling on the West to provide fighter jets — something that Biden has declined to do.

The U.S. president got a taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year when air raids sirens howled just as he and Zelenskyy wrapped up a visit to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a moment of silence at the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine.

The White House would not go into specifics, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that it notified Moscow of Biden’s visit to Kyiv shortly before his departure from Washington “for deconfliction purposes” in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.

In Kyiv, Biden announced an additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than $50 billion already provided — for shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars and other aid but no new advanced weaponry.

The bloodiest fighting is, for the moment, concentrated in the country’s east, particularly around the city of Bakhmut, where Russian offensives are underway.

“The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high,” Biden said. “And the sacrifices have been far too great.” But “Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”

Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews near Washington at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, stopping at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine on an overnight train from Poland. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday. He departed after 1 p.m. by train back to Poland.