China’s power crisis: will climate, economy and public trust prove too tough to balance?

With power to factories cut in two-thirds of the country just before winter, millions of residents are in a panic over surviving without electric heat

The tension between the economy and climate, simmering since Xi’s 2060 carbon neutrality pledge, is now hitting home and fuelling public scepticism

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Exaggerating how climate policies worsened the power crunch could affect China’s efforts to win public support for its net zero campaign. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:48pm, 4 Oct 2021Updated: 11:00pm, 4 Oct 2021

Wang Yuan paced in front of the empty fireplace at his home in a village in the Chinese city of Tianjin, wondering where he was going to find wood and coal for the winter.

He has not had to worry about buying fuel since 2017, when the government replaced his coal-fired stove with electric heat. But with a power crunch already causing outages in nearby northern provinces, Wang’s family group chat is abuzz with nervous plans about how to avoid freezing in the event of a blackout in the dead of winter.

That panic is being shared by millions, as power to factories is being cut in nearly two-thirds of the country months before the onset of winter.

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Chinese manufacturing thrown into disarray as country's electricity crisis rolls on

On Weibo, a popular social media platform, topics on the power crunch have attracted tens of millions of views. People share how their lives have been affected: no tap water, no cellphone service, no traffic lights, and a rush to buy candles.

Wang, 61, who has spent his life farming rice and corn, says he does not know what has caused the power shortage. But his son has passed along the rumours from the local steel mill where he works: it is because of “environmental protection.”

It is not just water-cooler talk. Local news, industry publications and social media have all placed at least some of the blame for the power crisis on the country’s increasingly strident steps toward tackling climate change.

They have pointed to government policies such as the environment ministry’s plan to expand air pollution curbs to more cities and an intensifying campaign against cryptocurrency mining.