Sam Geall 15.03.2016 John A Mathews and Hao Tan’s new book provides an excellent account of the policies driving China’s green transition – but feels light on politics and power, writes Sam Geall The book highlights the global significance of China’s energy revolution, but overlooks local innovation and politics. (Image of solar powered water heaters in Dezhou by 绿色和平/苏里 ) Looking at the fortunes of Italian cities in the 16 th century, the philosopher and economist Antonio Serra drew a comparison between the wealth of Venice, booming due to trade and manufacturing, and the poverty of Naples, which had based its economy on the mining of metals. It might seem an unusual point to find in a monograph about China’s electric power system, but the contrast, for the scholars John Mathews and Hao Tan, is an important one. China, they write, is “liberating itself” from the extractive economy around fossil fuels, with all its hostile “ geopolitic
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