They slipped the story into the ABC’s internet newsfeed at 6 o’clock on a Wednesday morning and there it died.
Nothing on any of the TV news programs that evening and by the following morning it was gone.
Yet it was unquestionably the most consequential story of the day, the week and perhaps the entirety of 2025.
The opening paragraph set the scene. It could hardly have been more engaging: “In April this year, China installed more solar power than Australia has in all its history. In one month.”
It then provides a context: “This isn’t a story about Australia’s poor track record on solar; Australia is a global leader. Rather this shows the astonishing rate at which China is embracing renewable technologies across every aspect of its society.”
However, there is a more mind-bending context further down in the story when it notes what we all know from the tale of woe pouring out of Donald Trump’s Washington: America is heading in exactly the opposite direction.
I am not criticising that placement. I have no criticism of the story at all. Indeed, I think it’s a small masterpiece of the reporter/analyst genre. My concern is with the ABC’s perception of its worth to an Australian readership trapped in a trade versus defence dilemma between the two great Pacific nations.
The identity of the author might be a factor. It was written by Jo Lauder, a bright young woman (by her photograph) who works as a reporter and broadcaster for triplej’s national current affairs program Hack and is host of the podcast, Who’s Gonna Save Us “which explores climate solutions and the people fighting for climate action”.
The ABC, it seems, is wary of anyone writing positive things about China – especially “young people” – even when they appear to be on the side of sustaining the human race on planet Earth.
Jo is obviously aware of this. Before telling the astonishing story of a possible rescue from the jaws of hellishly hot weather, she says: “Don’t make the mistake of thinking this [Chinese] transformation is driven by a moral obligation to act on climate change”. But by doing so “it is accelerating the end of the fossil fuel era and bringing about the age of the electrostate”.
In the four-page story, she then provides a potted history of China’s economic pathway from the 1990s until the 10-year “Made in China” plan made renewable energy essential to bring their heating emissions down.
She quotes Chinese women scientists revealing the country’s energy transformation as “staggering”. Caroline Wang, the China engagement lead at the think tank Climate Energy Finance says: “Clean manufacturers have made themselves indispensable in the new kind of global economy.”
China is [now] home to half of the world’s solar, half of the world’s wind power and half of the world’s electric cars. “If you go to Beijing today,” Jo Lauder quotes a western scientist, “you can honestly stand at intersections with four lanes going every way and it’ll be quiet as a mouse. The noisiest thing coming past will be a creaky bicycle.”
Moreover, by bringing renewable costs down, China has helped the rest of the world lower the bar to embark on their transition.
Caroline Wang told her: “I think a gap in Australia and other Western countries is knowledge and understanding. China is a complex country… It’s got good and bad. For the energy transition space, which is full of complexity, there’s a real need, for our [joint] strategic national interests, for Australia to understand what’s happening in China.’
Walkley judges, please note.
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