How China’s Renewable Push Upends Geopolitics w/ Kate Mackenzie & Tim Sahay

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay to discuss the geopolitics behind China’s investments in green tech and electrification, and how it presents the prospect of a new development model based on renewables instead of fossil fuels.

Kate Mackenzie is an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University. Tim Sahay is co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They are the co-writers of the Polycrisis newsletter from Phenomenal World.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Tim and Kate wrote about the potential role of the BRICS in future geopolitics.

• The Financial Times explored the implications of China as an electrostate.

• China leads the growing electric vehicle market, ⁠by a lot⁠.

• Pakistan imported 17 gigawatts of solar panels in 2024 alone, as Africa is in the midst of its own surge in Chinese solar panel imports.

• Trump’s policies are pushing China and India to ⁠strengthen ties⁠.