August 20, 2022

A clean energy arms race between the U.S. and China — the world’s two superpowers and largest greenhouse gas emitters — has been the dream of climate advocates for decades.

It may have just begun.

The Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed on Tuesday will pour $369 billion into clean energy and help to build a domestic clean tech manufacturing sector designed to displace China as the key supplier of critical equipment for solar, wind and batteries.

It also spurred hopes that U.S. economic competition might succeed where the diplomacy of Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry has largely failed — by extracting new commitments from Beijing to reduce China’s greenhouse gas output.

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