Study download: Progress in Diversifying the Global Solar PV Supply Chain (pdf)

TLDR:

Until the end of this decade, China and Chinese manufacturers will retain some domination over the global solar PV chain. However, the global solar PV supply chain is becoming more robust thanks to the diversification of crystalline silicon modules manufacturing capacity in the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, and India, according to a report by Japan's Renewable Energy Institute.

In the 2030s, improvements in solar PV recycling and the widespread adoption of new technologies like perovskite cells, which development is led by China (glass substrate) and Japan (film substrate), will provide new opportunities to further diversify the global solar PV supply chain.

This progress will strengthen worldwide energy security and facilitate the much-needed acceleration of the energy transition.

Geographic concentration of the global solar supply chain exposes the supply chain to some drawbacks, the report finds. The potential disruption risks associated with this type of concentration include natural hazards such as earthquakes and fires, and extreme weather events such as drought and flooding. "For instance, in 2020 and 2022, the global production of polysilicon was reduced because of flooding and fire issues at a handful of Chinese plants," the study says.

The report also mentions both the situation in China's Xinjiang region and Uyghur forced labour as well as China's coal intensity as concerns with China's dominance of global solar supply chain as main drivers of diversification. While citing "human rights violations, unfair trade practices, and environmental pollution," the study criticizes that "the lack of transparency [across supply chains within China] has made it increasingly difficult to verify whether supply chains are free from risk of Uyghur forced labor and reduces trust in the solar industry."

Key Findings:

• As of September 2024, 99% of the world’s solar PV modules manufacturing capacity was based on crystalline silicon because this technology is inexpensive, performant, and durable. Approximately three-fourths of the economic value of crystalline silicon modules come from four minerals: silicon, silver, aluminum, and copper, which productions are generally not excessively geographically concentrated.

• Throughout the entire solar PV supply chain (i.e., polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells, and modules), the shares of China and Chinese manufacturers often largely exceeded 80% and they were sometimes close to 100%. It is undesirable for any supply chain to be so dependent on a single country. This is the reason why diversification efforts are led across the world (e.g., United States, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and India).

• The Chinese industry dominates the solar PV supply chain because it has managed to maximize economies of scale and because it is well-organized around vertically integrated companies. Moreover, the Chinese solar PV industry is innovative and effectively supported by its government. Also, it benefits from affordable electricity prices, which is critical as solar PV manufacturing is electricity intensive.

• The Chinese solar PV industry is confronted with harsh criticisms due to human rights violations, unfair trade practices, and environmental pollution due to its reliance on coal power. Furthermore, China’s aggressive export strategy is blamed for solar PV products oversupply resulting in rock-bottom prices and economic losses.

• In the United States, a combination of subsidies (i.e., tax credits) and protectionist measures have been implemented. Many new projects have been announced, they now need to be realized.

• Europe tries to balance its own interests between increasing its manufacturing capacity and taking advantage of cheap Chinese imports. So far, priority has been given to demand over domestic supply as reducing electricity prices and greenhouse gas emissions are deemed more urgent issues.

• Japan puts the emphasis on perovskite cells, a promising technology that is not fully ready for commercial deployment yet. This strategy should, however, not be used as an excuse for not more proactively installing crystalline silicon. Affordable and rapid decarbonization does not need to wait for perovskite to become mainstream.

• Despite catching less attention, Southeast Asia and India significantly contribute to the diversification of the solar PV supply chain. In Southeast Asia, labor costs are low, and energy is subsidized. In India domestic-content requirements and customs duties have been implemented.

• In addition to these efforts, solar PV recycling and new technologies, like perovskite, hold the potential to be alternatives to Chinese crystalline silicon modules in the 2030s. To take off, these solutions need more governmental support.

The European Commission approved the launch of the project on Monday December 16.

With several public (China, US) and private (Oneweb, Starlink and Kuiper) constellation initiatives being developed and put into service to meet data processing and connectivity needs, the telecommunications sector is more strategic than ever for France and Europe. The IRIS2 programme is designed to meet this challenge.

[...]

The European Union’s secure connectivity satellite constellation programme was decided on in March 2023. IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) will be the first multi-orbital satellite network in Europe. Some 300 satellites will be designed, manufactured and deployed in the first phase.

[...]

The programme will provide a wide variety of services to European governments and citizens. The system enables surveillance of borders and remote areas. The programme is indispensable for civil protection, particularly in the event of crises or natural disasters. It improves the delivery of humanitarian aid and the management of maritime emergencies, whether for search or rescue. Numerous smart connected networks – energy, finance, healthcare, data centres, etc. – will be monitored thanks to the connectivity provided by IRIS2. The system will also enable the management of various infrastructures: air, rail, road and vehicle traffic. Added to this are institutional telecoms services for embassies, for example, and new telemedicine services for intervention in isolated areas. Finally, IRIS2 will improve connectivity in areas of strategic interest for foreign security and defence policy: Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Arctic, the Atlantic and Baltic regions, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

Here is the download the report 'People Power Under Attack' (pdf)

[The website and the report are also available in Spanish and French.]

The CIVICUS Monitor tracks the state of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression in 198 countries and territories around the globe since 2017.

The annual report 2024, "People Power Under Attack", rates the state of civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society organisations, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices and the CIVICUS Monitor's in-house experts. Using data from these four sources, Civicus to assigns each country and territory a rating as either open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed.

Summary:

• Three in four people -72.4 percent- worldwide live in highly oppressive countries, marking a slight increase of 1.5 percentage points compared to 2023, with only 40 out of 198 nations maintaining open civic spaces. In nine cases, the overall rating was downgraded. This affected Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Peru and the Occupied Palestine Territories.
• As CIVICUS’ Co-Secretary-General Mandeep Tiwana pointed out, “civic space conditions in some 30 countries where over a quarter of the world’s population live are so poor that even the slightest hint of dissent against those who hold power can get one thrown into prison for a long time or even killed.” This includes Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan.
• The right to protest isheavily targeted globally, with at least 76 countries on record. Cases include mass detentions or police brutality against young climate and environmental activists, as seen in Indonesia, Brazil and Ghana.
• As violence continues to escalate, human rights defenders remain particularly vulnerable, with unjustified arrests documented in 58 countries, especially of women facing draconian restrictions under several authoritarian regimes.
• Despite the overall negative trends, four countries -Japan, Jamaica, Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago- have moved into the highest category of having open civic space. Five other countries -Bangladesh, Botswana, Fiji, Liberia, Poland- improved their ratings according to the report.

Central Operative Unit - a specialised division of Spain's Guardia Civil that prosecutes the most serious forms of organised crime - worked alongside women's organisations and human rights lawyers for months to legalise Victoria's situation in Spain so that they could bring her family over to join her.

The team follows a victim-focused approach, through which women are offered long-term support to help them settle into a stable and safe environment after they have been rescued.

The team says it sometimes get teased by other units for sounding more like a "charity" than an elite team of criminal investigators, but Cristina is a passionate advocate for what they do.

"We believe in a social and humanitarian process that can restore hope in victims' lives, so they can truly recover and live passionately again."

[...]

[A UN] report finds that women and girls continue to account for the majority of victims detected worldwide, who are mostly trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Spain is both a country of exploitation and a transit hub for thousands of victims trafficked into Europe.

[...]

Proposals for a new law which could see the bosses of major polluters jailed for up to 20 years has received enough support from MSPs to be introduced at Holyrood next year.

Monica Lennon's proposed Ecocide Prevention Bill has the backing of enough cross-party members to be brought forward and the Scottish government has indicated that it will not intervene to stop it.

This would clear the way for the bill to be formally introduced in the Scottish Parliament next year.

Scotland would be the first part of the UK to have such a law which could impose harsh penalties on executives responsible for major environmental damage.

Ecocide ​refers to mass damage and destruction of ecosystems – severe harm to nature which is widespread or long-term. Examples could include oil spills, mass deforestation, air or ocean pollution, mining damage and emissions.

Campaigners believe the crime should come under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which can currently prosecute just four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.

...

Archived link

Europe's far right has managed to gradually consolidate its position by capitalising on structural insecurities. Progressive forces are on the defensive, either imitating right-wing talking points or struggling to come up with a convincing alternative. To turn things around, Greens and the Left need to come together and provide answers to today’s existential threats, from climate change to the housing crisis, says Daphne Halikiopoulou, chair in comparative politics at the University of York in the UK, in a Q&A session.

Daphne Halikiopoulou: That said, I don’t think that what Europe is facing is a new phenomenon [with the rise of the far right]. [...] we saw the far right form a coalition government with the centre-right in Austria many years ago [in 2000]; we also saw Pim Fortuyn, a political predecessor of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, do very well in the early 2000s; Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round [of the presidential election] in France in 2002. We’ve known for many years that there is an appetite for this kind of politics. What has changed is that first, these parties are now entering governments and making policy, and second, they’ve gained momentum and are more normalised.

[...]

There are many different types of insecurities that drive voters to the far right. If you look closely, you’ll see that those with cultural concerns are very likely to vote for the far right, but they’re very few people. On the contrary, what the far right has been very successful in doing is actively capitalising on all sorts of insecurities that largely originate from economic concerns [...] there are many people convinced that immigrants are competitors in the labour market, that they’re taking away access to welfare, jobs, schooling, healthcare, etc. There are also many crises that are economic in nature. One example is the housing crisis, which is really driving voters. Finally, there’s the question of trust in institutions, and we see across Europe that there is a very strong correlation between declining levels of political trust and support for far-right parties.

[...]

There are variations [in the shift how the far right is gaining ground in Europe]. In the Netherlands, for example, the far right is still more or less on the economic right wing rather than in favour of a strong welfare state. In Eastern Europe, because of the communist past, a focus on welfare doesn’t sell, and it’s used only occasionally. Far-right rhetoric in Eastern Europe is more about policies that perpetuate the nation, such as measures encouraging families to have more children.

[...]

Many left-wing parties have tried to copy the Right, albeit in a more palatable way. They start saying: “We appreciate that immigration is an issue, and we’ll deal with it in a more acceptable and ‘mainstream’ way.” This is really not an effective strategy, although I understand why parties do that: they think it will be a way to garner votes when elections are near. What this actually does, however, is increase the salience of issues that are “owned” by the far right.

[...]

It’s very good news for the far right and very bad news for the Left [that the EU adopted new fiscal rules last year that would result in several EU member states being forced to implement austerity measures]. Austerity really triggers votes for the far right. It is essentially a greenhouse creating the conditions to make insecurity grow among the general population.

[...]

I think this is a very dangerous strategy [what some analysts suggest that the best way to defeat the far right is to let it govern, so that people realise that it doesn’t solve the crises they’re experiencing]. Perhaps you can observe that in some countries the far right won and then lost. But it has become much more persistent as a political force. Look at the FPÖ in Austria: it was in a coalition government, then the government collapsed because of the Ibiza affair [a corruption scandal involving the FPÖ’s leadership in 2019], and now it won the elections.

[...]

You see it in the UK as well. [The Eurosceptic right-wing populist party] UKIP was never electorally successful, but it was successful in terms of supplying a narrative. It was able to convince [then-Prime Minister David] Cameron to call the 2016 Brexit referendum, and this year Reform UK [a far-right party led by Nigel Farage, the former leader of UKIP] has five MPs in the House of Commons. I am very sceptical of this strategy.

[...]

[The far right] is powerful not because of the insecurities [of people], but because it successfully capitalises on them, and because of what other parties have failed to do [...] There are people who cannot afford to rent flats in Europe anymore – this is the next big crisis, and it is also a green issue, so we need parties who are truly able to address it.

We also need to have parties that build a narrative on how they will deal with people’s insecurities properly rather than returning to austerity. Maybe the Greens and the Left have to come together with a narrative about who they are rather than what they’re fighting against.

Brain structure can tell us a lot about reading skills. Importantly, though, the brain is malleable — it changes when we learn a new skill or practice an already acquired one.

For instance, young adults who studied language intensively increased their cortical thickness in language areas. Similarly, reading is likely to shape the structure of the left Heschl’s gyrus and temporal pole. So, if you want to keep your Heschl’s thick and thriving, pick up a good book and start reading.

[...] it’s worth considering what might happen to us as a species if skills like reading become less prioritised. Our capacity to interpret the world around us and understand the minds of others would surely diminish. In other words, that cosy moment with a book in your armchair isn’t just personal – it’s a service to humanity.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17479535

Archived

China is urging colleges and universities to provide "love education" to emphasise positive views on marriage, love, fertility and family, in a bid to boost the country's flagging birth rate.

Beijing has been promoting various measures to try to make having children more attractive to young couples after China posted a second consecutive year of population decline in 2023.

China has the second-biggest population in the world at 1.4 billion, but it is ageing quickly, which will increase the demands on government spending in the future and put pressure on the economy.

College students will be the biggest driver of fertility but they have significantly changed their views on marriage and love, the Jiangsu Xinhua newspaper group said, citing China Population News, an official publication.

[...]

The measures would help create a "healthy and positive marriage and childbearing cultural atmosphere."

[...]

The state council, or cabinet, rallied local governments in November to direct resources towards fixing China's population decline and spread respect for childbearing and marriages "at the right age," although demographers said the moves were unlikely to resonate with young Chinese.

Around 57% of college students polled by China Population News said they did not want to fall in love, mainly because they did not know how to allocate time to balance the relationship between study and love, the publication said.

[...]

Universities could focus on teaching junior college students about population and national conditions, new marriage and childbearing concepts, it said.

Senior college students and graduate students could be taught through "case analysis, group discussion on maintaining intimate relationships and communication between the sexes."

The courses would be able to help them "improve their ability to correctly understand marriage and love and manage love relationships."

Archived

China is urging colleges and universities to provide "love education" to emphasise positive views on marriage, love, fertility and family, in a bid to boost the country's flagging birth rate.

Beijing has been promoting various measures to try to make having children more attractive to young couples after China posted a second consecutive year of population decline in 2023.

China has the second-biggest population in the world at 1.4 billion, but it is ageing quickly, which will increase the demands on government spending in the future and put pressure on the economy.

College students will be the biggest driver of fertility but they have significantly changed their views on marriage and love, the Jiangsu Xinhua newspaper group said, citing China Population News, an official publication.

[...]

The measures would help create a "healthy and positive marriage and childbearing cultural atmosphere."

[...]

The state council, or cabinet, rallied local governments in November to direct resources towards fixing China's population decline and spread respect for childbearing and marriages "at the right age," although demographers said the moves were unlikely to resonate with young Chinese.

Around 57% of college students polled by China Population News said they did not want to fall in love, mainly because they did not know how to allocate time to balance the relationship between study and love, the publication said.

[...]

Universities could focus on teaching junior college students about population and national conditions, new marriage and childbearing concepts, it said.

Senior college students and graduate students could be taught through "case analysis, group discussion on maintaining intimate relationships and communication between the sexes."

The courses would be able to help them "improve their ability to correctly understand marriage and love and manage love relationships."

A girl who attends a school with classmates whose mothers work is more likely to be in the workforce when she has a child herself than a girl who grows up in local circles where most mothers stay at home, Cornell researchers have found.

“Role models pull girls in different directions in adolescence, a period when preferences are formed, when they decide what to do in their life,” said Eleonora Patacchini, the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Professor of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. “When they decide whether to return to work after having a child, they remember the mothers and fathers of their peers.”

Women trail men in the workforce largely because of the “child penalty” – women leaving work upon having a child and not returning. Social norms and culture influence a girls’ later decisions about participation in the work force; when she looked into precisely how, Patacchini, with doctoral student Giulia Olivero and Henrik Kleven, professor of economics at Princeton University, found that greater exposure to working moms at a very local level – the school – decreases the child penalty for girls. Meanwhile, exposure to working fathers increases the child penalty, a “striking” asymmetric effect, Patacchini said.

Girls who are socialized in an environment where most mothers work are more likely to develop a gender-role ideal that reconciles career and motherhood, they conjecture, compared with girls who are socialized in an environment where most mothers stay at home.

...

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17478245

Archived

It's no secret that President Xi Jinping's government uses technology companies to help maintain the nation's massive surveillance apparatus.

But in addition to forcing businesses operating in China to stockpile and hand over info about their users for censorship and state-snooping purposes, a black market for individuals' sensitive data is also booming. Corporate and government insiders have access to this harvested private info, and the financial incentives to sell the data to fraudsters and crooks to exploit.

...

"The data is being collected by rich and powerful people that control technology companies and work in the government, but it can also be used against them in all of these scams and fraud and other low-level crimes," [SpyCloud infosec researcher Aurora] Johnson says.

...

To get their hands on the personal info, Chinese data brokers often recruit shady insiders with wanted ads seeking "friends" working in government, and promise daily income of 20,000 to 70,000 yuan ($2,700 and $9,700) in exchange for harvested information. This data is then used to pull off scams, fraud, and suchlike.

Some of these data brokers also claim to have "signed formal contracts" with the big three Chinese telecom companies: China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom. The brokers' marketing materials tout they are able to legally obtain and sell details of people's internet habits via the Chinese telcos' deep packet inspection systems, which monitor as well as manage and store network traffic. (The West has also seen this kind of thing.)

Crucially, this level of surveillance by the telcos gives their employees access to users' browsing data and other info, which workers can then swipe and then resell themselves through various brokers.

...

"There is a huge ecosystem of Chinese breached and leaked data, and I don't know that a lot of Western cybersecurity researchers are looking at this," Johnson continued. "It poses privacy risks to all Chinese people across all groups. And then it also gives us Western cybersecurity researchers a really interesting source to track some of these actors that have been targeting critical infrastructure."

Archived

It's no secret that President Xi Jinping's government uses technology companies to help maintain the nation's massive surveillance apparatus.

But in addition to forcing businesses operating in China to stockpile and hand over info about their users for censorship and state-snooping purposes, a black market for individuals' sensitive data is also booming. Corporate and government insiders have access to this harvested private info, and the financial incentives to sell the data to fraudsters and crooks to exploit.

...

"The data is being collected by rich and powerful people that control technology companies and work in the government, but it can also be used against them in all of these scams and fraud and other low-level crimes," [SpyCloud infosec researcher Aurora] Johnson says.

...

To get their hands on the personal info, Chinese data brokers often recruit shady insiders with wanted ads seeking "friends" working in government, and promise daily income of 20,000 to 70,000 yuan ($2,700 and $9,700) in exchange for harvested information. This data is then used to pull off scams, fraud, and suchlike.

Some of these data brokers also claim to have "signed formal contracts" with the big three Chinese telecom companies: China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom. The brokers' marketing materials tout they are able to legally obtain and sell details of people's internet habits via the Chinese telcos' deep packet inspection systems, which monitor as well as manage and store network traffic. (The West has also seen this kind of thing.)

Crucially, this level of surveillance by the telcos gives their employees access to users' browsing data and other info, which workers can then swipe and then resell themselves through various brokers.

...

"There is a huge ecosystem of Chinese breached and leaked data, and I don't know that a lot of Western cybersecurity researchers are looking at this," Johnson continued. "It poses privacy risks to all Chinese people across all groups. And then it also gives us Western cybersecurity researchers a really interesting source to track some of these actors that have been targeting critical infrastructure."