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Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

Their economy grew 3% this year and they cut emissions. https://rhg.com/research/chinas-economy-rightsizing-2025-loo...

"economic slowdown" is an exaggeration.

A 3% GDP growth this year is a slowdown from 2024. Did you read this paper? I encourage you to at least read the abstract. It discusses whether "China's 2025 economic growth story turns on whether investment merely declined in the second half of the year or collapsed."

You seem to be confusing first and second derivatives.

China had an emissions decline in 2025 that is substantially attributable to a decline in industry, per their first source. The decline in industry is plausible so long as GDP growth in 2025 is lower than GDP growth in 2024, and is additionally supported by the newly introduced source that the commentor did not read. Yes, it is possible to have an economic slowdown and a positive GDP print.

In general it's weird to say '"economic slowdown" is an exaggeration' and then link to something that talks about the economic slowdown.

I don't know what "decline in industry" means here tbh. Emissions from industry went down, but GDP still went up. Does that mean there's "less industry" or "more industry"? How do you measure "industry"? Maybe their industry just became more efficient.

Total emissions also went down. Yeah GDP went up less than last year but that hardly matters when we're talking about an emissions reduction. Not "less emissions growth than last year", an absolute decrease.

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