‘There is only one player’: why China is becoming a world leader in green energy

China’s vital statistics

Chinese power took on an old-fashioned hue in the past week with a huge military parade, a gathering of former allies Russia and North Korea, and President Xi Jinping’s defiant vow not to be intimidated by bullies.

Soldiers march during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

That display reminded many of the cold war, but it captured only a fraction of China’s far greater modern influence, primarily built on a formidable economy, dramatic advancements in renewable energy, and a willingness to engage globally with the greatest crisis facing humanity: climate breakdown.

In that sense, the tanks, cannon and missiles that filed past Tiananmen Square may well prove less important in reshaping the world order than the wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars that are churning out of Chinese factories on to fields and roads all over the planet. They are the reason China has already won the battle for the energy of the 21st century.

If history is any guide, the country that dominates energy usually dominates economics and politics, which is why it is not just old war allies that are cosying up to Beijing. Narendra Modi, the president of longtime rival India, also visited China last week for the biggest ever meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation along with dozens of other regional leaders. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, led a delegation to Beijing this summer to coordinate climate policy. The Brazilian executive secretary of Cop30 will visit next week with a similar mission, knowing the success or failure of the annual climate summit now depends on China more than any other nation.

Expectations for Chinese climate leadership are rising in tandem with dismay at the US, which will attend Cop30 as an observer and disrupter that, under Donald Trump, appears to be trying to lurch backwards towards a 20th century comfort zone of oil, gas and coal.

The contrast could become even more striking once China confirms it has reached a positive tipping point after which it will irreversibly shift away from fossil fuels. Last year, the world’s biggest carbon emitter registered a very slight decline in greenhouse gas output. Many analysts believe this means the country’s carbon use will peak this year or very soon. If that is confirmed, it would be a moment of considerably greater significance than Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from UN climate negotiations.

The timing will be clearer when China unveils its revised nationally determined contribution (NDC), the climate actions plans countries promised to provide under the Paris agreement. This announcement, expected before next month’s UN general assembly, will be one of this year’s most eagerly watched declarations because no other country has been able to match China’s power to make or break the Paris targets to hold global heating between 1.5C and 2C.

Miners stand in a locker room at a coal mine and processing facility in Liulin, Shanxi province, China. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

But how real are the hopes China will step up and show greater leadership on finance and emission cuts, as well as renewable manufacturing?

There have been false dawns in the past. Coal – the most polluting of fossil fuels – drove China’s supercharged economic growth for most of the past three decades, though production declined for a few years in the wake of the global financial crisis and plateaued briefly during the Covid lockdown. Whether predictions of peak carbon prove more substantial this time will depend on the Beijing leadership’s next five-year plan, a domestic policy document for 2026-2030 being drawn up by the leadership in Beijing.

Speculation about the priorities continues to swirl. On one side is caution and a sense of justice that China should not try to step into the void left by the US because that would allow the latter to escape its responsibility as the world’s biggest historic emitter. On the other is geopolitical ambition and the momentum of an economy increasingly reliant on renewable energy investment for growth.

While China’s overall GDP expansion is slowing, the speed of cleantech investment remains breathtakingly fast. Last year, the amount of wind and solar under construction was double the rest of the world combined, helping China to reach an installed capacity of 1,200GW six years ahead of the government’s schedule.

The country is similarly ascendant in supplying overseas markets with renewable technology. Last year for the first time, the top four wind turbine makers in the world were all Chinese. It is a similar story of majority market share for the manufacture and export of photovoltaic cells and electric vehicles.

When it comes to clean energy, it no longer makes sense to talk about competition, says Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society. “There is only one player. The US is not even in the room. I have full confidence that dynamic will continue.”

In the run-up to Belém, the contrast with the US looks ever more stark and is likely to shape geopolitics for decades to come. Under Trump, the US has shut down climate research centres, promised to drill for more gas and declared this to be “the moment” for coal. Meanwhile, $22bn in clean energy projects have been cancelled and wind power investment has shrunk to its lowest level in a decade.

Wind turbines above photovoltaic panels operate at the tidal flat industry demonstration base in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

China may not be in favour of multiparty democracy at home, but on the global stage its officials have made clear it will be a champion of multilateral decision making.

Xi has not tried to fill the void left by Trump, but he has presented himself – and China – as a reliable and constructive partner, particularly on the climate issue: “However the world may change, China will not slow down its climate actions, will not reduce its support for international cooperation, and will not cease its efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind,” he said this year.

Before previous Cops, senior US and Chinese negotiations often held a bilateral meeting to ensure the world’s two biggest emitters were on the same page. This year, China held separate climate talks with the EU and affirmed they would work together to achieve a successful Cop30 with “ambitious and equitable” outcomes. Von der Leyen called the joint declaration a big step forward. “Together, the European Union and China must uphold the Paris agreement. Now more than ever,” she said.

The text did not mention the main areas of friction between the signatories: China’s fast-growing share of sales of electric cars, batteries and solar panels, its stranglehold on critical minerals needed for wind turbine magnets, and its continued heavy investment in coal.

Scientists and campaigners say the climate will not be stabilised solely by selling more photovoltaic cells or windmill blades; it is also necessary to phase out fossil fuels. On this half of the balance sheet, China’s record remains “highly insufficient” and its current policies would, if continued, push the planet towards 4C of heating, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent initiative assessing countries’ compliance with the Paris agreement. It points out that China is off course from the commitments it previously made to “strictly limit” coal use and to reduce energy and carbon intensity by 2025.

Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said Xi had compromised. “He does favour cleaning up the energy system and moving to a cleaner economy more broadly – this is a consistent and longstanding feature in his speeches – but clearly it’s not an overriding priority for him when there is pushback.”

The pushback has been most evident in the coal sector, where there has been a surge of investment in the past two years to the highest level in a decade. Major domestic coal companies, such as CHN Energy, Jinneng and Shaanxi Coal and Chemical, have considerable political influence. Although they don’t actively campaign against climate science like Exxon in the US, China analyst Qi Qin said they often pushed the energy security narrative by positioning coal as essential for reliability and independence, adding: “A lot of it comes down to concerns about energy security. During 2021–2022, droughts hit hydropower hard, and the system didn’t have the flexibility to handle that well. That led to some power shortages, and since then, there’s been more focus, especially from local governments, on securing local power supply, which partly explains the new wave of coal project approvals and construction.”

Even so, renewables has moved faster. The share of fossil fuels in China’s installed generation capacity has now fallen below half, down from two-thirds a decade ago. Whether this trend continues will depend on a recent change in energy pricing and the level of ambition in the NDC and five-year plan.

China's President Xi Jinping (C) and other Chinese leaders attend the closing meeting of the first session of the 14th National People's Congress in 2023. Photograph: XINHUA/Huang Jingwen/EPA

If the government wanted to send a strong signal, it could commit to no new coal power, sectorial targets for electric vehicles, electric steelmaking and building efficiency, and – most importantly – a sizeable cut in overall emissions over a clearly defined period.

Li dampened expectations the headline figure would fully align with the Paris targets. “If China were to set a course for a 1.5C world, it would need to cut emissions by 30% by 2035. A 2C world would mean reductions of 20% by the same year. Neither is likely. He said: “We understand the Chinese side is most likely to provide 8-15%. There will be a gap. If that landing zone is where they end up, then there could be the usual story of ‘under promise, over deliver.’”

He expects specific sectoral targets on how much renewable capacity China will install over the coming decade. “They will be very very big numbers,” Li predicts.

The economy may drive ambition more than politics. Belinda Schäpe, a policy analyst at CREA, said existing trends suggested it was still possible for China to reduce emissions by 30% over the coming decade, which would bring huge economic benefits, especially if combined with a continued global energy transition. “This would also strengthen China’s clean energy industries, which could double in value by 2035, adding CNY 15tn ($2.1tn) to the economy.”

At Belém, China will also seek to boost sales of renewables and possibly announce deals to build and finance a solar panel manufacturing plant in Brazil, in addition to the BYD electric car factory that is already there. This may have the feel of a trade fair, but the conference organisers said this was in line with the primary goal of Cop30, which is to accelerate action on global heating.

Brazilian diplomats also expect their Brics partner to invest in the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, which is the flagship initiative of the summit host. Chinese government sources told the Guardian this proposal was viewed positively in Beijing. Support for this effort to protect standing forests would be a sign of how China is steadily increasing climate finance outside the UN framework as it grows in wealth and responsibility. European diplomats express hope that China will lean in much further during Cop30.

Conservation NGOs hope Beijing will do more to crack down on imports of wood products from areas of illegal deforestation. China’s revised forest law theoretically prohibits these items, but it does not demand transparency or due diligence from traders so little has changed. China remains the biggest importer of illegally felled timber.

At previous Cop meetings, China has often cut an understated figure relative to its size. But its role is often decisive. At Cop26, it aligned with India to water down the language to fossil fuel “phase down” rather than “phase out” and at the 2009 Cop in Copenhagen, it was criticised for sabotaging the conference. More positively, it was widely credited for helping to get the Paris agreement over the line and last year played a crucial role together with the EU to set a climate finance target, the new quantified collective goal, that most countries could sign up to.

China sees itself as a leader of the developing world, but as it has grown richer from renewable technology and is increasingly to blame for the climate crisis (it is now the second biggest emitter), it is under more pressure to cut emissions and pay more to help others do the same. Brazilian diplomats expect their Brics partner to be a quiet but strong supporter of their agenda.

How far it goes is still to be seen, but the direction of travel is at least clear – and it is the opposite of the US.