Green Dragon

In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar photovoltaic capacity as the rest of the world combined, then went on in 2023 to double new solar installations, increase new wind capacity by 66%, and almost quadruple additions of energy storage. When the International Energy Authority issued its assessment of the pledge to triple renewable energy globally by 2030, it pointed out that the 50% increase in global renewable installations in 2023 was largely driven by China.

For the past two decades, China has been notorious as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, a country that also uses as much heavily polluting coal as the rest of the world combined. So how did it also become the world’s renewable powerhouse?

Part of the answer goes back to investment decisions made in the mid-2000s when China’s decades-long phase of rapid GDP growth was coming to an end. Labor costs were rising, and China’s development model, with its overwhelming dependence on coal, had plunged China into multiple crises of air, soil, and water pollution. In the first decade of this century, China’s emissions more than doubled, and by 2006 it had overtaken the U.S. to earn the unwelcome title of the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by volume.

China’s leadership was keenly aware of the negative diplomatic impacts of being the world’s worst polluter. In the 9th Five-Year Plan (1996–2000), China made strategic investments in all aspects of renewable technologies, from solar and wind capacity, green hydrogen, and geothermal projects to research and investment in battery storage and its supply chains.

Within a decade, China had largely achieved its goal of dominating not only the production of solar and wind technologies, but it had developed a near monopoly on every aspect of the supply chains, including the mining and processing of the rare-earths and strategic minerals essential for the clean energy revolution. Today, China has more than 80% of the world’s solar manufacturing capacity. The extraordinary scale of China’s renewables sector output has driven down prices worldwide, and this is a key factor in reducing the cost barrier to renewable systems for poorer countries. Today China not only holds important positions in wind and battery technologies, but a Chinese company, BYD, has become the world’s biggest EV manufacturer, and China is poised to pose a formidable global challenge in all aspects of electric transportation to established vehicle brands.

"Looking at global renewables growth rates is hugely misleading. There is not one single energy transition but a series of regional transitions of widely varying form, pace and scope. The outsized materiality of one — China’s — means global figures veil more than they reveal. They currently look impressive because, and only because, China’s do."