Over the past 15 years, China has made significant progress towards meeting its green transition goals.
In 2024, China accounted for over 40% of global renewable energy capacity and invested $818 billion in its energy transition – more than double any other economy.
While geopolitics, regional conflicts, trade barriers and a shaky global economy have recently weakened global resolve on the green transition, experts believe China’s transformation will continue.
세계경제포럼, 2025년 7월 28일 게시
Michael Wang
Anchor, Global Business and BizTalk, China Global Television Network (CGTN)
“China is the birthplace of the global green industrial revolution,” Professor Elizabeth Thurbon of the University of New South Wales in Sydney told me at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin in June 2025.
Thurbon heads up the Green Energy Statecraft Project, which brings together Australia’s leading universities to explore “a more ambitious, strategic approach” to energy transition governance.
The idea of China as the cradle of the global green industrial revolution would have seemed far-fetched in 2013. I still remember standing atop an office tower in Beijing’s Central Business District that year, unable to see across the street due to thick smog.
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Fast forward a dozen years and China’s green transformation has been remarkable.
Numbers tracked by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) show that in 2024, China accounted for over 40% of global renewable energy capacity and nearly 77% of Asia’s total. BloombergNEF calculates that the Chinese mainland invested $818 billion in its energy transition in 2024 – more than double any other economy. By any measure, China is going big on green.
I asked Thurbon whether such massive investments are sustainable. She believes they are, noting that these investments build industries, generate revenues and create jobs.
Also at the Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Liu Zhenmin, told me that China’s commitment to its green transition is “very solid and very firm“, regardless of global changes.
But even the firmest resolve does not make an arduous journey any less complex.
China’s green transition goals
While many developed economies have 40 to 70 years to move from peak emissions to carbon neutrality, China aims to achieve this within 30 years – peaking before 2030 and reaching net zero before 2060.
China needs to get to net zero while maintaining energy security for 1.4 billion people and transforming the energy demands of the world’s largest industrial base. It must continue urbanizing, reach modernization targets by 2035, phase down a coal-rich resource base and meet growing energy needs as living standards rise.
If the world’s largest energy consumer can navigate these complexities and achieve its carbon goals, its entire energy system will be transformed. As Special Envoy Liu reminded participants at the Forum meeting, China wants non-fossil energy consumption to make up over 80% of its total energy mix by 2060.
Powerful forces are propelling China towards carbon neutrality.
Wider benefits of China’s green transition
Thurbon believes the Chinese government sees the green energy transition as a “massive national security multiplier”. This process is about more than cutting carbon emissions; it’s about strengthening China’s energy, economic, environmental, social and geostrategic security. These are strong incentives for China to achieve its dual carbon goals.
In her new co-authored book, Developmental Environmentalism, Thurbon describes North-East Asia’s green transitions as a form of Schumpeterian “creative destruction“, in which traditional processes are dismantled to make way for more innovative methods.
China is rapidly building up green energy industries – the “creative” side – while phasing down fossil fuels – the “destructive” side. This contrasts with many developed economies, which often debate phasing down fossil fuels without first investing in renewable systems.
China has an official term for this approach: xian li hou po (先立后破), meaning “build first, break later”.
When we spoke at the Annual Meeting, Thurbon highlighted the challenge of sequencing, noting that balancing emissions reduction and energy security remains a delicate act. But China has learned to navigate this dynamic by rapidly expanding renewables capacity, accelerating hydropower and nuclear construction, and improving energy sector efficiency.
Global green transition progress
Although China’s green transition is proceeding robustly, assessing the progress of the global green transition is becoming more difficult. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change. As he told me during meeting, China’s climate envoy believes the international community can take pride that, for the first time, so many countries have committed to global carbon neutrality.
But was 2015 the apogee of international cooperation? Today, the storm clouds of geopolitics, regional conflicts, trade barriers and a shaky global economy are weakening resolve to act on climate change. Near-term challenges appear more pressing than distant targets.
Climate financing from developed economies plays a key role in crowding in private investment for climate projects in developing countries. Liu said that the upcoming COP30 in Belém, Brazil, might be one of the most difficult of the past 30 years. If the world fails to use the next three to five years to accelerate the green transition, he warned that the global cost will rise significantly.
China has made the global green transition more cost-effective. Yet affordable Chinese clean tech is sometimes viewed as an “overcapacity” problem. China’s rapid growth in green transition industries such as solar panel, wind turbine and electric vehicle manufacturing provides global consumers with access to affordable green technologies. But the lower prices of these products compared to those made in the US or EU, for example, have triggered investigations, higher tariffs and market access restrictions in response to perceived trade imbalances.
Competitive tensions are one explanation for this. From a climate perspective, however, Thurbon argues: “There is no overcapacity in cheap renewables until we reach 100% renewables globally”. When we spoke during the Forum conference, she noted that the demands of the energy transition are so enormous that countries will inevitably find opportunities for themselves – or as partners with China – to support their own green transitions.
The future for China’s green transition
Will geopolitics hinder China’s green transition or accelerate it? On one hand, technology and trade restrictions pose obstacles. On the other, they might motivate Beijing to speed up its green transformation.
Thurbon believes the evidence suggests these factors are acting as a motivating force. “Since the eruption of the trade wars, we have seen China double down on its green transition,” she said.
When I asked her if a country as large and complex as China could become carbon negative – removing more CO₂ from the air than it emits – after achieving its carbon neutrality goal, she said she could only speculate. But she added: “What I can say is that, when China has committed to a goal in the past, it has tended to reach it. So, while it would be hugely ambitious, it would not surprise me.”
