China’s green superpower myth
Many in the West gaze in awe at China’s apparent dominance in green energy. “China is becoming a green superpower,” read a BBC headline last month. “China’s Green Triumph,” trumpeted The New York Times.
China is indeed churning out solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles (EVs), and batteries that flood global markets—proof, advocates say, of an inevitable green transition. Yet these supposed marvels are forged amid overwhelming and surging use of fossil fuels, particularly coal. China’s real energy achievements—dramatic energy ramp-ups to fuel prosperity, and advances in nuclear power—remain overlooked.
In 2025 the world invested $2.3 trillion in green energy. More than a third of that investment, $800 billion, came from China, nearly matching the United States and European Union combined. But spending isn’t the best measure of investment quality.
After China’s property sector crisis, capital flowed into the solar panel industry, creating vast overproduction and overcapacity. Chinese solar production capacity is now more than twice the global market—and every segment of its solar supply chain suffered losses throughout 2024, with margins often at minus 20 percent or lower, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). More than 40 companies have gone bankrupt and the industry has slashed a third of its workforce. Crucially, China’s solar panel production depends on coal: Every one of its silicon smelters requires its own coal-fired power station.
Investment is now pouring into EVs as automaking has become an economic pillar for local governments once reliant on land sales and real estate taxes. The auto industry and related services now account for one-tenth of China’s gross domestic product. Overcapacity is staggering: One prediction sees only 15 of China’s current 129 EV brands viable by 2030.
China wants to minimize its dependence on imported oil, so its consumers buy nearly two-thirds of all EVs sold globally—pushed by Beijing and lured by rock-bottom prices due to surplus production. Yet EV battery packs are manufactured using coal energy, and charged on a coal-dominated grid. A recent estimate shows that over its lifetime, a Chinese EV emits 85 to 90 percent of the CO2 of a gasoline car. Moreover, Chinese EVs are driven much less than conventional cars, spreading the carbon debt over fewer miles, resulting in higher per mile emissions.
EVs don’t help with air pollution either. One study found they reduced nitrogen oxides by about 1 percent, but increased far deadlier sulfur dioxide and particulate matter by 10 percent and 20 percent. China’s EV boom will increase these pollutants further. Without a radical shift, even CO2 emissions will rise.
While China added unprecedented solar and wind capacity in 2025, it also planned an unprecedented number of new coal power plants. China remains the world’s top coal consumer, with fossils supplying over 87 percent of its primary energy. Renewables’ share was 40 percent in 1971 when China was poor, but plummeted to 7.5 percent in 2011. Since then, it has risen slowly to just over 10 percent. On this trajectory, a full transition would take four centuries. The latest IEA data for 2023 shows China adding five times more coal than solar and wind energy.
So while the vision of China as a renewable superpower is mostly eco-propaganda, we should heed two lessons from Beijing’s energy policies.
First, China has dramatically scaled up energy use—and has grown rich in the process. The West, especially Europe, should abandon its self-imposed energy restrictions and follow suit. Consider fracking: Heavily restricted or banned across Europe, it has helped boost Chinese shale gas output by roughly 20 percent annually since 2017, putting China on track to become the world’s third largest gas producer—and making it more resilient than many other economies to price spikes from the Iran war.
Second, China is surging ahead in technologies that could truly decarbonize the planet at scale: nuclear fission and fusion. In the West, traditional nuclear has grown prohibitively expensive, with US construction costs tripling since the mid-1980s. The US has built only three new plants this century, at enormous cost and with 11 year timelines. Contrast this with China where reactors are completed in five years and costs have halved since 2000. China has expanded from three reactors in 2000 to 60 today, with 37 under construction (nearly half the global total), 42 planned, and 146 proposed.
Fourth-generation reactors, often small and modular, are designed for efficiency, affordability, minimal long-lived radioactive waste, and inherent safety. One report estimates China leads the US by 10 to 15 years. The world’s first such reactor began operating in China over two years ago, and China is deploying all six of the fourth-generation reactor types. On fusion, China dominates patents and has allocated more resources than all other countries.
This isn’t renewables redux; it’s a race for abundant energy. Green China is a sham—but it’s time to emulate Beijing’s real playbook by ramping up energy use and investment in nuclear research and development.
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Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.”
