In China, the world’s leading carbon emitter, a massive buildout of solar power is beginning to push fossil fuels into decline. Last year China saw its emissions drop, even as demand for energy rose.
Emissions from energy and industry dropped by 0.3 percent in 2025, while consumption of energy rose by 3.5 percent, according to official statistics. Last year, renewables supplied 40 percent of power in China, up from 37 percent the previous year, with solar accounting for most of the growth. The added renewable power more than met the uptick in demand, and as a result, coal power fell slightly.
“This is an encouraging signal, as it suggests that the sort of large-scale energy transition which China has been investing heavily in has begun to translate into measurable outcomes,” said Duo Chan, a climate scientist at the University of Southampton. “Whilst one year of lower emissions does not mean that the climate challenge is solved, the scale of China’s deployment of renewables can lead us to hope that this may be the start of a sustained decline in its emissions.”
Analysts believe that China is planning for further declines in coal power. As renewables ramp up, it has begun retrofitting its fleet of coal plants to serve as a complement to wind and solar, rather than as a source of baseload power. Increasingly, coal generators will act as “peaker” plants, meeting spikes in power demand or gaps in the supply of wind and solar.
Along with the recent drop in coal power, an ongoing slump in construction has led to a decline in cement production, further pushing down emissions. And according to recent analysis from Carbon Brief, transport emissions likely also declined last year as China continued its shift to electric vehicles. Carbon Brief found that China’s carbon emissions have been either flat or falling for nearly two years, raising the prospect that it has finally passed “peak” emissions.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., renewables are continuing to gain ground, even as the Trump administration slashes support for clean energy and dismantles regulations on the burning of fossil fuels. Last year, U.S. utilities generated a record amount of clean energy, Bloomberg reported, and this year 93 percent of new power capacity will come from wind, solar, and batteries, according to a government estimate.
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