Clean Energy Exports From China Are Lowering Carbon Emissions In Other Countries

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A new report by Carbon Brief contains some pretty interesting news. It says China’s exports of clean energy technologies such as solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles are helping to cut emissions in other countries. In 2024, those exports helped reduce global emissions outside of China by 1% and will avoid some 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide over the useful life of those products. In addition, the global carbon dioxide savings from using these products for just one year more than outweighs the emissions from manufacturing them.

Carbon Brief based its analysis on a detailed assessment of clean-technology export flows, the carbon footprint of manufacturing these products and the “carbon intensity” of electricity generation in destination countries. The report also found:

• Manufacturing solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and wind turbines that were subsequently exported to other countries in 2024 created an estimated 110 million tons of carbon dioxide within China in 2024, which is less than the carbon dioxide reduction associated with the use and operation of those products in their first year of use.
• When factoring in China’s plans to build overseas manufacturing plants for clean energy products, as well as to construct overseas clean power projects, the avoided CO2 increases to 350 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
• That reduction amounts to 1.5% of global emissions outside China and is almost equal to the annual emissions of Australia.
• The largest emission reductions are associated with direct clean technology equipment exports — particularly solar panels — followed by manufacturing at Chinese factories overseas. Overseas projects financed by Chinese investors also contributed to the emissions reductions.

• China’s clean energy footprint almost spans the entire world, with exports to 191 of the 192 other UN member states, as well as manufacturing and project finance investments in dozens of countries.
• Clean energy exports from China in 2024 alone, along with its overseas investments from 2023 and 2024, are set to cut emissions in sub-Saharan Africa by around 3% annually once completed and in the Middle East and north Africa region by 4.5%.

Those are truly impressive numbers and have far more significance for other countries who are trying to lower their carbon emissions than the economic activities of any other nation. The United States, of course, should be leading this parade, but it is not, because its so-called leaders are little more than shills for the fossil fuel industry and think that more carbon emissions would be a good thing for all concerned.

Katharine Hayhoe On China

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe discussed this new research from Carbon Brief on her Substack channel, Talking Climate. While she was delighted by the report that China is actually responsible for lowering global climate emissions by a measurable amount, she also had other good news to report. Not so long ago, China was offering to build new coal-fired generating stations in Africa, part of its Belt and Road initiative to expand its influence to other parts of the world.

“In September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China would stop supporting new coal projects abroad. This pledge was made beyond the expectation of many observers as it seems to deviate from China’s long-standing approach of non-interference in its overseas development program,” Hayhoe writes. “What explains this striking policy shift? Drawing upon the literature on two-level games and the political economy of China’s overseas investment, we developed a novel analytical framework, which argues that China’s new policy is the combined outcome of three mechanisms.”

• issue linkages in intergovernmental bargaining
• lobbying of transnational alliances
• influence of domestic interest groups seeking policy change

The researchers say, “We used elite interviews, policy documents, and media reports to show the processes through which the changing market and political environments since 2017 led China’s leadership to make the commitment to phase out overseas coal finance in 2021. Our study contributes to the burgeoning literature on China’s influence on global energy transition by unpacking the complex policy-making processes of Chinese overseas investments and identifying different forces shaping the emerging sustainability governance system for China’s global engagement.”

Three Components

It turns out that “complex policymaking” process had three main components, and when they all came together, something unique and quite unexpected happened. First, Xi Jinping announced the new policy direction personally at an international forum, meaning that he was putting his personal reputation and credibility on the line. Second, “instead of asking Chinese companies to exit from coal on a case-by-case basis,” the Chinese government decided to enforce the moratorium at the national level. Third, instead of implementing the new policy gradually, the new policy constituted “a sudden rupture from previous practices.”

The researchers found that several factors contributed to the abrupt shift in policy: pressure from industries that produce solar, wind, and electric cars within China, international influence that culminated in an agreement between Special Climate Envoy John Kerry from the United States with senior Chinese representative  Xie Zhenhua in September, 2021, and an increase in demand for Chinese-made clean energy products. When Japan and South Korea both agreed to limit their financial support for coal in other countries, that left China as the only major country doing so.

Internal Vs. External Politics

The researches also note that disavowing investments in coal infrastructure overseas was much easier for the Chinese government to do than limiting the use of coal-fired electricity domestically. Internally, the country encouraged a spate of new coal-fired generation to pull its industrial sector out of the economic turmoil created by the Covid 19 pandemic. But China has always been clear that the surge in coal-based power was a tactical decision based on necessity, while it remains committed to the strategic goal of transitioning to a low or zero emissions economy.

China has set a goal of becoming a net-zero economy by 2060, ten years later than the target many western countries have set for themselves. The difference is, China is actually taking action to make its plans a reality; the rest of the world is mostly just talking about what they may do, sometime in the future.

Give Biden Credit

The key consideration here is the climate leadership role taken by the Biden administration, which influenced both European and Asian policy decisions. The chaos created internationally by the current administration risks undoing that progress, as we are witnessing today in Geneva where a UN convention to draft new rules for plastics is on the verge of collapse, due largely to obstructionist tactics by the US.

Some may be bored by all this talk of politics. But as regular CleanTechnica reader Are Hansen pointed out recently in a comment, the Greek statesman Pericles is reported to have said, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” Elections have consequences and those consequences have international ramifications. Just because the price of eggs went up recently is no reason to elect demagogues to positions of power.

To drive home how significant an impact Chinese clean energy exports are having on the global community, take a look at this chart Carbon Brief created based on the Hayhoe study. Then imagine what it would look like if it reflected the impact of US exports on those same countries. Yikes! Do they make circles that small?

People are always yammering about how to lower carbon emissions. We can suck the carbon dioxide out of the air, turn it into stone, send it via pipelines to be sequestered in abandoned mines. We can put mirrors in space to reflect some of the sun’s rays away or spew sulfur particles in the upper atmosphere to cool the Earth.

Or we can stop burning fossil fuels and convert to renewable energy. Such a simple choice to make; so hard for most people to see why we should make it. China gets a lot of criticism, much of it well deserved, but when it comes to clean energy, it is far and away the global leader. Perhaps we should stop beating China over the head for its faults and learn from its successes instead?