Chart: Check out how fast China is shifting to renewables

Clean energy is starting to bend the curve on China’s fossil-fuel use.

Overall, carbon-free sources met more than 80% of China’s new electricity demand last year — a marked difference from recent years. Between 2011 and 2020, they met less than half of new demand, according to a new report from think tank Ember.

Thanks to China’s astonishingly fast rollout of carbon-free electricity, the country saw its fossil-fueled power generation fall by 2% in the first half of this year compared to the first six months of 2024. That’s a crucial metric to watch: China is the world’s largest source of planet-warming carbon emissions, and its electricity production generates more carbon dioxide than any other sector.

So far this year, the country has deployed 256 gigawatts of new solar capacity — double the amount it installed during the same period last year and orders of magnitude more than installed by the runner-up nations, India and the U.S. Earlier this year, China’s total solar and wind power capacity surpassed its coal-fired power capacity. In 2024, China installed more grid batteries than the U.S. and Europe combined. And the country is home to nearly half of the nuclear power plants currently under construction.

China’s overall fossil-fuel use could be about to decline, too. That’s because the nation is rapidly electrifying its economy — retooling more and more fuel-burning sectors, like transportation and heavy industry, to be powered by electrons instead of combustion. Electricity accounted for nearly one-third of the country’s final energy consumption in 2023, compared to less than a quarter for the U.S. and major European nations.

It’s yet more evidence that China is all in on becoming an ​“electrostate.” Meanwhile, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has lost its momentum in abandoning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. are still expected to fall under Trump, but more slowly than had been expected under Biden-era policies, as the federal government chooses to embrace fossil-fuel nostalgia over a clean-energy future.