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China’s emissions have shown signs of plateauing, marking a major climate milestone.
CO2 emissions from fuel combustion fell 1.2 percent year-on-year (YoY) in Q1 2025, the first drop tied directly to rapid clean energy deployment. This shift is bolstered by President Xi Jinping’s new 2035 climate pledge, covering all sectors and greenhouse gases. A stronger Nationally Determined Contribution could drive an earlier, deeper emissions peak before 2030 and faster decline toward the 2060 neutrality goal.
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Renewables are reshaping China’s power system at record speed.
China added 277 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 79 GW of wind in 2024, reaching its 2030 target six years early. Renewables now make up over half of installed capacity. However, transformation requires more than capacity expansion: market reforms and grid flexibility are urgently needed to ensure power grid reliability and system efficiency.
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Industrial decarbonisation is accelerating, led by electrification.
Energy intensity fell 3.5 percent in 2024, avoiding 130 million tonnes CO₂, as firms are scaling up clean technologies like electrification and green hydrogen. Yet coal chemicals expansion and weak carbon pricing undermine progress. Sustained momentum depends on scaling electrification, boosting circularity and stimulating green product demand, supported by stronger carbon pricing.
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A just coal transition is imperative amid continued new coal expansion.
Despite record renewable growth, China began construction on 94.5 GW of new coal power in 2024 – the highest since 2015. To avoid long-term carbon lock-in, it must stop issuing new permits and optimise the utilisation of existing assets. Ensuring a just transition in coal-dependent provinces is essential to align energy security with climate commitments.
China's energy transition and climate status report
July 2025 edition: Tracking emissions, energy mix and sectoral trends at a glance
Introduction
In 2024, China contributed more than half of the world’s newly installed wind and solar capacity, reaffirming its leadership role in advancing the global pledge to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. However, as China navigates its ongoing transition, it faces complex trade-offs between economic growth, emissions abatement and energy security, with policy decisions requiring precise and reliable data. Accounting for approximately one-third of global carbon emissions, China's policy choices and implementation pathways will significantly shape the course of the global climate agenda.
To facilitate evidence-based analysis, Agora Energy China in collaboration with Agora Energiewende has prepared a comprehensive new analytic slide deck that examines the latest developments in China’s energy and climate landscape during 2024/2025. The slide deck provides in-depth coverage of emission trends and intensity changes, transformation in energy consumption and supply structures, sector-specific transitions, analysis of recent policy signals and other data-driven insights.
