Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Climate on agenda at post-two sessions forums
‘UNWAVERING’ ON CLIMATE: “China will “unwaveringly” follow a low-carbon pathway, said environment vice-minister Li Gao at the China Development Forum (CDF) – a high-level and business-focused event traditionally held after China’s two sessions – according to business news outlet China Economic Times. Wang Jinsong, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, said China’s energy system will feature both “multi-energy” sources and “risk resilience”, reported industry news outlet BJX News. Liu Shijin, advisor at the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development said China must develop “accountability mechanisms” and “quantitative” emissions reduction targets, said finance news outlet Sina Finance. CDF attendees included Chinese premier Li Qiang, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) head Huang Runqiu and National Development and Reform Commission chairman Zheng Shanjie, according to CDF organisers.
‘DEAL WITH IT’: Regarding international tensions over Chinese industrial exports, Bloomberg quoted Premier Li saying “we take our trading partners’ concerns seriously”, adding China has made “positive progress” in tackling the intense competition plaguing several industries, including clean-energy technologies. Nevertheless, consultancy Trivium China said in a note that the broad message at CDF was: “Yes, we’ve got an export-oriented growth model. Deal with it.”
IRAN IMPETUS: Meanwhile, Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin attended the Bo’ao Forum for Asia in Hainan province, where he told Bloomberg that he “expects” the US will return to the Paris Agreement after the Trump administration. He added that the Middle East conflict will “definitely” not cause an oil or gas crisis in China, but had “convinced the government, at all levels, to speed up the energy transition”. (See Spotlight below.)
KOREA COOPERATION: The Bo’ao forum, a high-level platform for policymakers, business leaders and academics often compared to Davos, also featured a China-South Korea climate roundtable, where China Daily quoted former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calling for climate solutions that “transcend borders”. A few days earlier, China and South Korea held their first climate dialogue in seven years, said the World Korea, where talks included this year’s COP31 climate talks in Turkey, renewable energy and carbon markets.
Sinopec says cleantech pushed down profits in 2025
PRE-IRAN SQUEEZE: All of China’s three-largest oil and gas companies saw profits fall in 2025, with Sinopec seeing a 36.8% decline last year due to “rising substitution by new energy” and “weak” margins, according to Reuters. PetroChina’s net profits fell 4.5% year-on-year, said Securities Times, despite an increase in production. CNOOC’s profits were down 11.5% year-on-year, said Reuters, largely due to low oil prices. (These figures predate the impact of the Iran war. Oil and gas firms have been enjoying windfall gains since the start of the conflict.)
EV PROFITS: Meanwhile, a “growing roster” of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are becoming profitable, reported industry outlet Inside EVs, with Leapmotor, Nio and XPeng announcing they have recently made profits for the first time. This has come partially at the expense of BYD, which saw its profits fall “for the first time in four years” due to price wars in China reaching a “fever pitch”, reported the Financial Times. A growing number of Chinese car dealerships are focused on EVs, said finance news outlet Yicai. Yicai also reported that dealerships around the world are seeing a “surge” in demand for Chinese EVs as the conflict in the Middle East raises petrol prices.
Ming Yang factory plans rejected
‘UNWISE DEPENDENCIES’: The UK government has rejected plans by Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Ming Yang to invest up to £1.5bn in a factory in Scotland, citing national security concerns, reported the Financial Times. In a statement to the UK parliament, energy minister Michael Shanks said the government “will always act to protect our national security” and is “committed” to developing “resilient and sustainable offshore wind supply chains”. Liam Byrne, chair of the parliamentary business and trade committee, said in a statement that the UK cannot “create…new and unwise dependencies”.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “China Briefing” email newsletter. All you need to know about the latest developments relating to China and climate change. Sent to your inbox every Thursday.
‘MISSED OPPORTUNITY’: In a response reposted by energy news outlet China Energy Net, Ming Yang said the government has “missed a critical opportunity” to partner with a company that has “no comparable [European] alternatives”. It said it had attempted to address security concerns through proposals such as only processing data onshore. An analysis in the Scotsman said that, while there were “genuine” concerns, “alignment with Japan and the EU on cybersecurity and energy” and US opposition drove the decision. The South China Morning Post cited an unnamed source saying the move was “likely” due to direct US pressure. On the same day, an investment by Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas was approved, reported BBC News, with Maf Smith, director of advisory firm Lumen and previously deputy chief executive of Renewable UK, asking on LinkedIn: “Coincidence?”
‘SKYROCKETING’ SOLAR: Elsewhere, Chinese solar exports to Cuba “skyrocketed” from $5m to $117m between 2023 and 2025 – even before the intensification of the US oil blockade, reported the Washington Post. China and the Philippines are “exploring” oil and gas cooperation in the disputed South China Sea following supply disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict, said Reuters. China has also “exported cargoes of diesel and other fuels” across south-east Asia, said Bloomberg, although Reuters said China would “extend its ban on refined fuel exports into April”.
More China news
- IPCC’S ‘LONGER TIMELINE’: Governments failed to agree if a key climate report should be published in 2028, ahead of COP33, with China among the countries arguing for a “longer timeline”, said Carbon Brief.
- SICHUAN SOJOURN: Premier Li toured several clean-energy sites in a visit to Sichuan province, urging officials to “continuously expand” capacity and “focus” on developing a “new-type power grid”, reported state news agency Xinhua.
- ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS: The central government has said small hydropower projects must stay within the limits of what the local environment can tolerate, reported the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily.
- MEE INVESTIGATES: In recent inspections, the MEE criticised several bodies, including steel, power and coal firms, on “reckless” development of ”dual-high” projects and poor execution of “their…low-carbon transitions”, said the People’s Daily.
- TRADE WAR POSITIONING: China has “launched a sweeping investigation” into US cleantech trade barriers, said Bloomberg.
- ENERGY EFFICIENCY: The Chinese government has published an action plan for high-quality “energy-saving equipment”, including a focus on hydrogen electrolysers and other power equipment, said Xinhua.
Captured
Steel produced by electric arc furnaces (EAFs), as opposed to burning coking coal, could account for at least 73% of China’s total steel production in 2060, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clear Air (CREA). Under this scenario, EAF uptake could cause steel-sector emissions to fall to 1.3bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2035, “representing a nearly 37% reduction” from peak levels.
Spotlight
How Chinese media has been covering the Iran energy crisis
As the closure of the Strait of Hormuz wreaks havoc on fossil-fuel supplies across the world, a prominent narrative in western media has been that low-carbon energy has helped mitigate the worst of the impact on China. While Chinese-language media has featured similar arguments, it has also highlighted China’s coal industry and broader energy security narratives.
In this edition, Carbon Brief looks at how Chinese news outlets have covered the implications of the US and Israel war with Iran on energy use.
As the conflict intensified, several Chinese-language outlets put the spotlight on China’s clean-energy infrastructure.
The tensions highlight the “importance” of energy security and the energy transition, wrote Bo’ao forum secretary-general Zhang Jun in a commentary for the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily.
The China Youth Daily, a party-run newspaper oriented towards younger readers, said the conflict has “exacerbated” fragile energy supply chains, underscoring the need to “develop new energy sources for energy security”.
Building “localised” clean-energy capacity is a “strategic necessity”, as well as an important aspect of climate action, wrote Wang Ning, associate researcher at the government-affiliated Institute of World Economy in the state-supporting Global Times.
Meanwhile, Liu Ying, research fellow at Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, told Xinhua that China is well-placed to benefit if the crisis catalyses a “restructuring of the global energy order” and hastens uptake of solar and wind power.
Echoing this sentiment, WeChat account Photovoltaic News, which is run by an unnamed individual, said: “New energy is precisely the core of China’s strength.”
Coal is king?
However, the broader commentary on the war has tended to emphasise China’s “all-of-the-above” approach to the energy transition.
A “sharp commentary” in the People’s Daily – a designation for comments that the newspaper finds important – said that a range of initiatives, from “diversified energy imports” to “vigorous development of green energy” allowed China to “secure its energy supply” and “take the initiative in energy security”.
Similarly, an editorial in commercial news outlet 21st Century Business Herald said that China is “less likely to face direct impacts from this oil crisis” because of its reliance on both coal and renewables.
It also noted the opportunity that the conflict represented in terms of greater global demand for Chinese clean-energy technology.
Coal’s role in the energy mix as a “ballast” and “peak-shaving” tool “continues to strengthen”, said economic news outlet Jiemian – although the outlet also acknowledged China’s “vigorous” clean-energy additions.
Pro-coal accounts on WeChat especially emphasised the fuel’s role in the crisis.
Coal will “continue to serve as the cornerstone of energy supply”, said Coal Vision, a WeChat account run by Xiamen Zhengzhuo Trading, a firm that trades coal and other commodities.
Similarly, Guizhou Coal Data argued: “When a real emergency strikes, you have to ask: which energy source do we truly control? There’s only one answer: coal.” The account is run by the information services firm Guizhou Yuteng Coal Industry Big Data Information Center.
Several outlets also highlighted China’s efforts to secure gas supplies from elsewhere.
Wen Shaoqing, columnist at nationalist outlet Guancha, wrote that an agreement between China and Turkmenistan shortly after the conflict began that reaffirmed plans to develop a new gas pipeline represented a “strategic” move to secure the “nation’s survival”.
Notably, two articles in Guancha summarising foreign outlets’ coverage of China’s response – both emphasising the role renewable energy played in insulating China from the energy shock – also received more than 100,000 views.
Security in coal chemicals
Meanwhile, Xinhua published an article on “turning China’s advantage in coal resources into an advantage in developing natural gas”, although it did not explicitly mention Iran. It added that the head of China’s state-owned PetroChina Coalbed Methane Co argued that coalbed methane could “propel China from [being] an energy giant to an energy powerhouse”.
Shortly after the Xinhua article was published, Jiemian said China had a responsibility to develop coalbed methane to “secure our energy self-sufficiency”.
Similarly, several news outlets covered the “boon” that the war might be for China’s coal-chemical industry.
An article posted by WeChat account Xinghai Intelligence Bureau argued that China’s development of a coal-chemical industry, rather than “new energy”, is what prepared it for “worst-case scenarios” such as the war. The account is run by technology media company Beijing Lightspeed Time Network Technology.
Finance news outlet EastMoney said that the “strategic value” of China’s coal-chemical industry will likely rise “against the backdrop of growing global instability”.
Watch, read, listen
RURAL SOLAR: New Security Beat published an on-the-ground look at how a rooftop solar push is playing out in a rural village in China.
TARGET TESTED: 21st Century Business Herald examined China’s new 17% carbon-intensity target, noting that projects already underway will take up a “significant portion of the carbon-emission growth allowance for the five-year plan”.
ELECTRON PIVOT: Redefining Energy spoke to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies’ Dr Michal Meidan on the factors driving China’s energy transition.
GEOTHERMAL LIMITS: ChinaTalk outlined the evolution of China’s approach to geothermal energy and the constraints that have limited uptake.
470%
How much Chinese solar exports to the Middle East grew year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, according to WeChat news account Photovoltaic Box.
New science
- “International climate policy actors” play an “overlooked yet critical” role in fostering climate policy “stability” in China through their links with policymakers | Environmental Politics
- Climate change will degrade peatlands in Sichuan province over the coming century, driving biodiversity shifts and a decline in species richness | Frontiers in Plant Science
Recently published on WeChat
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 2 April 2026: EV profits rise | Ming Yang rejected | Iran war appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 2 April 2026: EV profits rise | Ming Yang rejected | Iran war
After witnessing and hearing stories of Pacific islands’ vulnerability to climate change, senior climate officials have promised to strengthen efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C, despite an expected overshoot, and to help the region adapt to rising seas and other impacts.
More than 30 world leaders, ministers, climate negotiators and international development bankers travelled to the sinking atoll nation of Tuvalu on Tuesday before attending the pre-COP31 talks in Fiji, where schoolchildren told them about the effects warming-driven droughts, heatwaves and storms are having on their education.
Australia and the Pacific nations hoped to use the pre-COP to reinforce the urgency of tackling climate change to the officials from around 50 countries who travelled to the region. Fiji’s climate minister, Lynda Tabuya, told a closing press conference on Thursday they had wanted to “bring decision-makers to the climate frontlines”.
Many of those decision-makers said they had been moved by what they had seen and heard this week, and their speeches emphasised the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, a key goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
-
Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu
Island nations seek invest in their own Pacific Resilience Facility, as they struggle with the red-tape of international climate funds -
New Zealand accused of breaching EU trade deal over climate rollbacks
The EU’s climate trade rules face their first major test after a green group alleged New Zealand violated binding environmental provisions under its trade deal with the bloc
In September, a UN report acknowledged that the 1.5C threshold will be breached but said temperatures could still be brought back down to that level by the end of the century with stepped-up climate action.
A month ago, Türkiye‘s COP31 President Murat Kurum told a press conference in the northern Turkish city of Trabzon that limiting global warming to 1.5C “does not really look possible”, adding that “around 1.5C, that will be a success”.
But after seeing the “anxiety” of children and mothers in Tuvalu caused by rising sea levels, Kurum told reporters in Fiji that 1.5C is a “matter of survival – the survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes – it’s that important.”
“The 1.5C target is in jeopardy and we do not have a single minute, a single day to lose,” he added through an interpreter.
Jacobo Ocharan, head of political strategies at Climate Action Network International, warned that “words of concern will not protect anyone”. “The Pacific has shown the world what is at stake. Now governments must show they are ready to act,” he said. “[COP31 in] Antalya must deliver decisions that change people’s lives for the better.”
$1.5 billion for 1.5C
In Fiji, Kurum echoed the call of Australia and Pacific nations for contributions to the fledgling Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which aims to use the returns on its investments to fund community climate adaptation projects like water storage, building sea walls and protecting homes from storms. “$1.5 billion for 1.5 degrees will save the Pacific,” he said. “It’s that easy. Life will continue in Tuvalu. Children will be smiling again.”
Sitting next to him, Fiji’s Tabuya said she was “encouraged” by his words. “$1.5 billion for 1.5. We will hold COP 31 to that,” she said. The PRF has been promised just under $200 million so far – including about $15 million pledged by European and Pacific governments at pre-COP – and is aiming for $500 million by COP31. It has a longer-term target of mobilising $1.5 billion in capital.
After Pacific leaders on Tuesday aired a litany of concerns about the barriers to accessing the global climate finance system, Kurum joined in at Thursday’s press conference. “Justice in climate finance is essential,” he said. “Resources must reach those in need in a timely and accessible manner, not through a lot of red-tape, and we cannot accept that the same countries should always bear the burden.”
Plan for easier access to climate finance
Australian climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, who is COP31’s president of negotiations, also lamented that “the countries that need the finance the most get it the least”. He said he would ask governments and multilateral development banks to support an access to finance plan for small island states and the world’s poorest nations, launched by Australia on Thursday.
The plan says that while there has been progress in making it easier and quicker to obtain international climate funding, “multiple persistent challenges have continued to limit access to climate finance for developing countries”.
It adds that the amounts available are insufficient to meet climate goals and stresses the need for “grant-based and highly concessional financing”, especially for adaptation and responding to loss and damage. The plan proposes an annual high-level forum on climate finance access to track implementation.
The pre-COP summit closed with an emotional plea from Fiji’s host minister Tabuya. Fighting back tears before finally succumbing, she asked delegates to “carry something of the Pacific with you”.
“Remember the people you met, the stories you heard and why we gathered. This pre-COP draws to a close tonight. Our responsibility does not,” she said to applause.
The post Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Climate Change
Australia’s climate credibility tested at Pacific Pre-COP talks, as High Court fossil fuel ruling puts government on notice
NADI, FIJI Thursday 8 October 2026 — As the Pacific Pre-COP talks wrap up and Australia prepares to take the reins of COP31 Negotiations in Türkiye next month, Greenpeace Australia Pacific says the government is on notice over fossil fuel expansion and exports, and must accelerate action to align with a 1.5°C pathway.
Following yesterday’s landmark High Court ruling that the climate impacts of coal and gas exports must be considered by New South Wales planning authorities, Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on the Albanese government to find the “courage, leadership and grit” to chart a new course away from fossil fuels.
High res images and video from yesterday’s ‘Keep 1.5C Alive’ flotilla in Nadi can be found here
Speaking from Nadi, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“The outcomes of this week’s talks are a drop in the ocean given the scale of need, and urgency of the crisis our communities are facing. It is like taking a glass of water to a burning house if we do not urgently act to address the root cause of the existential threat facing Tuvalu, Fiji and all Pacific countries: fossil fuel expansion.
“The Electrification Pledge must end fossil fuel dependence, not be an end in itself — its ultimate success depends on ensuring electricity comes from renewable sources that displace fossil fuels and align with a 1.5°C pathway. It must be underpinned by justice and backed by finance flowing from polluters to communities.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is a non-negotiable survival line for humanit