As another year of record emissions draws to an end, it’s worth looking back on what’s been achieved.
Like every year, the quick answer is more than nothing but less than enough. To dissect that in more detail, here are our six takeaways from the year in climate.
1. Oil and gas felt the heat
Phasing out or down fossil fuels? Abated or unabated? Scaling up renewables, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and techno solutions. Energy dilemmas, and their buzzwords animated international talks in 2023.
The headline breakthrough came at the end. The Cop28 agreement included for the first time a goal to move away from all fossil fuels in energy systems.
It was the centrepiece of a bigger package that included a call for the tripling of renewables and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.
But it also gave a platform to “transitional fuels” (read gas) and CCS, which some politicians and campaigners regard as “dangerous loopholes” for continued fossil fuel use.
Cop hosts the UAE and most developed countries welcomed the deal as “historic”. For small island states and other vulnerable nations it did not go far enough.
Like most Cop agreements, it was the result of a hard-won compromise struck in overtime – after Saudi-led opposition threatened to leave oil and gas out of the text altogether.
Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber applauds in the closing plenary (Photo: Flickr/Cop28/Christopher Pike)
The road to Dubai had been equally bumpy. The G7 saw fights over gas and coal with hosts Japan attempting to push controversial strategies like ammonia co-firing.
The G20 in Delhi offered a dress rehearsal of what was to expect at Cop with broad agreement over renewables and bitter disputes over fossil fuels.
In the background, Sultan Al Jaber, oil executive turned Cop president, garnered constant curiosity and scrutiny. He was initially adamant that the focus should be on emissions and not on the fuels themselves, raising more than an eyebrow. But, amid a series of controversies and apparent slip-ups, his position gradually shifted.
Al Jaber contended the Dubai deal would be enough to keep the 1.5C goal in sight. A day later he told the Guardian that Adnoc, the oil firm he runs, would press ahead with a massive oil and gas expansion.
Other rich nations, like the US, keep him company on that front. Such chasms between words and actions will continue to be closely watched.
2. Slow progress on climate cash
The other side of the coin from the fossil fuels debate is finance. When rich countries ask their developing counterparts to sign on to ambitious energy transition plans, many reply: ‘who is going to be paying for that?’
When governments wrangled over targets for adapting to climate change, similar questions were asked.
A clear answer was never forthcoming. We might get more clarity in 2024, with governments set to discuss, and hopefully agree on, a new collective goal at Cop29 in Baku in November.
But a lack of trust has taken root. Rich countries have so far not respected the previous commitment to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to vulnerable countries.
That was “likely” met in 2022, two years after the original deadline, according to the OECD. We will be looking out for the receipts for confirmation.
Countries were also invited to refill the coffers of the Green Climate Fund. The four-yearly replenishment round got off to a decent start, but an underwhelming pledging summit in October put ambition at risk.
Then the US landed in Dubai in December with a $3 billion funding promise. It brought total pledges to $12.8 billion – setting the GCF on course for a “middling” level of ambition.
But that comes with a gigantic caveat. To deliver the dollars, the Biden administration will have to persuade Republicans in Congress or take control of it by winning elections. Both are tall orders.
Graphic: Joe Thwaites/NRDC
Money talked outside UN diplomacy too. Lots of attention centred on the much-touted reforms of multilateral development banks inspired by the Bridgetown Agenda.
Progress has been slower than many were hoping for. The World Bank lowered its equity-to-loan ratio, freeing up $4 billion a year.
It also installed a new more climate-aware president, officially changed its mission statement and promised pauses in debt repayments for disaster-hit countries. Encouraging steps, but far short of the trillions of dollars developing countries have been calling for.
3.US-China climate talks thawed
Formal diplomatic relations between the world’s biggest polluters suffered an ice-age-like deep freeze in the latter part of 2022 after US Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. Climate talks were collateral damage.
But 2023 saw a slow but steady thawing. It culminated in a momentous bilateral meeting held in Califonia’s Sunnylands resort a few weeks before Cop28.
The countries’ respective climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, agreed to revive a climate working group and sketched out the outline of a potential alignment in the upcoming negotiations.
It proved decisive. In particular, their joint support to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation” helped find the right formula to unstick the thorny energy language in Dubai.
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua before a meeting in Beijing, China July 17, 2023. (Reuters/Valerie Volcovici/ File Photo)
The special personal relationship between Kerry and Xie was a big factor in these improved relations.
When formal diplomacy was on hold, the two kept talking. Xie even brought his grandson to Dubai because the 8-year-old wanted to say “happy birthday to my good friend Mr. Kerry”, who turned 80 during the summit.
But Cop28 was most likely their last hurrah together. Xie is set to retire soon ending a 16-years on-and-off stint. He is likely to be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, a former vice foreign minister.
Kerry has been vague about his future with US elections looming large on the horizon. He recently told Reuters that he would “continue as long as God gives me the breath and work on it [climate] one way or the other”.
4. Carbon credits terrible year
To say 2023 won’t be remembered as carbon credits’ finest year is an understatement. It began with a now-infamous report pouring cold water on forestry-based offsets and ended with talks over Article 6 falling apart spectacularly in Dubai.
In between, scandal after scandal dented the reputation of carbon markets. From the collapse of the world’s second largest project to the suspension of dozens of schemes over exaggerated claims or alleged human rights violations. The blowback prompted even some of the most enthusiastic corporate credits buyers to cool on the idea.
Co-chairs of negotiations at Cop28 on carbon trading rules
(Photo: Flickr/Cop28/Kiara Worth)
Many carbon market supporters had pinned hopes on Cop28 for a spot of good news. Ahead of the talks, it looked like governments could finally fire the starting gun on the creation of a long-awaited global carbon market under the Paris Agreement.
But those hopes were misplaced. Negotiations ended without an outcome following a bitter disagreement over integrity rules between the US and the EU.
Leaping on the string of failures, some critics have been pushing for the whole concept of carbon offsetting to be chucked into the dustbin of history.
But others claim carbon markets provide an essential source of finance for developing nations, love it or loathe it. They are trying to build them back up from the nadir with more stringent climate provisions and better social safeguards.
5. Coal-to-clean deals reality check
As promises turned into proper plans, Just energy transition partnerships (Jetp) hit the cold wall of reality in 2023. The three initial deals – with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam – have all been beset by issues.
The type of money put on the table by rich nations has been a source of common grievance. Grants make up a very small percentage of the funding packages, fuelling fears over debt. As a result, recipient countries revised climate targets downwards.
The energy transition deal aims to wean Indonesia off coal, which now takes up nearly half of the country’s electricity mix. Photo: Kemal Jufri / Greenpeace
Indonesia has watered down coal retirement plans. It now aims to start shutting down on-grid plants before their scheduled closure no earlier than 2035 – five years later than originally planned.
So-called captive plants, that power specific industries, have also caused a massive headache. Wrong assumptions meant a much lower number of them were baked in the original modelling. Struggling to find a way out, the Indonesian government has so far excluded them – and their emissions – wholesale from the Jetp blueprint.
Vietnam’s investment plan, unveiled during Cop28, has no timeline at all for retiring coal. It expects instead to operate plants “flexibly” and to rely on the controversial co-firing of biomass and ammonia with coal.
The authoritarian Vietnamese government has also all but buried the ‘just’ aspect of the partnership. It has jailed five environmentalists on tax evasion charges, which human rights groups say are trumped-up accusations.
Vietnamese campaigner Hoang Thi Minh Hong was sentenced to three years in prison. Photo: CHANGE/350Vietnam
In South Africa, the transition is meant to be reasonably easier as its Apartheid-era coal plants are nearing retirement. But crippling blackouts prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to say the timetable “must be relooked at” earlier this year.
The plan is also facing fierce opposition from the powerful coal lobby. Our investigation with Oxpeckers discovered the sector partnered with politicians and even managed to water down or delay key policies in a bid to sink the scheme.
6. Loss and damage fund’s good start
As the Cop27 president gavelled the landmark decision on a loss and damage fund in Sharm-el-Sheik, a question loomed large: will countries manage to agree on how it should work within the following 12 months?
‘Yes, definitely’ was the answer.
Governments adopted the decision on operationalising the fund on the very first day of Cop28. It gave the summit’s president Al Jaber an early win and prevented loss and damage from being used as a bargaining chip in the ensuing negotiations.
The success is down to the painstaking work of a 24-member transitional committee that hashed out the details over five gruelling meetings. At the outset, developed and developing countries were at odds on just about everything: who should benefit from the fund, who is expected to pay into it, where it’s meant to be hosted.
Distances gradually narrowed and a compromise deal was eventually struck a month before the climate summit. The World Bank will initially host the fund for four years, despite strong resistance to its involvement from developing nations.
Campaigners at Cop27 call for a loss and damage fund to be set up (Photo credit: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)
All developing countries “particularly vulnerable” to the effects of climate change will be eligible to benefit from the mechanism. However, the definition of vulnerability – one of the thorniest issues – has not yet been defined.
The decision “urges” developed countries to provide financial resources to the fund, while other nations are only “encouraged” to do so “on a voluntary basis”. Rich nations have been strongly pushing to broaden the donor pool and will likely keep up their efforts.
Pledges from a slew of countries should inject over $700 million for the start-up of the fund. The UAE won plaudits by committing $100 million. The US was lambasted for offering a paltry $17.5m, despite being the world’s largest economy and biggest historical emitter.
The post Six takeaways from 2023’s climate change news appeared first on Climate Home News.
As competition for minerals needed to produce clean energy technologies intensifies, a growing number of countries have resorted to an age-old mechanism to cope with the threat of scarcity: stockpiling.
The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies.
But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition by intensifying competition and pushing up prices of key materials needed to produce clean energy technologies, research published today has found.
“If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News.
Stockpiling “is happening, whether we like it or not”, said Miller. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to have it in a coordinated manner that means we don’t have massive market volatility and adverse implications from every country trying to go at it alone,” he added.
The rise of stockpiles
A growing number of governments have adopted national stockpiling programmes in response to heightened geopolitical tensions around mineral supply chains.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a critical mineral reserve known as “Project Vault” to protect American businesses from shortages after China imposed export restrictions on rare earth supplies.
Beijing suspended the measures until November as part of a trade truce with Washington but the episode spooked Western governments and exposed how strategic materials can be weaponised to achieve geopolitical objectives.
Australia, China, the EU and India have also announced measures to create strategic mineral reserves. Japan and South Korea already have long-standing mineral stockpiling programmes.
“Legitimate concerns”
“There are legitimate concerns with regards to potential global shortages of these minerals,” said Miller, citing rapidly rising and concurrent mineral demand for the energy transition, AI, data centres, and military technologies, combined with underinvestment in new supplies for some minerals, such as copper.
While stockpiling can serve as an emergency response mechanism during acute shortages, it does nothing to address the underlying concentration risks in mineral supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds around 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves, for example, while China dominates the processing of 19 out of 20 minerals deemed critical by a large number of nations.
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A new report by an EU-funded research project says the bloc could harness its “urban mines” to reduce its dependence on China for energy transition minerals -
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China’s grip on global supply chains is turbocharging efforts to find alternatives to the small group of metals that dominate EV motor technology -
The US’s critical minerals club threatens an equitable clean energy transition
Washington’s minerals trading bloc will shore up supplies for the US’s digital and military sectors and risks diverting resources away from cleantech
Uncoordinated stockpiling programmes risk heightening the price volatility they are designed to hedge against, according to the report.
Researchers found that if Australia, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea and the US simultaneously built reserves of minerals to cover six months of imports, the aggregate stockpile demand could represent up to 34% of global annual cobalt supply and over 10% of global lithium, graphite and copper supply. That could cause a shock to the market, triggering the shortages and price spikes they are trying to avoid.
Miller said it was unlikely that every country would stockpile at that rate, but aggregate stockpiling demand of just 5% of global mineral supply would have an impact on prices.
Coordinating stockpiles: a role for the IEA?
Researchers found that avoiding the negative impacts of stockpiling requires global coordination over how mineral stocks are accumulated and released – a mechanism which already exists for other commodities, including oil.
Coordination should include agreed rules for countries to build up their stocks over a slow and staggered timeline and pre-agreed conditions for releasing reserves to provide market predictability and reduce the risk of price spikes.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), which was established after the 1970s oil crisis to coordinate emergency oil stock releases among member countries, is best placed to oversee such a mechanism, they say.
Earlier this year, IEA member countries called on the agency to strengthen its work on critical minerals, including by providing support to countries “that choose to establish and expand critical minerals stockpiling systems”.
But Miller and his co-author Pau Morandi, a policy fellow at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, argue that members should go one step further and mandate the IEA to coordinate the security of supplies, rather than only helping individual governments.
The IEA has been contacted for comment.
A call to action for the G7
Miller said he hoped the research could be picked up by the G7 group of wealthy countries, which could lead on mandating the IEA to take on this coordination role.
France, which is presiding over the group this year and is hosting leaders in Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in mid-June, has made strengthening the resilience of critical minerals value chains a priority.
In a communique last month, finance ministers agreed to “deepen and expand our cooperation among G7 members and with like-minded partners” to strengthen and diversify critical mineral supply chains and to continue discussions “on how to best organise analytical cooperation”.
Sebastien Treyer, executive director of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), said he hoped the G7 leaders’ summit can help move the discussion on critical minerals towards greater international cooperation to secure the resources the world needs to build a clean economy.
From inclusive and mutually beneficial partnerships to mine resources to stockpiling minerals, “we need to coordinate more like a trade organisation than something that is about securing supply,” he said.
The post The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs appeared first on Climate Home News.
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
Climate Change
DeBriefed 5 June 2026: UK eyes 2040 emissions cut | US ‘dismantling’ oceans research | China’s solar slump
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
UK proposes new emissions target
‘ON COURSE’: The UK government has proposed reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040, reported the Associated Press. The newswire cited scientists saying that the goal “puts the UK on course to meet its 2050 net-zero target”. To meet this target, the UK would “need to invest around £880bn over 25 years…but doing so would yield benefits worth £1,620bn”, according to an in-depth analysis of the plans by Carbon Brief.
UPCOMING ‘FLASHPOINT’: The Financial Times noted that, for the target to become “legally binding”, it must be approved by parliament. While the UK’s previous carbon budget “received cross-party support”, this time the proposal is “expected to become a flashpoint among lawmakers”, it added, with both the Conservatives and Reform pledging to “scrap” net-zero policies.
DRIVING FORCE: Separately, a new report by consultancy Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Economics has valued the UK’s “net-zero economy” at more than £100bn a year, reported the Guardian. It added that, by a broad measure, the UK energy transition supports 1.1m jobs and provides “nearly 4% of the UK’s economic output”.
US ‘dismantling’ oceans data
SYSTEMS OFFLINE: The Trump administration is “dismantling” a “$368m deep-ocean observation system” that, among other things, allows scientists to monitor the ocean currents that affect the global climate and understand how the “ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”, said the New York Times. Bloomberg reported that Trump’s efforts to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a key climate science research institution, has been “temporarily blocked” by a judge.
RULE ROLLBACK: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent body that regulates US securities markets, has proposed repealing the climate-disclosure rule, which “requires some public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from global warming”, said the Associated Press. The Trump administration also announced plans to allocate $700m to support “clean, beautiful coal” power and export infrastructure, said BBC News.
Around the world
- EU EXEMPTIONS: The EU will allow member states to breach the bloc’s fiscal rules to “cope with high energy prices stoked by the Iran war”, as long as the measures they use help “accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels”, reported Bloomberg.
- SLOW SPENDING: The German government has only paid out €24bn of the €37bn it was “supposed to disburse” in 2025 from a special fund for infrastructure and “climate neutrality”, reported Clean Energy Wire.
- URGENT WARNING: UN secretary-general António Guterres said a likely upcoming El Niño weather event must be treated as the “urgent climate warning it is”, said Al Jazeera.
- HOEKSTRA ON COP: The outcomes of many of the most recent COPs have been “underwhelming”, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has said, according to Reuters. COPs should be supplemented by “smaller groups…who are willing to move faster”, he added.
3,400
The number of excess deaths across India caused by a single day of extreme heat, according to coverage in the Hindustan Times of a new study.
30,000
Excess deaths caused if the extreme heat lasts five days.
Latest climate research
- In a 1.5C warmer world, the timing of floods will shift by more than seven days across half of the world’s landmass | Nature Communications
- Temperature and rainfall together account for more than 13% of methane generated from landfills in Incheon, South Korea | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
- The postponed International Maritime Organisation “net-zero framework” could increase biofuel use in shipping to 40% by 2050 | Nature Energy
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
China’s carbon dioxide emissions grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026 due to a rise in “wasted” wind and solar generation, according to new analysis for Carbon Brief. However, emissions remain below their March 2024 peak, it added.
Spotlight
Why China’s solar boom is slowing down
China made headlines in 2025 for installing record levels of solar. But in 2026, new capacity is expected to be lower than last year’s figures.
This week, Carbon Brief examines what is behind China’s lower 2026 solar additions.
Solar power has been a major element of China’s renewables buildout since the mid-2010s.
The country installed 315 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2025, adding more than half of all new solar globally. The year before, it added 277GW.
But the picture in 2026 to date is very different. Installations in March fell 56% year-on-year to 9GW, while new capacity in April totalled 10GW, a 79% drop compared to a year earlier, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of official data.
Domestic uncertainty
The lower pace in 2026 had been anticipated by analysts.
In previous years, massive solar installations were driven by strong policy support for renewables, including a fixed-price tariff for generators.
In February 2025, the government announced that new solar and wind projects would instead be financed through a new “contract for difference” (CfD)-style system.
Under the new system, power from a certain amount of renewable capacity will be purchased for a fixed “strike price”, which to date has been far lower than previous guaranteed tariffs. Further projects will need to secure their own contracts on the open market.
While the new system is posing challenges for developers in the short term, it is part of a longer-term shift towards market-driven pricing for renewables, which has already made them cheaper than coal.
The change led to a rush of new project installations ahead of the June 2025 cut-off date, so that they could fall under the old fixed-price regime.
New solar additions totalled 45GW in April 2025 and 93GW in May 2025, before falling to 14GW in June 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis of government data.
Additions also spiked in December, in both 2024 and 2025, as developers raced to meet completion deadlines including those under the 14th five-year plan.
Some reports have attributed the precipitous drop this year to falling demand for solar in China.
But this is a “major oversimplification”, David Fishman, principal at energy consultancy the Lantau Group, wrote on LinkedIn.
The real challenge, he said, is that “developers and banks [are] still figuring out how to finance and build projects without policy-backed revenue guarantees”.
Yang Biqing, energy analyst for Asia at thinktank Ember, agrees, telling Carbon Brief that the new CfD-style system has created “greater uncertainty” for developers, compounded by fierce competition and a growing push for “consolidation” in the industry.
The government set a target for 200GW of new solar and wind capacity in 2026.
Fishman told Carbon Brief that this will be “difficult” for the government to achieve, though not impossible. Current levels of solar additions – reaching perhaps 120GW for the year – plus an “ambitious” 80GW of new wind power, could help China to hit the target, he said.
Others are more bullish. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association forecasts 180-240GW of new solar in 2026.
But few believe additions will match the breakneck pace of 2025.
“China’s solar industry is no longer a story of capacity expansion”, said Yang, with officials now “increasingly” focused on integrating current generation into the grid.
Soaring exports
Meanwhile, China’s solar exports are still going strong.
China exported almost 1.2m tonnes of solar cells in April 2026, according to Reuters. Although down from a record high in March, it represented a 60% rise year-on-year, added the newswire.
This signals solar’s attractiveness globally in the face of rising energy prices caused by the Iran-US conflict, analysts have said.
High demand for panels has been reported across several continents, including Europe, Asia and Africa.
For example, in the Philippines, the conflict is “driving” solar uptake, one analyst told the Associated Press, adding:
“People want solar and people want solar now.”
A version of this article is also available on the Carbon Brief website.
Watch, read, listen
EL NIÑO IMPACTS: An interactive piece from BBC News described how the forecasted “super” El Niño could impact global climate and weather in the coming months.
‘CAUTIONARY TALE’: Two researchers wrote in Climate Home News that “Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale”.
‘CULTURE WAR’: Time magazine spoke to London mayor Sadiq Khan about how he “survived the climate culture war”.
Coming up
- 8 June: World Ocean Day
- 8-18 June: Bonn climate talks, Bonn, Germany
- 11 June: Climate Adaptation Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean webinar, online
Pick of the jobs
- The New York Times, climate policy correspondent | Salary: $124,980-$160,000. Location: Washington DC
- Regulatory Assistance Project, associate, electricity systems and electrification | Salary: €50,000-€60,000. Location: Madrid and remote
- Future Energy Networks, head of policy | Salary: £75,000-£100,000. Location: London and remote
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 5 June 2026: UK eyes 2040 emissions cut | US ‘dismantling’ oceans research | China’s solar slump appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Solar power has been a major element of China’s renewables buildout since the mid-2010s.
The country installed 315 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2025, adding more than half of all new solar globally. The year before, it added 277GW.
But the picture in 2026 to date is very different. Installations in March fell 56% year-on-year to 9GW, while new capacity in April totalled 10GW, a 79% drop compared to a year earlier, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of official data.
Domestic uncertainty
The lower pace in 2026 had been anticipated by analysts.
In previous years, massive solar installations were driven by strong policy support for renewables, including a fixed-price tariff for generators.
In February 2025, the government announced that new solar and wind projects would instead be financed through a new “contract for difference” (CfD)-style system.
Under the new system, power from a certain amount of renewable capacity will be purchased for a fixed “strike price”, which to date has been far lower than previous guaranteed tariffs. Further projects will need to secure their own contracts on the open market.
While the new system is posing challenges for developers in the short term, it is part of a longer-term shift towards market-driven pricing for renewables, which has already made them cheaper than coal.
The change led to a rush of new project installations ahead of the June 2025 cut-off date, so that they could fall under the old fixed-price regime.
New solar additions totalled 45GW in April 2025 and 93GW in May 2025, before falling to 14GW in June 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis of government data.
Additions also spiked in December, in both 2024 and 2025, as developers raced to meet completion deadlines including those under the 14th five-year plan.
Some reports have attributed the precipitous drop this year to falling demand for solar in China.
But this is a “major oversimplification”, David Fishman, principal at energy consultancy the Lantau Group, wrote on LinkedIn.
The real challenge, he said, is that “developers and banks [are] still figuring out how to finance and build projects without policy-backed revenue guarantees”.
Yang Biqing, energy analyst for Asia at thinktank Ember, agrees, telling Carbon Brief that the new CfD-style system has created “greater uncertainty” for developers, compounded by fierce competition and a growing push for “consolidation” in the industry.
The government set a target for 200GW of new solar and wind capacity in 2026.
Fishman tells Carbon Brief that this will be “difficult” for the government to achieve, though not impossible. Current levels of solar additions – reaching perhaps 120GW for the year – plus an “ambitious” 80GW of new wind power, could help China to hit the target, he says.
Others are more bullish. The China Photovoltaic Industry Association forecasts 180-240GW of new solar in 2026.
But few believe additions will match the breakneck pace of 2025.
“China’s solar industry is no longer a story of capacity expansion”, says Yang, with officials now “increasingly” focused on integrating current generation into the grid.
Soaring exports
Meanwhile, China’s solar exports are still going strong.
China exported almost 1.2m tonnes of solar cells in April 2026, according to Reuters. Although down from a record high in March, it represented a 60% rise year-on-year, added the newswire.
This signals solar’s attractiveness globally in the face of rising energy prices caused by the Iran-US conflict, analysts have said.
High demand for panels has been reported across several continents, including Europe, Asia and Africa.
For example, in the Philippines, the conflict is “driving” solar uptake, one analyst told the Associated Press, adding:
“People want solar and people want solar now.”
The post Chart: Why China’s solar boom is slowing down appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
DeBriefed 5 June 2026: UK eyes 2040 emissions cut | US ‘dismantling’ oceans research | China’s solar slump
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