Since Donald Trump came to power as US president in January, he has started the process to exit the Paris climate accord, slashed US spending on climate programmes at home and abroad, and slapped a 20% tariff on all Chinese imports.
These moves have raised questions about whether China will seize the opportunity to step up its global leadership on clean energy and align more closely with other supporters of the international climate regime.
Climate Home spoke to China specialist Rebecca Nadin about what Trump’s offensive on trade and the green transition could mean for relations between the world’s two biggest carbon emitters and for China’s climate policies.
Nadin is the director of the global risks and resilience team at ODI Global, a London-based think tank. She previously worked in China, advising the government on adaptation to climate change. Before that, she worked in the British Embassy in Beijing, specialising in Japan-China relations, Central Asia and energy security.
Climate Home: How might Trump’s abandonment of US and international climate action and efforts to use trade as a bargaining chip affect China’s climate policy?
Nadin: It won’t change too much. China will do what China’s doing. The climate community is calling on China to step up now and be this global leader – but its climate trajectory will always depend on how economically and domestically advantageous that is to China.
Donald Trump has pitched himself as “the tariffs guy” and you might think he would want to crush China’s dominant renewables sector. But Biden also put tariffs on the Chinese solar industry – so, in reality, that’s not such a shift.
Similarly, the Biden administration promoted mining of minerals needed for the energy transition in places like Zambia. Even if Trump doesn’t give a damn about the energy transition, a lot of these minerals are useful for the military or information technology, so this policy won’t change too much.
Electricity demand surges, expanding renewables and fossil fuels in 2024
China set out very clearly in its 14th five-year plan that it wants to dominate renewable energy. In 2023, it accounted for 65% of global wind capacity, and it also dominates the production and building of ships that are needed to transport offshore wind [equipment]. And it dominates the supply chain of a lot of those minerals that are needed for renewable tech.
It’s just announced a big investment, for example, in Kazakhstan in wind. So it is going to carry on doing that because, actually, I think the US market for China is relatively small. Most of China’s renewable tech focus is pretty much Southeast Asia – it’s regional.
Then this month, in what some are interpreting as a step to take on the mantle of global climate leadership, Chinese Premier Li Qiang noted that China would “actively engage in, and steer global environmental and climate governance”.
This is a welcome sign, but don’t expect any shift in terms of finance beyond what was agreed at COP29, where China agreed to a formula for the new finance goal for climate-vulnerable countries that would allow its contributions to be counted on a voluntary basis. China will continue to remind the world that it is willing, though not obliged, to help developing countries enhance their adaptability through South-South cooperation.
Q: How would you interpret the latest government announcements on China’s energy and economic policies – do they show that Beijing is serious about keeping up momentum towards its climate goals?
A: In December 2024, the state-owned oil refiner Sinopec announced that China’s oil consumption would peak in 2027. That’s quite a big statement! This is as demand for new energy vehicles, which don’t need oil, is soaring in China. On the other hand, they predict that demand for oil for jet and ship fuel will increase.
The other thing that struck me recently was from the Central Economic Work Conference. It’s one of the most important meetings of the Politburo that effectively sets China’s economic priorities and strategies. In 2024, there was not much mention of climate issues there, as it was all recovery from COVID-19 and the economic downturn, but this year you saw a real focus on the need to “advance China’s green low-carbon transition”.
And just this month Premier Li stressed that China would continue to move towards peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality with an acceleration of the integration of renewable energy into local grids and the construction of transmission routes. He also addressed the “coal conundrum” by indicating that China is going to launch low-carbon upgrade pilots for some of its coal-fired power plants.
With China, you have to be very pragmatic. In some areas, China’s doing good stuff. In others, it’s not. People put it in this area of “you’re a hawk or a dove” – and that’s just not a good way of understanding it.
Q: For example, China recently announced a package of major clean energy projects in a bid to peak emissions by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060 – but it also plans to keep increasing coal production too. What explains these seeming contradictions?
A: China is exposed to huge climate change risk – and it knows that. It also wants to keep benefiting from its world-leading renewable and green technology industries and, as an energy security-poor nation, to develop domestic renewable energy.
On the other hand, coal is still a primary energy source for China and that is because these energy sectors are still big employers in the poorest parts of the country – the industrial heartlands. Like other countries, China has to balance that just transition [away from coal] as well.
There is a stark realisation in China that the coal industry and the heavy polluting industries are big employers and that these individual provinces need to be supported in a transition away from that. These provinces can be huge – some have more than 100 million people – so it’s difficult. It’s like transitioning several countries.
This Australian coal community is co-designing its own green future
But [the Chinese authorities] have always understood the socio-economic benefits of addressing climate change. Even in the 1990s, climate policy was moved from the China Meteorological Administration to the predecessor of the National Development and Reform Commission. That showed they saw it not just as an environmental issue but as an issue of socio-economic development.
Q: China’s National Development and Reform Commission recently proposed a huge hydropower dam on the Tibetan plateau. What will be the implications of that – and is it a positive move?
A: The Tibetan Plateau is basically the Third Pole. It’s like the water tower of Asia – you’ve got all these major rivers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya basin. Putting a dam up in the Yarlung Tsangpo River would allow China to effectively control the lower riparian countries – India, Bangladesh – which originate rivers in the Brahmaputra. This could be really, really serious.
The engineering that’s required to build this dam is phenomenal because they’re effectively going to have to tunnel through the mountain, and this gorge is something like 3,000 metres deep. So what they’re expecting is that with the power of the water dropping through this gorge, the power production would be two or three times that of the Three Gorges Dam.
As the climate community, we need to also think a little bit about some of the trade-offs. China will meet its renewable energy targets with this dam, but then potentially you’ve got a massive issue with water flow into Bangladesh, India, Laos and all those countries. And the sediment – this is what happened with the Three Gorges [in the 1950s] – they dammed the Yellow River and all the sediment was trapped behind the dam. Then they had to release it. This basically messes up the soil (and) the nutrients. So you solve one problem, but you create another.
The post Q&A: China set to stay the course on green policies, despite Trump appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: China set to stay the course on green policies, despite Trump
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
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 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
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