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
China called for ‘strengthened’ climate cooperation
‘URGENT ACTION’: As the COP30 climate talks in Brazil drew to a close (see today’s spotlight below), world leaders gathered in South Africa for the G20 summit, where China’s premier Li Qiang urged countries to “strengthen ecological and environmental cooperation”, “take urgent action” on climate issues and “accelerate” implementation of COP30’s outcomes, state news agency Xinhua said. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said that, due to the US being a “no-show”, “China and its allies drove the consensus” leading to the final G20 leaders’ declaration, adding that it “delivered major wins for African countries on debt, climate and critical minerals processing”.
-
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.
MINERALS REGIMES: The G20 declaration included a call to ensure critical mineral value-chain resilience, highlighting “geopolitical tensions, unilateral trade measures inconsistent with [World Trade Organization] rules, pandemics or natural disasters” as potential risks, Bloomberg reported, in a “seemingly veiled reference to China’s sweeping export curbs”. Bloomberg also quoted Li defending China’s need to “cautiously manage” critical-mineral exports for military use, adding that China launched a “green mining initiative with 19 nations” at the summit.
MINING TIES: Meanwhile, China and South Africa agreed an “initiative for supporting Africa’s modernisation” pledging to “assist Africa in achieving a fair, just, open and inclusive green and low-carbon transition”, according to the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily. The text also “encourages countries to strengthen international cooperation on green infrastructure and green mining”, including in “building responsible, transparent, stable and resilient critical mineral value chains”. Reuters said that, in a meeting between the Chinese and German government, Li “pitched stronger ties” in the face of tensions over rare-earth minerals. The UK has “rolled out a critical minerals strategy designed to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers by 2035”, Reuters also reported.
‘SPECIAL’ CONNECTION: Li highlighted China and Russia’s “special, strategic” cooperation in the “oil, gas, coal and nuclear sectors” in talks with Russia’s prime minister, Reuters said. However, at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Moscow, Li said governments “should work together to advance green and low-carbon transformation”, the People’s Daily reported. Executive vice-premier Ding Xuexiang also said at the China-Russia energy business forum that the two countries should “deepen cooperation on energy transition”, the People’s Daily also said. Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom is “pushing ahead with plans” for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, according to the Financial Times, which added that Chinese officials have yet to confirm the project.
Coal covered October’s power surge
COAL BACKUP: A heatwave in southern China in October caused a surge in power demand, with “coal-power plants picking up the slack amid slow growth in renewables”, Bloomberg reported. This could “make it difficult” for the country to see a plateau or reduction in carbon emissions this year, it added. David Fishman, principal at the consultancy Lantau Group, theorised on Twitter that this could have been due to the rigidity of China’s power-purchasing mechanisms, availability of coal power on spot markets and poor wind-power generation in October.
SLOWING APPROVALS: China’s permitting for new coal-fired power units is on track to hit its lowest level since 2021, according to new research from Greenpeace East Asia. Around 42 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity was permitted in the first three quarters of 2025, it said, noting that the amount of new coal power approved between 2021-2025 was still “more than twice the total permitted” between 2016-2020. Separately, Swiss bank UBS estimated that power demand in China will grow 8% between 2028 and 2030, said finance outlet Yicai.
RENEWABLES RISE: Meanwhile, 13GW of new solar capacity was added in October, as well as 9GW of wind and 8GW of thermal power, reported Bloomberg. According to energy news outlet BJX News, from January to October 2025, China added 253GW of solar, 70GW of wind and 65GW of thermal power, mostly coal.
Managing industry emissions
MARKETS EXPAND: China has approved plans to expand its national carbon market “via a test system” some time this year, reported Bloomberg, effectively confirming that steel, aluminum and cement will be covered in the mechanism by the end of 2025. The government has also released its third batch of methodologies for its voluntary carbon market, all of which are projects related to the country’s oil and gas sector, according to energy news outlet China Energy Net.
SUPER-POLLUTANT PLAN: Separately, the government issued two plans restricting the manufacturing of products using the potent greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and a particular type of hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), such as refrigerators, freezers and insulation foam boards, reported state news agency Xinhua. An interview with an environment ministry official on the state-run China Environment News noted that the policies “clarify” that the HFC controls “include exported household refrigerators and freezers”, although it “excludes vehicle-mounted refrigerators”. Experts had previously told Carbon Brief that exported products were not covered by an action plan to enhance China’s HFC controls published in April that governs these two policies.
ALL-IN ON HYDROGEN: “Green hydrogen” capacity is being “ramp[ed] up”, said Bloomberg, with several projects coming online in the past few months “after Beijing signaled its continued support” for the sector. The government has “backed [hydrogen] tech with several pilot projects this year” and allowed the sector to access “carbon credits to help with funding”, it added. China has also developed its first “coal-to-chemicals project integrating green hydrogen”, which is forecast to produce 71m cubic metres of hydrogen per year, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, the hydrogen industry has also launched its first “anti-involution” initiative, pledging to avoid or prohibit actions such as “below-cost bidding”, “false planning” and “blind pessimism”, said economic news outlet Jiemian.
Spotlight
How China approached COP30 endgame
As negotiations at COP30 entered their final stages, China’s positions in several of the debates proved to be central to discussions.
Below is an excerpt of our coverage of what China said, wanted and got at COP30. The full article is available on Carbon Brief’s website.
Climate finance
One of China’s key priorities – the provision of “financial resources” from developed to developing countries under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement – proved to be a significant sticking point in negotiations.
With discussions on climate finance looming large, China proposed during the second week the development of a “practical roadmap for implementation”, predominantly by developed countries, of the $300bn per year “NCQG” climate-finance goal.
China delegation head Li Gao said this would help “avoid blame-shifting…and prevent further erosion of trust” on climate finance.
In the end, while COP30 resulted in a plan within the mutirão decision to develop a “two-year work programme on climate finance” that included a mention of Article 9.1, it was situated within the “context of Article 9…as a whole”. This means that developing countries’ contributions also fall under its scope.
“The EU needed to spend its biggest leverage [at COP30] to adjust the adaptation-finance goal,” Kate Logan, director of the China climate hub and climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), told Carbon Brief.
EU-China non-alignment
There was a marked lack of EU-China coordination at COP30 overall, despite efforts to develop a united stance in July.
Multiple observers told Carbon Brief that early negotiations featured a rancorous back-and-forth between the two on the ambitiousness of their respective 2035 emissions reduction targets.
Another point of contention between the two was the role of “unilateral trade measures” (UTMs), which the “like-minded” bloc of developing countries (LMDCs, of which China is a member) asked to be included on the agenda.
Japan, the EU and others argued that other fora would be “more appropriate” for discussions. The EU also implied that China’s critical-mineral export restrictions could also fall into the scope of discussion, should the item be included.
Ultimately, China and others secured its inclusion in the mutirão text and agreement on three annual dialogues on UTMs, culminating in a “high-level event” and report in 2028.
China was also among the countries present for the COP30 presidency’s launch of an integrated forum on climate change and trade, although Carbon Brief understands that it has not formally joined the platform.
Meanwhile, a mention of critical minerals in a draft just-transition text – a potential first for COP – was deleted by the final version.
Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne, told Carbon Brief: “Even though the EU is worried about China’s trade measures on [critical materials], it still wants to strike a deal with Beijing.”
Fossil-fuel fracas
China also faced significant pressure on its approach to mitigating emissions.
It was not among countries supporting the idea of a roadmap away from fossil fuels as part of the COP30 outcome. It also opposed calls to emphasise the 1.5C temperature limit, instead “requesting the entire Paris Agreement temperature goal [which includes “well-below” 2C]…be mentioned”.
While the final mutirão text does emphasise the 1.5C limit, fossil fuels were not explicitly mentioned.
Arguments by China that the UAE dialogue should not become a “mini-GST [global stocktake]” also seem to have been considered, with no mention of an annual agenda item in the final outcomes.
The mutirão text “sends a red alert” on the consensus on fossil fuels, Greenpeace East Asia’s global policy advisor Yao Zhe told Carbon Brief.
But Li Shuo, director of ASPI’s China climate hub, said that, despite this, China’s prior agreement to transition away from fossil fuels would “guide its domestic energy reforms”.
Watch, read, listen
VISUALISING CHANGE: Greenpeace East Asia published its work with Chu Weimin, who has used drone photography to document how China’s clean-energy transition is reshaping “landscapes, communities and people’s everyday lives”.
CLIMATE ENVOY’S DEBRIEF: Climate envoy Liu Zhenmin explained why China felt a fossil-fuel roadmap was “unfeasible”, in a wide-ranging interview with the Paper held at the end of COP30.
NDC AMBITION: The Outrage + Optimism podcast spoke with Wang Yi, vice-chair of China’s expert panel on climate change, among others, during week two of COP30.
MISCONCEPTIONS: Wang Binbin, founding director of the Climate Future Global Innovation Lab, explained the thinking behind China’s climate strategy – and how mistranslations underplay its ambition – for China News.
60
The number of nuclear reactor units in China, once the newest unit at Fujian Zhangzhou nuclear power plant – the world’s “largest Hualong One nuclear power base” – completes final checks, Jiemian reported. The unit began delivering power to the grid on 22 November.
New science
Climate warming and forest expansion significantly enhance China’s forest methane sink
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
China’s forest methane sink “significantly increased” over 1982-2020, according to new research. The paper used a database of “forest methane fluxes” to produce a map of changes in forest methane uptake, finding that rising temperatures, decreasing soil moisture and forest expansion were the main drivers of the increased methane sink. The authors said their study “highlights the positive contribution of climate warming-drying and afforestation to methane sink enhancement”.
Quantifying global climate change impacts on daily record-breaking temperature events in China over the past six decades
International Journal of Climatology
A new study found that summer record-breaking high-temperature events occurred more frequently in China than “theoretically predicted”, while winter record-breaking low-temperature events occurred less frequently. The authors carried out statistical analysis of record-breaking events, using daily surface-air temperature data, collected over 1960-2023 from around 2,300 meteorological stations across China. They found a “more pronounced acceleration” in the frequency of high-temperature record-breaking events after the year 2020.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 27 November 2025: COP30 wraps; Climate and critical minerals at G20; Coal use up appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 27 November 2025: COP30 wraps; Climate and critical minerals at G20; Coal use up
A bill, newly passed by legislators, will expand the state’s capacity to enforce limits on health-harming emissions in overburdened communities.
After years of fighting to curb toxic pollution in communities of color, Illinois activists are celebrating a step forward.
In a Years-Long Fight, the Illinois Environmental Justice Movement Gets a Win
The lead attorney for the 22 plaintiffs said the court has “slammed the courthouse doors on children fighting for their lives.”
A federal appeals court has sided with the Trump administration and 19 Republican-led states in a constitutional challenge to several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders designed to boost fossil fuels, concluding that the youth plaintiffs failed to bring a viable case against the federal government. In affirming a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, called Lighthiser v. Trump, the appeals court said that it was not the role of the judiciary to supervise government energy policy.
Appeals Court Affirms Dismissal of Youth Climate Case Against Trump
In 2021, amidst a wave of corporate net-zero targets, a campaign group called Investors for Paris Compliance was set up in British Columbia, aiming to use investor pressure to hold Canadian companies to account on their climate promises.
In the five years since, the group has notched up several wins: pressuring National Bank into providing $20 billion of finance to renewable energy, getting Royal Bank of Canada to improve its green finance labels and persuading 20-25% of investors to regularly back climate proposals at annual general meetings (AGMs) for shareholders.
But last month, the group’s then executive director Matt Price put out a statement saying it was shutting down. Despite some progress, Price explained, his organisation had concluded that “investor accountability has reached its limits”.
Companies and their investors often understand that climate change threatens the economic system, Price said. But, he added, they do not respond adequately because they are worried that, if they do, their competitors will not put in as much effort and could therefore gain a financial advantage.
-
Santa Marta process can confront trade protection for fossil fuels, experts say
Academics at the first fossil fuel phase-out summit urged governments to recognise investor protection treaties as a barrier to the energy transition -
Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale
The government has abandoned its plan to shut down a major coal plant, which was a key part of the deal, raising doubts about the donor-backed approach -
After another battery startup bankruptcy, can Europe ever cut reliance on China?
Norway’s Morrow Batteries set out to challenge Chinese producers, but a cash crunch forced it to file for bankruptcy in a setback for European ambitions for clean energy sovereignty
This “tragedy of the commons” situation cannot be fixed by shareholder advocacy, Price said, but instead needs litigation, regulatory action and accountability mechanisms. “Some of our team will take those things on in new initiatives,” he said.
Price’s words echo the findings of a London School of Economics (LSE) report published last month, based on workshops with asset owners and managers in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.
Government policy key
The LSE report noted that “action by investors on climate change is severely constrained by their duties, the limited tools at their disposal and the pathways of technology development”. To be effective, pressure from climate-conscious investors must be coupled with government policy that incentivises green investment and technological innovation, the authors concluded.
An investigation by the Guardian recently found that, despite overwhelming shareholder support for its climate action plan, Australian mining company BHP has carried on buying polluting diesel trucks instead of electric ones. The Australian government subsidises diesel, saving BHP hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
As EU acts to stop greenwash, funds drop climate claims from their names
Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for investment research firm Morningstar, told Climate Home News that investor activism does work but it “doesn’t do everything that people expected it to do towards the beginning of the 2020s”.
“There is a limit to what can be achieved by minority shareholders exercising their votes and engaging with companies. Quite a lot, it does seem, is reliant on the legal and regulatory framework,” he said, adding that the closure of Investors for Paris Compliance shows this “realisation is sinking in a lot more than perhaps it was in 2020, 2021, 2022”.
Decline of investor activism
Stewart said that in the early 2020s, investor activists were pushing companies for “things that were sort of already on the regulatory conveyor belt anyway”, like companies setting targets for their operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, disclosing their carbon footprints, and assessing their exposure to risk from climate change.
With this low-hanging fruit picked, green-minded investors have moved on to make demands that are more controversial and have received less support from other investors, he said. He gave examples of just transition reporting, green capital expenditure financing ratios for banks and disclosing emissions from the use of products a company sells, known as Scope 3 emissions.
On top of this, Stewart said, there has been pressure from the “right-wing political establishment in the US” against investors taking climate change into consideration. BlackRock, which manages $9.5 trillion of assets, has walked back its climate commitments after pressure from US Republicans.
More fundamentally, Stewart described the idea that fossil fuel majors would dismantle their oil and gas business and transform into renewables companies as a “pipe dream on the part of environmentalists”. “Why would they have the skill or capability, or even the stakeholder backing, to completely transform a business of that size?” he asked.
Shareholder activism is only possible at privately owned and listed companies, while most investment in oil and gas is now coming from state-owned companies, like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. In 2025, less than a quarter of investment was from oil majors like BP and Shell.
Business backlash shows power
Yet despite the uphill climb, Mark van Baal defends shareholder activism. He runs an Amsterdam-based campaign group called Follow This, which has tried to get investors to vote for pro-climate resolutions at the AGMs of oil and gas multinationals.
He accepts that success peaked around 2021, but says the effort oil and gas firms are now putting into winning over shareholders and discouraging pro-climate resolutions – which he characterised as “the Empire Strikes Back” – shows the power of shareholder activism, which was previously underestimated.
In January 2024, ExxonMobil sued Follow This, aiming to block the group’s climate resolution. Fearing the case would end up in the Supreme Court, where conservative judges could set an anti-climate precedent, Follow This withdrew the resolution.
But, said van Baal, although the legal battle created a “chilling effect among investors”, it is a “proof point that shareholder pressure works and that they’re really afraid of the shareholders”.
Vote, don’t sell
Stewart and van Baal both agreed that selling, or threatening to sell off shares is not an effective way to change a company’s behaviour.
It allows less climate-conscious investors to buy the shares, they said, adding that there is no evidence that threats to sell shares and therefore lower the valuation over climate concerns have influenced company management.
Van Baal said the share price is set by short-term traders, not long-term shareholders like the pension funds he works with.
How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets
Nonetheless, investors’ engagement should be forceful, van Baal insisted – and not just within their comfort zone of talking to management about sustainability behind closed doors without voting for it at AGMs. “Shareholder democracy is the only democracy where voting is called escalation,” he said.
The Follow This website says that only investors can stop fossil fuel companies destroying the planet. “Marches didn’t change their minds. Lawsuits didn’t stop them. But shareholders can,” it trumpets.
But van Baal told Climate Home News this wording is “too strong” and may have to be revised, adding that shareholder activism just “fits me more than gluing myself to roads” and is a tactic he “stumbled on” 11 years ago.
Legal, political and investor activism can reinforce each other, he added. When Friends of the Earth sued Shell alleging inadequate climate action, for example, the green group’s lawyers cited the company’s rejection of a Follow This resolution as evidence. “The pressure needs to come from all sides,” van Baal said.
The post Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism appeared first on Climate Home News.
Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism
-
Climate Change10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy7 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测