Christine Shearer is project manager of the Global Coal Plant Tracker at Global Energy Monitor.
During a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, former U.S. president and GOP candidate Donald Trump stated that China is building one new coal plant a week and “doesn’t do anything” environmentally clean. This information was cited as a reason that the U.S. should flout the international Paris climate agreement and continue pursuing fossil fuels.
My organization researched the data the former president misconstrued on China’s energy mix – and we’d like to set the record straight.
It’s true that in 2023 China commissioned about 50 gigawatts (GW) of coal power, roughly equal to a new 1-GW coal plant a week – nearly twice as much as in 2021 and 2022. The increase is believed to have been largely fuelled by instability in global supply chains and energy market fluctuations due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Yet the utilization of China’s coal plants has been hovering around 50% – in other words, they are just as likely to be unused as used. The Chinese government itself appears to be conceding they are a poor investment, with coal plant approvals falling nearly 85% in the first half of 2024 compared to H1 2023.
Plans to turn Europe’s biggest coal mine into a leisure lake prove divisive
While China is building new coal plants, the idea that “China doesn’t do anything” environmentally clean is “pants on fire” false. To the contrary, in the first nine months of 2024 China built an estimated 195 GW of solar and wind power. That is nearly four times as much as the 43 GW utility-scale solar and wind capacity and 7 GW of solar residential power the U.S. is expected to build in all of 2024. And China isn’t stopping: two-thirds of the utility-scale wind and solar capacity in construction worldwide is in China.
In short, China is building about 20 solar and wind farms a week – and growing.
Global leader in clean energy
China also dominates the manufacturing and sales of electric vehicles (EVs), due to government support for advanced developments in battery technologies. The country is home to over half of global EVs, with sales of EVs in China now outpacing conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. Its EV industry is the largest in the world.
Quite simply, when it comes to clean energy, China is clearly the global leader. One analysis published on CarbonBrief, estimates that China’s pursuit of clean energy was the main driver of the country’s 5.2% GDP growth in 2023, contributing $1.6 trillion to China’s economy.
Indian coal giants pushed for lax pollution rules while ramping up production
Rather than replicate the success of China’s clean energy industries, Trump would rather slap tariffs on them and again withdraw the U.S. from the global Paris climate agreement. GOP opposition to clean power is holding the U.S. back from its full potential in capitalizing on this growing industry and leaving Democrats to pursue clean energy policies and international climate diplomacy without Republican support.
In 2022 the Biden Administration signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the country’s largest clean energy bill to date incentivizing the production of clean energy technologies. Since its passage, companies have announced over $110 billion in clean energy manufacturing investments, creating an estimated 170,000 jobs to date and projected to spur over 1.5 million clean energy jobs over the next decade.
Model for the U.S.
The growth in clean energy is projected to save Americans nearly $40 billion in lower electricity bills by 2030, as solar and wind power have no fuel costs. Greater usage of clean energy will also lessen the country’s exposure to fossil fuel price volatility, which drove an estimated one-third of recent inflation.
Not one Republican supported the IRA, and the party’s threat of a filibuster confined the legislation to a budget reconciliation bill with only “carrots” for clean energy and no “sticks” for fossil fuels like a price on carbon emissions – despite the mounting evidence that carbon emissions cost much more in other ways, including the growing number and intensity of multi-billion-dollar “natural” disasters.
Republicans like Trump often point to China’s continued propping up of under-used coal plants as a reason to stick to fossil fuels. If re-elected, Trump would almost certainly exit the U.S. from the Paris agreement again, creating a permission structure for other countries to do the same. Yet Trump leaves out how China’s embrace of clean energy is leading to a multi-trillion-dollar industry – one the U.S. and the world could replicate.
The post What Trump got wrong on China, coal and climate appeared first on Climate Home News.
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight
The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.