China rushes to build out solar, and emissions edge downward
[August 21, 2025] By
KEN MORITSUGU and NG HAN GUAN
TALATAN, China (AP) — High on the Tibetan plateau, Chinese government
officials last month showed off what they say will be the world's
largest solar farm when completed — 610 square kilometers (235 square
miles), the size of the American city of Chicago.
China has been installing solar panels at a blistering pace, far faster
than anywhere else in the world, and the investment is starting to pay
off. A study released Thursday found that the country's carbon emissions
edged down 1% in the first six months of the year compared to a year
earlier, extending a trend that began in March 2024.
The good news is China's carbon emissions may have peaked well ahead of
a government target of doing so before 2030. But China, the world's
biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, will need to bring them down much
more sharply to play its part in slowing global climate change.
For China to reach its declared goal of carbon neutrality by 2060,
emissions would need to fall 3% on average over the next 35 years, said
Lauri Myllyvirta, the Finland-based author of the study and lead analyst
at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
“China needs to get to that 3% territory as soon as possible,” he said.
China's emissions have fallen even as it uses more electricity
China's emissions have fallen before during economic slowdowns. What's
different this time is electricity demand is growing — up 3.7% in the
first half of this year — but the increase in power from solar, wind and
nuclear has easily outpaced that, according to Myllyvirta, who analyzes
the most recent data in a study published on the U.K.-based Carbon Brief
website.
“We’re talking really for the first time about a structural declining
trend in China’s emissions,” he said.
China installed 212 gigawatts of solar capacity in the first six months
of the year, more than America's entire capacity of 178 gigawatts as of
the end of 2024, the study said. Electricity from solar has overtaken
hydropower in China and is poised to surpass wind this year to become
the country's largest source of clean energy. Some 51 gigawatts of wind
power was added from January to June.
Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society
Policy Institute in Washington, described the plateauing of China's
carbon emissions as a turning point in the effort to combat climate
change.
“This is a moment of global significance, offering a rare glimmer of
hope in an otherwise bleak climate landscape,” he wrote in an email
response. It also shows that a country can cut emissions while still
growing economically, he said.
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Tibetan sheep graze at a solar farm in Hainan prefecture of western
China's Qinghai province on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han
Guan)
 But Li cautioned that China's heavy
reliance on coal remains a serious threat to progress on climate and
said the economy needs to shift to less resource-intensive sectors.
“There's still a long road ahead,” he said.
One solar farm can power 5 million households
A seemingly endless expanse of solar panels stretches toward the
horizon on the Tibetan plateau. White two-story buildings rise above
them at regular intervals. Sheep graze on the scrubby vegetation
that grows under them.
Solar panels have been installed on about two-thirds of the land.
When completed, it will have more than 7 million panels and be
capable of generating enough power for 5 million households.
Like many of China’s solar and wind farms, it was built in the
relatively sparsely populated west. A major challenge is getting
electricity to the population centers and factories in China’s east.
“The distribution of green energy resources is perfectly misaligned
with the current industrial distribution of our country,” Zhang
Jinming, the vice governor of Qinghai province, told journalists on
a government-organized tour.
Part of the solution is building transmission lines traversing the
country. One connects Qinghai to Henan province. Two more are
planned, including one to Guangdong province in the southeast,
almost at the opposite corner of the country.
Making full use of the power is hindered by the relatively
inflexible way that China's electricity grid is managed, tailored to
the steady output of coal plants rather than more variable and less
predictable wind and solar, Myllyvirta said.
“This is an issue that the policymakers have recognized and are
trying to manage, but it does require big changes to the way
coal-fired power plants operate and big changes to the way the
transmission network operates,” he said. “So it’s no small task.”
___
Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press video producer
Wayne Zhang contributed.
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