For a while now, the idea of China as a climate hero, a myth promoted to reproach those backsliding Americans, has been percolating through the media ecosystem.
Over at his Substack, economist Robin J. Brooks sets out a corrective:
There’s no doubt that China in recent years built impressive transmission infrastructure, but what matters at the end of the day is power generation, which still overwhelmingly comes from fossil fuels. All the power lines in the world don’t make you sustainable or energy independent if you’re still having to import and burn tons of fossil fuels. To my mind, the hype far exceeds reality where China electrification is concerned. . . .
It’s true that solar and wind are growing in importance, but let’s keep things in perspective. Their shares in total electricity generation were five and nine percent, respectively, in October 2025 versus 67 percent from thermal power. Maybe China is electrifying, but what matters is where this power comes from and that’s still overwhelmingly from fossil fuels. . . .
There does look to be a ramp up in electricity generation in the last few months of data, but even that is mostly from thermal power plans and not wind or solar. The chart above shows the growth contributions of various power sources on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Much of the ramp up in electricity production is due to thermal and isn’t based on renewable energy. I don’t mean to diminish the extensive build out of China’s transmission infrastructure. But — in the end — what matters is where the electricity comes from and it’s from the same old fossil fuels as before.
Quite.
Or if you prefer, here’s Bloomberg from December 10:
China, which mines and burns more than half the world’s coal, has given additional support to the fuel it calls its “ballast stone” since a series of power shortages in 2021 and 2022. Since then, production, imports and consumption have all soared to record levels.
Its ballast stone?
The country is expected to add 80 gigawatts of new coal capacity in 2025, the highest level in a decade, with similar amounts expected to come online in 2026 and 2027, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Chinese firms are also investing tens of billions of dollars in new coal-to-chemical plants to help reduce reliance on imported oil and plastics.
Oh.
But I thought that the persistence of coal in China was partly because it was building all those nice renewables? Well, that is some of it, but:
China’s on track for another year of record mine output, bolstered by demand from the chemicals sector.
Alex Scott at Chemical & Engineering News (October 2025):
Using coal to make industrial chemicals releases even more greenhouse gas than burning coal for energy. Despite this, the practice is on the rise.
The number of new coal-based chemical plants being planned has almost doubled in the past year to 47, according to the latest edition of the Global Coal Exit List (GCEL), a database created by almost 50 nongovernment organizations including Urgewald, an environmental group. Typically, coal is converted into chemicals such as urea, ammonia, methanol, and olefins by applying an initial gasification step.
Of the 47 coal-to-chemical plants identified, 21 are set to be built in China. In 2024, 7% of the coal used by China — the world’s biggest consumer of coal — was converted into chemicals, the report says. India is second fastest. . . .
Another regular, Indonesia, is in at number three.
Scott:
Coal is by far the dirtiest raw material for making industrial chemicals. Carbon dioxide emissions during ammonia production are, for example, tripled when coal is used as a feedstock instead of natural gas, Urgewald says.
“None of the planned plants would be economically viable without government subsidies,” says Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald. “For example, in China, the sector has been exempted from national decarbonization goals. The coal-to-chemicals sector is having a direct impact by prolonging the phaseout of coal, even giving it a new lease of life.”
China, eh?
Awkward.
To Beijing, self-sufficiency matters. A lot. Quite why that might be so can be left to the darker recesses of our imagination. Meanwhile, the country ran a record $1 trillion trade surplus in the first eleven months of the year (the resulting imbalances are going to cause trouble, but more on that in due course).
In a Capital Letter from August 2024, I wrote about coal’s persistence:
Weeks before the signing of the Paris Climate Accord at the end of 2015, Carbon Tracker (“aligning capital market actions with climate reality”) estimated that if the world was to meet the climate target set out in the agreement, then, according to the International Energy Agency’s “450” scenario, “the production from . . . existing coal mines is sufficient to meet the volume of coal required … It is the end of the road for expansion of the coal sector.”
Previewing the ESG mania to come, Carbon Tracker advised institutional investors to “derisk [their] portfolio by identifying companies which are aligned with a 2℃ demand scenario or engage with those that are in the danger zone.”
But if anyone was in a danger zone, it was people who had retained investment managers who took such obviously unrealistic thinking seriously. . . .
[C]apacity continued to be added. Undeterred, the agency is now arguing that most coal consumption should be phased out by 2040. That’s highly unlikely. DNV, a quality assurance and risk management company, has forecast that China’s coal consumption will only have fallen by a third by that year. That’s only one estimate, but it seems more realistic than expectations of hitting zero, or close to it, by 2040. In 2023 global coal capacity increased by 2 percent. Two-thirds of that increase came from China, which started construction, Bloomberg reported, on twenty times more new coal capacity than the rest of the world combined.
China is not the only major Asian country that will still be sticking with coal in 2040. . . .
And so back to Bloomberg this week:
Coal’s future in Asia is looking brighter, as the top-consuming region’s efforts to shift to cleaner energy suffer a series of setbacks.
Indonesia has canceled a flagship project that was the poster child for shuttering coal plants early. India is considering expanding its fleet until mid-century instead of through 2035.
And then there’s China.
But do not despair, there are things you can do, as Kate Selig recently explained in the New York Times:
We asked the experts about the ground rules for coffee and climate. The emissions from growing coffee beans are often the biggest contributor to your drink’s carbon footprint.
Suggestions follow, and they include this:
You should brew only what you plan to drink. Weighing the beans with a scale can help with this, and you might get a better cup in the bargain. Also, if you’re using an electric coffee machine, don’t leave it in heating mode any longer than necessary. Turn it off to save energy once you pour your last cup.
That will make a difference. Sure it will.