中文
By Hassan Daud Butt
Lead: As the U.S. retreats from climate action, China has emerged as the world's clean energy leader, slashing technology costs and helping developing nations make the transition.
Climate change has evolved from a distant concern to an immediate global emergency. Global temperatures in 2025 were among the highest ever recorded, and May alone averaged 1.10 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average, the second warmest May in history. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions are set to reach a record 38.1 billion metric tons in 2025 as climate shocks grow stronger.
In a world already straining under geopolitical fragmentation, increasing inequality and faltering trust, these impacts underscore one essential reality: No country can protect itself in isolation. With a 70% likelihood that global temperatures between 2025 and 2029 will exceed 1.5°C, the window for meeting the Paris Agreement goals is rapidly closing.
The challenge demands long-term, whole-of-society action. This means governments aligning their policies with science, businesses accelerating decarbonization, financial institutions bridging the $5 trillion to $12 trillion annual finance gap, and communities building resilience. Only coordinated action will allow us to meet this urgent challenge.
Despite notable global progress, climate change continues to escalate risks to economic and social development and further exacerbate food insecurity. These repeated climate shocks put pressure on government disaster-response budgets, highlighting the need for resilient infrastructure and greater investment in climate adaptation.
Climate-driven floods have become one of the costliest economic burdens worldwide, disrupting key growth sectors, increasing the cost of long-run recoveries and undermining socioeconomic stability. This reinforces the critical importance of deep emissions cuts and robust measures that enhance resilience to climate change, which are increasingly central to China's climate policy framework.
An aerial drone photo taken on Nov. 13, 2025 shows an offshore photovoltaic project in Dongying City, east China's Shandong Province. [Photo by Zhou Guangxue/Xinhua]
In this context, China is emerging as a pivotal actor as the United States steps back from its climate commitments. Over the past decade, China has steadily moved from a defensive negotiator at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to a proactive agenda-setter. Its commitments to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 have created momentum across the Global South and increased pressure on advanced economies to respond. Beijing's climate diplomacy increasingly positions it as a bridge between the developed and developing worlds, emphasizing principles of equity and technology-enabled transitions.
China now leads the world in solar, wind, and hydro power as well as electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. This scale is bringing down global costs for clean energy, enabling other developing countries to transition more affordably. An unprecedented expansion of clean energy drives China's achievements in addressing climate change challenges. In the first nine months of 2025, China added approximately 240 gigawatts of solar and 61 gigawatts of wind power, including a record 93 gigawatts of solar in a single month, May. All told, China added 290 gigawatts of new power capacity in the first half of 2025, of which 210 gigawatts were solar, up 107% year on year, and 50 gigawatts of wind, up 99% year on year, making it the world's largest and most rapid builder of clean energy.
China has leveraged its industrial strength to promote South-South cooperation, green financing and renewable energy deployment across Belt and Road Initiative partner countries. This industrial capacity is also transforming countries like Pakistan, where an almost entirely Chinese-powered "rooftop solarization miracle" is underway. Pakistan's imports of Chinese solar panels alone reached over $2 billion in 2024. Factories, hospitals, homes and mosques across Pakistan are racing to adopt rooftop solar installations at breakneck speed, helping multinational firms reach their sustainability targets. China has thus accelerated not only its own climate trajectory but also regional and global developments, most notably Pakistan's recent rooftop solar boom, which was facilitated through Chinese technology and reasonably priced clean-tech manufacturing.
Given China's growth in renewable energy production and diplomacy, the Global South has a real strategic opportunity. But putting it into practice requires a clear, practical playbook that covers institutional capacity, de-risking, policy, financial engineering and effective partnerships. To make it happen, partnerships, institutional change, technology transfer agreements and methodical project planning will be required.
As COP30 ended in Brazil, China's approach stood out for its long-term planning, technological investment and diplomatic engagement. The recent global climate agreement reinforces a critical shift in international climate governance. It commits nations to reassess climate-related trade barriers, and urges developed economies to significantly increase their financial support for developing countries to adapt to and recover from extreme climate events. The agreement further calls for accelerating climate action and keeping the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement within achievable limits, which now remains increasingly threatened by rising emissions and geopolitical fragmentation.
Against this backdrop, China's role has become increasingly pivotal. At the close of COP30, President Corrêa do Lago underscored China's essential contribution in driving down the global cost of renewable energy technologies, enabling affordable transitions for the Global South.
This aerial photo taken on Nov. 16, 2023 shows the Dingdongpo wind power-photovoltaic project in Shiqian County of Tongren City, southwest China's Guizhou Province. [Photo by Yang Wenbin/Xinhua]
Beijing has expanded the world's largest emissions trading system, strengthened its climate pledges and accelerated renewable energy deployment at unprecedented speed, adding record-breaking solar and wind capacity. This evolution positions China as a linchpin in global climate solidarity, highlighting the increasing importance of equitable financing, technology transfer, and North-South and South-South cooperation in meeting global climate goals.
The world is realizing that green growth cannot be delivered through rhetoric alone. It requires long-term planning measured in decades rather than election cycles, and leadership willing to prioritize structural reforms over short-lived political gains. It also depends on public trust and engagement; no transition can succeed without public support and ownership of the transformation.
A truly fair and just transition requires aligning economic growth with green and low-carbon development, tailored to each country's unique realities. It demands enabling domestic policies and international cooperation based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
There must also be a concerted and enhanced global effort to fight against climate misinformation and disinformation spread by malicious actors and politicians representing interest groups. And governments, academic organizations, think tanks, media organizations, civil society and citizens across the world must become more aware of their harm and be better mobilized in the endeavor to tackle climate change.
Only through pragmatic, inclusive approaches can the world achieve a transition that meets the clear and present dangers of climate change.
Hassan Daud Butt is a project management specialist and a faculty member and adviser at various universities and enterprises. He has also served as a diplomat in China and Vietnam.
