by Lyn Neeley

Lyn Neely, a retired New York City high school science, biology and ecology teacher and now a community organizer in Portland, Oregon, summarizes her chapter.

Full Chapter:

China’s gains in renewable energy production have skyrocketed. According to the New York Times, “Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, [electric vehicles] and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead.”¹

The biggest driver of China’s economic growth is innovation and clean energy technology, accounting for 40% of its gross domestic product expansion last year. China’s climate goals may well be reached sooner than expected: peak carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions before 2030 (when global CO₂ emissions reach their highest level and begin to decline), and carbon neutrality before 2060 (when the amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere equals the amount being removed). 

For decades, China, a socialist country based on centralized planning, has been preparing for and investing in renewable energy infrastructure. Energy planning is coordinated by technical experts that predict demand instead of reacting to it. 

Scientific training and education are top priorities for the Communist Party of China’s leadership. A majority of undergraduates and three-quarters of China’s doctoral students major in math, science, engineering or agriculture. China has nearly 50 graduate programs on battery chemistry and metallurgy alone.²

China’s investment in research and development and in a skilled workforce has grown rapidly. The number of clean energy patents filed by China rose from 18 in 2000 to over 700,000 in 2024, over half the world’s total.³

China has automated its factories, installing more robots each year from 2021 through 2023 than the rest of the world combined, and seven times as many as the U.S. As a result, the cost of China’s renewables keeps falling and global demand is growing. 

Production costs are low in China’s state-owned industries. Instead of driving to make a profit, the country prioritizes meeting people’s needs and improving the quality of life. According to a recent article from Project Syndicate:

“China supplies the majority of the world’s refined lithium (70%), cobalt (78%), graphite (95%), rare earths (91%), and manganese (91%). In terms of green-tech manufacturing, China accounts for 80% of solar panel production, 50-70% of the wind turbine market, and over half of electric vehicles. And in terms of deployment, it is undertaking three-quarters of the world’s renewable-energy projects.”⁴ 

The increase in China’s renewable energy markets is expanding its global political and economic relationships. China is exporting electric vehicles (EVs), building wind turbines and solar farms, and setting up clean energy projects in countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Zambia, Sudia Arabia, Thailand, Morocco, Hungary and Cuba. 

Electric Vehicles

As of this writing, China has produced 70% of the world’s electric vehicles and 98% of the world’s electric buses. 

Chinese EVs are cheaper and more advanced than EVs made anywhere else. A Chinese EV now costs less than $10,000 because of the efficient manufacturing processes and an increase in the amount of government subsidies for EVs from $76.7 million in 2018 to $809 million in 2023. 

The world’s largest producer of EVs is the Chinese company BYD (Biyadi). It has developed a battery that can be charged in five minutes and driven for about 250 miles. Patrick George, the editor in chief of InsideEVs, said BYD EVs were a generation ahead of the rest of the world.⁵ 

BYD and CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited) are the leaders in making EV batteries. Theirs are lighter, longer-lasting, faster to charge, cheaper, and safer, and cars using them are more convenient to drive. Both companies make lithium-ion batteries that use more inexpensive minerals: iron and phosphate, combined with lithium, rather than nickel and cobalt, which Western producers use. 

Solar Power

China dominates the global solar power industry. It produces over 80% of the world’s solar panels and controls most of the entire supply chain, from raw materials to finished products. This success comes from a combination of government support, lower production costs, and massive manufacturing scale. It has driven down global solar panel prices but also created significant supply chain dependencies worldwide.

Government support, high manufacturing volume and lower production costs all contributed to China exceeding its 2030 solar and wind capacity goal by the end of 2024, six years early. China increased its solar energy production by 45% in one year. 

In 2024, the Ürümqi solar farm became the largest solar facility in the world. A planned facility on a Tibetan plateau was announced in July, and is expected to be even larger. Smaller solar farms further increase China’s solar capacity and boost China’s power production much higher. Entire rural provinces are blanketed in rooftop solar panels. In 2024, distributed solar accounted for 43% of China’s new capacity added that year.

Hydropower

Hydropower is the primary renewable energy source in China, which is the world’s leading producer of hydroelectric power, generating around 30% of the total world output. Half of the world’s ten largest dams are in China, including the Three Gorges Dam, which is presently the world’s largest dam and greatest producer of hydroelectricity to date. Currently, an even larger dam is under construction in Tibet. 

Plans are underway for the new mega-dam project to be built along Tibet’s Yarlung Zangbo River in the Himalayan mountains in Medog county (Motuo in Chinese). It is the highest major river in the world, and therefore the one with the most hydroelectric potential. The $137 billion project will harness the power of gravity in the river’s steep descent of 2,000 meters over a 50-kilometer stretch. This massive hydroelectric project will generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electric energy per year, enough to power 50 million homes and three times the power of the Three Gorges Dam.

The new Motuo mega-facility includes twenty-eight dams at various stages of completion and several tunnels to divert portions of the water down steep slopes through one of the tallest mountains in the world, the Namcha Barwa mountain. The tunnels increase the elevation drop, allowing gravity to maximize the amount of energy produced, and minimize the impact on mountain ecosystems by reducing the number of large reservoirs that displace local habitats.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, the dam will help prevent climate change disasters in downstream regions by controlling the river run-off. This will distribute water more evenly throughout the year, preventing flooding during wet seasons and drought during dry months. According to a research article in the Communications Earth & Environment journal on the environmental impact of the dam, “[t]ransboundary cooperation is strengthened through adaptive reservoir management, ensuring energy security for China and flood protection for downstream nations. This integrated approach highlights the potential for harmonizing sustainable hydropower expansion with ecological and geopolitical resilience in international river basins.”⁶

The Western press has made numerous criticisms of the Motuo project, some regarding the potential need to relocate people currently living in the path of the dams. In China, as in any country with an extensive history, all new infrastructure, no matter beneficial or essential to society, must inevitably displace someone. However, the Chinese government has faced similar challenges in the past, and has demonstrated that it prioritizes the collective well-being of the affected communities. The Three Gorges Dam, for example, required the displacement of 1.3 million people, yet entire new cities and towns were built to relocate them to. According to a report from the 2004 United Nations Symposium on Hydropower and Sustainable Development, 40% of China’s investment in the Three Gorges Dam financed preferential policies for relocated residents, carried out simultaneously with the dam construction from 1993 to 2004.⁷

Innovations in Clean Energy

Chinese workers and scientists have created the first seawater electrolysis system that produces hydrogen directly from ocean water using offshore wind power, a renewable energy source. Hydrogen is a clean, versatile fuel that traditionally could only be produced using an expensive high-energy process to first desalinate ocean water.

Chinese researchers have designed a material that reflects the sun’s rays and can be welded together in planks. When attached to the exterior of buildings, the planks reduce temperatures inside, cutting down the need for air conditioning and reducing carbon emissions. The plank material is made of gelatin and DNA from organic matter, which can be made biodegradable, and converts ultraviolet (UV) radiation into visible light. This plank technology opens the way for further innovative and sustainable cooling materials.

At the end of 2023, China had produced 1.27 million registered drones—huge pilot-free cargo planes that run on solar power, battery power or combined solar and hydrogen power. They can carry a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) load as far as 500 kilometers (310 miles) with a maximum range of 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles). They can be used for transportation, fire and rescue teams, flood control and disaster relief work, and are 70% quicker and 30% cheaper than conventional cross-sea transport.

Trump Vows to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ 

The International Energy Agency expects that by 2035, renewable power will surpass coal and natural gas sources, and that by 2025, oil, gas and coal will supply below 60% of global energy needs.⁸  In China, renewable energy has become a cornerstone of the economy. Shifting from a reliance on imported fossil fuels to renewable clean energy has made China an independent leader in the global green industrial revolution.

President Trump’s vision of energy dominance, on the other hand, is based on the U.S. being the world’s largest producer of oil and the largest exporter of natural gas. He is using tariffs and pressuring countries to buy more U.S. fossil fuels, especially liquified natural gas.

Trump’s re-election fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago hosted over 20 executives from companies like Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum. In exchange for large campaign contributions, he promised to allow increased drilling, pause restrictions on gas exports and reverse new rules aimed at cutting motor vehicle pollution. Fossil fuel companies invested $96 million in Trump’s recent re-election campaign and another $243 million in lobbying Congress in 2024.

British multinational oil company BP has increased its production of oil and gas by 20% and cut more than $5 billion from its previous green investment plan. Its new carbon production target is 60% higher than the net zero plan they promised at the 2015 Paris Agreement. General Motors is investing $888 million to start producing V-8 engines at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y., where they had recently planned to build electric motors.

Trump also recently canceled a Revolution Wind offshore wind turbine project in Rhode Island and Connecticut. The project was 80% complete, with 45 out of 65 turbines already installed. Local politicians say the move threatens 1,000 union jobs and the states’ climate goals and may drive electricity prices up throughout the region. 

The U.S. capitalist political and economic system is not set up to build an energy grid for the future. Large-scale infrastructure projects can take decades to build and depend heavily on private investors who expect to turn a profit within three to five years. 

Results of a budget committee investigation uncovered hundreds of documents from energy companies showing that big oil has privately acknowledged its efforts to downplay the dangers of burning fossil fuels. U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) said: “The fossil fuel industry is running perhaps the biggest campaign of disinformation and political interference in [U.S.] American history, and they’re backing it up with immense amounts of political spending. … The consequences in the White House are enormous and having a huge effect … but people aren’t aware.”⁹ 

People Before Profits! Land Back Now!

In 2017, China built the largest floating solar farm at that time on a lake formed by a collapsed coal mine in Huainan, Anhui Province. It was a symbol of China’s transition from coal to clean energy, repurposing abandoned mining land for renewable power generation.

In contrast, U.S. industries trespass on sovereign Indigenous land to construct solar plants, wind farms, power transmission lines and copper mines for lithium extraction for electric batteries—​without consulting with leaders of the Indigenous nations and tribes.

U.S.-based industries are still heavily reliant on profits from the fossil fuel economy. The U.S. government, while beginning to invest in renewable fuels, is moving in on Native reservations and sacred lands.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), which includes the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo Nations, is suing the Bureau of Land Management for constructing a solar plant on 4,000 acres of their ancestral homelands. They have been fighting the plans since 2006. The CRIT explained they are not against solar power, but they object to not being consulted—​and to the effects it will have on the ecosystem, cultural resources, groundwater and the Colorado River. 

In February, members of the San Carlos Apache Nation in Arizona asked that work stop on the $10 billion construction of a copper mine on the reservation’s sacred territory. Tribal member Verlon Jose said, “We do not disagree with renewable energy. We are for renewable energy. You know what the fix to this issue is? They could have rerouted it. But they didn’t listen.” Native activist, ecologist and author Winona LaDuke added, “In the endless pursuit of energy, once again, Native people are in the eye of the storm.” She called mines and other projects that could imperil tribal sovereignty “the next Standing Rock.”

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¹David Gelles et al., “There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away.,” The New York Times, June 30, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china-clean-energy-power.html.

²Keith Bradsher, “How China Built Tech Prowess: Chemistry Classes and Research Labs,” The New York Times, August 9, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/business/china-ev-battery-tech.html.

³Max Bearak and Mira Rojanasakul, “How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator,” The New York Times, August 14, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/14/climate/china-clean-energy-patents.html.

⁴Mark Blyth and Daniel Driscoll, “Trump’s Global War on Decarbonization,” Project Syndicate, August 21, 2025, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-global-war-on-decarbonization-green-technologies-by-mark-blyth-and-daniel-driscoll-2025-08.

⁵We Tried BYD’s 5-Minute ‘Megawatt’ EV Charging In China — It’s Mind-Blowing, InsideEVs, May 7, 2025, 00:07:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usUxO7y4z_E.

⁶Fengbo Zhang et al., “Hydropower System in the Yarlung-Tsangpo Grand Canyon Can Mitigate Flood Disasters Caused by Climate Change,” Communications Earth & Environment 6, no. 1 (2025): 323, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02247-8.

⁷Lu Youmei, Hydropower and Sustainable Development in China, United Nations Symposium on Hydropower and Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2004), 6, https://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/energy/op/hydro_luyoumei.pdf.

⁸International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2024 (International Energy Agency, 2024), 396, https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/140a0470-5b90-4922-a0e9-838b3ac6918c/WorldEnergyOutlook2024.pdf.

⁹Dharna Noor, “Big Oil Is Waging ‘Biggest Campaign of Political Interference in US History’, Senator Says,” The Guardian, March 6, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/big-oil-investigation-congress-republicans.

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Lyn Neeley taught high school science, biology and ecology in New York City for twenty years. She is now retired and a community organizer in Portland, Oregon. She is a member of the Workers World Party, where her work focuses on political education.