How China’s clean-tech machine is reshaping the global climate fight

China sent $132 billion in clean technology and investment to the developing world last year, by far the largest contribution to carbon-dioxide reduction of any country. A Reuters investigation in 2024 found that most global climate finance comes in the form of loans – and sometimes at market interest rates that funnel billions of dollars back to rich countries.

China took a different approach, funneling billions in subsidies into its own green-energy industries, serving its own national interest to dominate next-generation manufacturing domestically and globally. The result: massive and rapid market-share gains in solar panels, batteries and battery minerals, electric vehicles, wind turbines and other green products.

China remains by far the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitter because of its large population, concentration of heavy industry and reliance on coal power. But its huge clean tech exports mean it has also become among the biggest global forces in reducing climate-damaging emissions.