By Eylül Barut
As the world races to decarbonize, China has emerged as the undisputed leader in renewable energy, but not without controversy. While its green development policies have reshaped global energy markets, critics warn they may also be reshaping global dependencies. From massive solar investments to strategic influence in the Global South, Beijing’s push for ecological leadership is drawing both admiration and alarm. Dr. Sırma Altun unpacks the double-edged nature of China’s green transition for Scrolli.
China’s green development has dramatically reshaped its energy landscape, turning the country into a global powerhouse in renewables. In recent years, this transformation has accelerated, emerging as a global leader in renewable energy development. As of the end of 2024, renewable energy sources account for 56% of China's total installed power capacity, marking a significant shift towards cleaner energy.
China is constructing a massive solar project in the Kubuqi Desert, entitled the "Solar Great Wall." Upon completion, it will stretch 400 kilometers and have a generating capacity of 100 GW, aiming to power Beijing and combat desertification.
Last year, China added 373 GW of new renewable capacity, with solar power accounting for 278 GW and wind power for 79.8 GW. This growth reflects China's commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 and peaking carbon emissions before 2030.
The Tengger Desert Solar Park in Ningxia spans 43 km² and boasts a capacity of 1.547 GW, making it one of the largest photovoltaic installations globally. In other words, it is the sea of solar panels, it nicknamed as “The Great Wall of Solar”
Another important place is the Offshore Wind Farm. It located near Shanghai, the Donghai Bridge Wind Farm is China's first commercial offshore wind project, with a capacity of 102 MW, powering approximately 200,000 households. Rising from the East China Sea like a forest of giants, these wind turbines are part of China’s rapidly expanding offshore energy network. Together, they symbolize a silent shift, from coal to clean.
Green development is a term that suggests economic growth should proceed in harmony with environmental sustainability. It especially includes reducing carbon emissions, improving resource efficiency, and promoting production aligned with nature. In the literature, it is also described as a “development paradigm shift.” In this framework, growth should no longer be measured solely by gross domestic product (GDP), but also by environmental quality, social equity, and energy transformation.
Another essential concept is green policy. It can be simply defined as the strategies and regulations adopted by the state to promote environmentally friendly technologies, investments, and practices. For example, carbon pricing, subsidies, environmental taxes, incentives for renewable energy, and sustainable urban projects and so on.
In China, which has risen to a leading position in this field, these policies are generally implemented through centralized planning. Research on the topic notes that China’s green policies are carried out in a top-down, planned, and centralized manner.
China’s environmental awareness became globally visible in 1972, when the People’s Republic of China participated in the United Nations Stockholm Conference for the first time. In the years that followed, the country took its first official step in environmental protection with the declaration of the “National Environmental Protection Policy” in 1983; however, the policy had only limited impact.
Attending the Rio Summit in 1992, China began to use the term “sustainable development” in official documents. In 1994, the “Sustainable Development Strategy” was published at the state level for the first time, and it created a break point.
Under China’s sixth president Hu Jintao, the concept of “ecological civilization” emerged: a growth model emphasizing the environment, prosperity, and technology. After that, the first structural green policy instrument came to the scene in 2005, the Renewable Energy Law, was enacted. The 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010) introduced targets for energy efficiency and reducing carbon intensity.
The 12th and 13th Five-Year Plans (2011–2020) set goals to reduce carbon intensity, increase renewable energy capacity, and establish green cities. The Belt and Road Initiative was launched and became a global green investment tool for China in 2013. Two years later, China became an active advocate of the Paris Climate Agreement. In 2016, the concept of “Ecological Civilization” was included in the Constitution and elevated to the level of state policy.
Xi Jinping announced China’s 2060 carbon neutrality target at the United Nations in 2020. With the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), green growth aligned with the goals of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” was promoted. Between 2022 and 2024, wind, solar, and hydrogen investments increased dramatically. China became by far the leading country in renewable energy production.
In 2024, China demonstrated remarkable growth in the clean energy sector. The country added 277 GW of new solar energy capacity within the year, significantly boosting its total installed capacity. This increase includes both large-scale solar farms and distributed solar projects. Reflecting its strong commitment to energy transition, China invested approximately 6.8 trillion yuan (around 940 billion USD) in clean energy during the same period, an amount that is approaching global fossil fuel investment levels. The clean energy sector, which encompasses electric vehicles, battery technologies, and renewable energy production, accounted for 10% of China’s GDP in 2024, making it a major contributor to the national economy.
China’s dominance in green tech, from solar panels to electric vehicles, is not just an economic story; it’s a geopolitical one. As Beijing gains ground in renewables, critics warn that the country is also exporting a new kind of dependency.
China’s green investments have been hailed for creating jobs and spurring innovation. But some projects have also drawn criticism for displacing communities and degrading ecosystems.
Altun argues that these investments serve a dual purpose: they help green the economy while also expanding China’s influence in developing countries. Her research outlines two dominant perspectives, one sees the spread of Chinese green tech as a tool for economic dominance and dependency; the other frames it as an opportunity for South-South cooperation and accelerated climate action.
Altun said: “There are two main bodies of literature that examine not only China’s green energy investments in Africa and Asia but more generally the Belt and Road investments in the Global South since 2013. The first emphasizes the contributions of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the economic development and infrastructure construction of Global South countries and supports the process that China defines as deepening South-South cooperation.
The second body of literature consists of studies that take a critical stance towards the BRI. Some of these focus specifically on the harmful environmental impacts of BRI investments carried out until the 2020s and their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. China has been criticized for prioritizing fossil fuel investments and the construction of numerous coal-fired power plants abroad within the scope of BRI. Another strand of the critical literature argues that BRI has created new dependencies between China and some developing countries, and even claims that BRI constitutes a new debt trap for these countries,” she said.
Emphasizing that the energy transition for China is not limited to a mere discursive transformation, Altun said: “Renewable energy is a strong component of China’s development strategy and a crucial part of its goal to achieve leadership in new technologies. At the same time, renewable energy is one of the primary sectors through which Chinese capital is becoming internationalized. Along with all this, China considers green development and the Green BRI as a matter of energy security. There are two topics where we can clearly observe this: coal and nuclear energy debates.”
Speaking on China’s coal investments, Altun said: “In 2021, China announced that it would halt new coal investments abroad, but new coal investments within the country have continued. One of the main reasons for this contradiction is that coal is also considered a matter of energy security in China. China’s energy transition is still not an exit from coal, and it is not expected to be so in the near future. Although halting coal investments abroad is a significant decision, it is not considered sufficient to prevent climate change. While China’s total domestic coal consumption showed a decline during the COVID-19 period, we observe that it began to rise again from 2020 onwards. At the same time, there have been significant increases in solar and wind energy consumption and installed capacity. Based on this, projections suggest that around 2040, electricity consumption will surpass coal consumption. Another leg of China’s coal exit, albeit highly controversial, is the expansion of its nuclear energy capacity. China considers nuclear energy as clean energy, and increasing nuclear capacity is viewed as a policy that serves energy security.”
“We can say that Türkiye’s energy transition is dependent on the EU’s normative and commercial agenda regarding decarbonization. However, this relationship becomes fragile around topics that will create new costs for Turkish exports, such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. For Chinese companies, Türkiye still represents an untapped renewable energy market. However, this market is shaped by various political and administrative challenges. For this reason, instead of investing in large-scale renewable energy projects in Türkiye, Chinese companies tend to focus on selling products to Türkiye. We can observe a similar trend in how China is entering Egypt’s renewable energy sector as well,” she concluded.
