Wazzup Pilipinas!?
I. Prologue: The Shifting Tectonic Plates of Global Emissions
The trajectory of global climate mitigation has reached a critical inflection point, centered on the world’s largest emitter. A recent analysis conducted by Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief reveals that China’s carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions were statistically unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025. This finding extends an unprecedented trend of flat or falling emissions that commenced in March 2024, persisting for a full 18 months.
This stabilization occurs at a moment of heightened international urgency, coinciding precisely with the opening of the COP30 climate negotiations in Belém, Brazil. While the swing in annual emissions may seem minor—with the full-year 2025 total balanced between a slight rise or fall of 1% or less—its symbolic weight is immense. For years, Chinese policymakers had reserved political space for emissions to continue their ascent. The current plateau suggests that the structural decoupling of economic expansion from emissions growth may be significantly advancing the timeline for peak CO 2
Historically, previous short-term dips in China's emissions—such as those observed in 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2022—were predominantly attributable to external economic shocks, domestic industrial slumps, or severe public health measures like the zero-Covid policy. Crucially, the 2025 stabilization represents a departure from these cyclical patterns. This sustained 18-month trend is occurring even as China’s core economic engine, measured by rising electricity demand, accelerated its growth to 6.1% year-on-year in Q3, up from 3.7% in the first half of the year. This is the first verifiable instance where overwhelming clean power generation has structurally outpaced rising energy consumption over a prolonged period, confirming that the internal dynamics of the energy transition are now the primary driver of emissions stagnation.
The current data strongly validates the projections defined in more optimistic climate models. Specifically, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) had previously detailed an "optimistic scenario" where absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in China could peak as early as 2025, driven by accelerated renewable deployment. The Carbon Brief analysis provides hard evidence that this accelerated deployment is a reality. The stabilization of emissions in the face of rising demand suggests that the foundational challenge is shifting from building supply capacity to managing industrial complexity and infrastructure rigidity.
Internationally, this data significantly alters the geopolitical landscape at COP30. With emissions stabilized or falling, the foundational argument employed by China—that it requires several more years of growth space to complete its modernization—is politically weakened. Global observers are now empowered by this success to demand that China elevate the ambition of its newly submitted 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which analysts currently deem conservative, arguing that the 7-10% reduction target from peak emissions by 2035 is likely achievable under existing policy momentum.
II. The Clean Energy Juggernaut: Revolution in the Power Sector
The central narrative of China’s emissions plateau is the unparalleled, relentless deployment of renewable energy capacity, which has successfully decoupled the power sector from accelerating electricity demand.
The Quantitative Leap and Decoupling Mechanism
The power sector, historically the largest source of CO 2 emissions, saw its output remain flat year-on-year in Q3 2025. This achievement is particularly striking because it occurred despite robust, accelerating growth in electricity demand, primarily driven by rising industrial activity and higher cooling needs during hotter summers. The successful offset mechanism was massive generation increases from intermittent sources: Solar generation surged by 46% year-on-year, while wind generation rose by 11% in the third quarter of 2025.
The engine behind this structural shift is the country's record-smashing capacity additions. In the first nine months of 2025 alone, China connected 240 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 61 GW of wind capacity, positioning the country to set yet another new annual renewable record. This scale is globally unprecedented; by June 2025, China’s installed solar and wind capacity had already reached 1,673 GW, exceeding its original 2030 NDC target of 1,200 GW years ahead of schedule. The sheer volume means that China’s total installed solar photovoltaic capacity now surpasses 1,000 GW, representing half of the world's total installed solar capacity.
This sustained, record capacity installation has profound systemic consequences. In the first half of 2025, the addition of solar (167.7 TWh) and wind (79.2 TWh) generation successfully absorbed the entirety of the 198 TWh demand growth, allowing coal generation to be cut by 55.5 TWh. The data confirms that rising demand no longer automatically translates into rising coal consumption. The power sector is structurally on the path to deep decarbonization, transitioning the primary technical barrier away from technology manufacturing and towards infrastructure flexibility.
The Grid’s Stress Test: A Race Against Curtailment
The speed of the clean energy buildout has introduced a new, critical constraint: the rapid installation of renewable power is now substantially outpacing the growth rate of the necessary power grid infrastructure and energy storage solutions. This disparity creates a paradox, where success in deployment leads to increased inefficiencies, primarily manifested as renewable energy curtailment—the waste of electricity generated because supply overwhelms demand or transmission bottlenecks prevent delivery.
Curtailment is most pronounced in the massive renewables hubs in the sparsely populated interior, which rely on transmission lines stretching thousands of miles to reach the major demand centers in the eastern provinces. System experts note that integrating this massive, fluctuating power supply requires a completely modernized power system that coordinates generation, grid operations, load management, and storage.
In response to this urgent bottleneck, China has aggressively accelerated its energy storage strategy. The country's "Special Action Plan" mandates the addition of 180 GW of new energy storage capacity by 2027, effectively doubling the current installed base. By mid-2025, China’s new-type energy storage capacity had already surpassed 100 GW, cementing its global leadership position in storage implementation, driven by the need to optimize utilization of its vast, intermittent clean energy resources.
The figures below summarize the success of the decoupling engine in the power and transport sectors, while simultaneously highlighting the remaining internal challenge posed by industrial activity.
III. The Silent Decarbonization: Transport and Heavy Industry
Beyond the visible triumph of the power sector, critical but less discussed shifts in transport and heavy industry contributed significantly to the 18-month emissions plateau.
EV Velocity: The Road to Oil Displacement
The transport sector reached a significant tipping point, with CO 2 emissions from fuel use dropping by 5% year-on-year in Q3 2025. This rapid emissions reduction is a direct consequence of the overwhelming success of China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) strategy. In the first half of 2025, NEV sales (encompassing battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids) surged by 33% to over 5.45 million units, decisively outpacing the sales of traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, which declined by 5.2%.
This exponential adoption rate is rooted in China's assertive industrial policy. The strategy has cultivated powerful local brands, led by market giants like BYD, which have driven market share for foreign brands down to just 31% in 2025, a dramatic decline from 64% in 2020. This local dominance has sparked intense price wars, with manufacturers slashing prices and incorporating high-value features, such as advanced driver-assistance systems, into baseline models at no extra cost. This combination of affordability and high quality accelerates consumer adoption, driving a structural reduction in transportation emissions.
The geopolitical implication is clear: China’s leadership in EV manufacturing, producing 70% of the global EV fleet , is not merely an economic victory but a core component of its energy security strategy. Decarbonizing the vehicle fleet reduces the nation’s vulnerability to international oil price fluctuations and the security risks associated with relying heavily on maritime oil imports.
Contraction in Construction Materials
The final component contributing to the plateau was a contraction in activity within heavy industries. Declines in cement and steel production saw associated emissions fall. This contraction reflects broader economic restructuring and stabilization in the construction sector following years of rapid build-out.
To ensure these temporary dips translate into permanent structural reductions, policymakers are deploying new regulatory levers. The national Emissions Trading System (ETS), which previously focused only on the power sector, was officially expanded in March 2025 to cover steel, cement, and aluminum industries. This expansion incorporates approximately 3,700 covered entities, collectively managing about 8 billion tonnes of CO 2 equivalent.
The transition in these high-emission sectors is phased: while initial allowance allocation (2024-2026) remains intensity-controlled and production-output-based, the long-term plan, beginning in Phase 2 (2027), is to progressively tighten the system by optimizing allocation against advanced intensity levels. This phased tightening in heavy industry is a preparatory step for the coming enforcement of absolute emissions controls, necessary to lock in these sectoral reductions.
IV. The Carbon Backdraft: The Coal-to-Chemicals Dilemma
The stability achieved through the clean energy juggernaut and transport decarbonization is currently being balanced—and potentially threatened—by an aggressive and growing counterweight: the coal-to-chemicals industry.
The Industrial Counterweight and the Surge in Coal Use
The chemical sector emerged as the single largest obstacle to sustained emissions decline in Q3 2025, with its surge in CO 2 output fully offsetting the reductions achieved in power, transport, cement, and steel. This sector was the only major segment of the economy to see emissions growth.
The magnitude of this counter-force is striking: coal consumption within the chemical sector increased by a dramatic 20% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, following a 10% increase the previous year. Concurrently, non-transport oil demand, primarily driven by the production of plastics and other chemicals, grew by 10% in Q3. This boom in the production of synthetic fuels and petrochemical products relies heavily on converting coal—a highly carbon-intensive process known as coal-to-olefins or coal-to-liquids.
The climate penalty is severe. Coal-based chemical production is significantly more carbon-intensive than traditional petrochemical production methods using natural gas or oil. For instance, producing ammonia using coal feedstock emits approximately 2.2 times more CO 2 than using natural gas. Furthermore, these coal conversion projects are environmentally destructive in two ways: they emit nearly three times as much CO 2 during the conversion process as is released when the synthetic gas is burned , and they place massive strain on water resources, which are scarce in the main coal-to-chemicals regions.
Drivers: Geopolitics, Security, and Economics
The core drivers of this coal-to-chemicals boom are deeply entrenched in China’s strategic priorities. The country operates from an inherently "coal-rich, oil-poor, and gas-poor" resource endowment. As the world’s largest importer of oil and LNG, China views its high dependence on foreign fossil fuels as a severe vulnerability, particularly concerning the risk of maritime blockade. Prioritizing energy security necessitates increasing domestic production of synthetic fuels and petrochemical feedstocks, even if the process is environmentally damaging.
This strategic imperative is amplified by market forces. Low coal prices during 2025 made coal conversion economically advantageous. Coal-based olefins were generating strong profit margins, while production based on oil-based naphtha or propane faced losses. This combination of strategic security concerns and favorable local economics incentivizes the rapid, large-scale expansion of these projects, often with heavy backing from local governments.
This coal-to-chemicals boom represents a zero-sum conflict within China’s policy framework. The high emissions intensity of these projects is the primary reason the nation is set to miss its 2020–2025 carbon intensity target. The sector is effectively acting as a carbon sponge, soaking up the emissions reductions gained from the nation’s world-leading renewable energy deployment. This internal policy contradiction—where national security and industrial profitability undermine climate goals—demands a fundamental policy restructuring.
V. Policy Ambition, Targets, and the Path Forward
China’s current climate performance demands a reassessment of its targets and regulatory mechanisms for the decade ahead, defined by the failure of a key intensity goal and the necessity of shifting to absolute caps.
The Penalty Box: Missing the 2025 Carbon Intensity Target
Based on current trends, China is projected to miss its domestic 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) target of an 18% reduction in carbon intensity (emissions per unit of GDP) from 2020 levels by 2025. This failure is primarily attributed to the high emissions intensity associated with the surging coal-to-chemicals and synthetic fuel production sectors, which grew under the previous regulatory regime.
The consequence of this shortfall is significant: missing the 2025 target means that China must undertake steeper and more decisive emissions reductions immediately after 2025 to meet its more ambitious 2030 NDC goal of achieving a 65% reduction in carbon intensity from 2005 levels. This political and economic necessity provides the foundational justification for the next phase of policy tightening.
NDC 3.0: The Economy-Wide Pledge
On November 3, 2025, China formally submitted its updated 2035 NDC to the UNFCCC. This new pledge represents a significant expansion in scope, covering the entire economy and addressing all major greenhouse gases (GHGs) for the first time, moving beyond its previous focus primarily on CO 2
The core quantitative commitment is an absolute target: to cut economy-wide net GHG emissions by 7–10% from their peak level by 2035. While setting an absolute cap is a landmark move, expert analysts generally categorize the target as conservative. Projections suggest that the 7-10% cut is largely achievable under existing policies, particularly if the current momentum in renewable deployment continues and the 2025 CO 2 peak scenario holds.
Regulatory Tightening: The Dual-Control Future
The policy tool designed to resolve the current conflict between economic security and climate ambition is the "dual-control of carbon" system, which manages both total (absolute) and intensity-based emissions. Policy guidance issued in August 2025 established a roadmap for this crucial transition away from purely intensity-based controls to hybrid and eventually absolute caps within the ETS framework.
The commitment to implement the dual-control system, reaffirmed in the lead-up to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) , is the necessary structural solution to address the carbon backdraft from the chemical sector. Since high-carbon industrial projects, driven by security and economic incentives, directly undermine intensity targets, only an absolute emissions cap can enforce limits on the total scale of conversion projects or compel major investment in low-carbon feedstocks.
The expectation is that the next FYP (2026-2030) will contain a clear intention to "phase down coal consumption". Given China’s proven track record of overachieving non-fossil targets—such as exceeding its 2030 wind and solar capacity goal and forest stock target years ahead of schedule —the political and economic momentum exists to ratify these non-emissions targets with increased ambition, even if the formal NDC remains conservative. The success of the clean energy buildout has generated a self-reinforcing dynamic where policy goals must be continually revised upward to keep pace with reality.
VI. The View from Belém: China’s Data at COP30
The publication of China's 18-month emissions analysis provides critical, actionable data for negotiators gathered at COP30, where the international community is debating how to address the widening gap in emissions-cut ambition and translate global fossil fuel phase-out agreements into concrete national strategies.
Informing the Global Stocktake and Ambition Gap
The Global Stocktake (GST), which assessed progress toward the Paris goals in 2023, concluded that the world is not on track. The GST highlighted priority areas such as tripling renewable energy capacity and driving down transport emissions. China’s data provides the strongest evidence globally that these key transitional strategies are feasible, even for the world’s largest industrial economy.
However, the data also highlights the deep policy fracture inherent in translating global commitments into national action. While COP30 seeks concrete steps to transition away from fossil fuels , China simultaneously demonstrates unparalleled success in scaling renewables and an increased commitment to coal-based industrial feedstocks driven by strategic security concerns. This conflicting reality presents a severe challenge for reaching a unified agreement on the implementation of fossil fuel phase-out agreements.
Geopolitical Power Play: The Clean Tech Democracy
China’s industrial strategy has successfully positioned the nation not merely as the world’s largest emitter, but as the indispensable provider of the global climate solution infrastructure. China’s exports of electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries—the foundational pillars of the new energy economy—surged to $120 billion in the first seven months of 2025.
This dominance in manufacturing has had a profound, democratizing effect on global decarbonization. China’s efficiency and economies of scale are credited with driving down solar panel prices by over 80% in the last decade. This cost revolution makes sustainable energy solutions more affordable and accessible than ever before, enabling many developing nations in the Global South to bypass fossil-fuel systems and move directly to modern, low-carbon grids.
By simultaneously stabilizing its domestic emissions through clean power and supplying the technology for global decarbonization, China reinforces its geopolitical leverage at multilateral forums like COP30. The evidence of structural decoupling, combined with the successful democratization of clean energy access, fundamentally shifts the debate on climate finance, equity, and the feasibility of aggressive decarbonization pathways outlined in the Paris Agreement.
VII. Conclusion: From Milestone to Momentum
The analysis confirming 18 months of flat or falling CO 2 emissions in China marks a global climate milestone. It is a definitive demonstration that structural decoupling between economic vitality and CO 2 growth is achievable through overwhelming investment in renewables and aggressive industrial policy in the transport sector. The power sector’s success, where 46% solar growth offsets a 6.1% demand acceleration, confirms the viability of the most optimistic peak projections.
However, this emissions plateau is structurally fragile. It represents a maximum point of tension, not a final resolution. The stability achieved by the clean energy juggernaut is held hostage by the rising tide of the highly carbon-intensive coal-to-chemicals industry, driven by geopolitical energy security imperatives and favorable economics. This industrial counter-force directly resulted in the projected miss of the 2020–2025 carbon intensity target.
The Imperative for the Decade Ahead
To convert the 2025 emissions plateau into a decisive and rapid decline, China must prioritize two critical actions in its next policy cycle:
Enforce Absolute Caps and Dual Control: The necessity of missing the carbon intensity target must be leveraged politically to accelerate the effective implementation of the “dual-control of carbon” system. Policymakers must move swiftly to introduce and strictly enforce absolute emissions caps across the newly integrated industrial sectors (steel, cement, chemicals) through the ETS, directly capping the total output of high-carbon conversion projects that currently bypass intensity controls.
Prioritize Grid Flexibility and Storage: China must treat its power grid and energy storage infrastructure as the primary bottleneck to emissions reduction. The aggressive 180 GW storage rollout plan by 2027 must be executed efficiently, alongside necessary investments in grid modernization and long-distance transmission, ensuring that every newly installed gigawatt of world-leading solar and wind capacity translates directly into displaced fossil fuel generation, rather than wasted power.
The stabilization of emissions is the climax of one phase of China's transition. Its subsequent ability to navigate the complex trade-offs between energy security and industrial decarbonization through robust policy enforcement will determine not only its success in meeting its 2030 targets but the feasibility of the global 1.5 degrees Celsius commitment. China’s action, or inaction, in the next five years will set the precedent for structural industrial decarbonization worldwide.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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