China’s Clean Power Meets Coal

China is expanding wind and solar power at unprecedented scale while continuing to build coal-fired generation and consider large coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects.

Renewable capacity has helped drive some recent emissions declines, but coal additions and energy-security policies could limit or reverse that progress. The central uncertainty is whether clean-energy growth will displace coal quickly enough for China to meet its emissions-peak and carbon-neutrality objectives.