The assertion that the "West is leaving decrepit" behind is a geopolitical and economic perspective that is a subject of ongoing debate, while the claim about China's role in clean energy is a widely acknowledged fact. China's massive investment and manufacturing dominance in the clean energy sector has dramatically driven down the global cost of renewables and is considered by some analyses to be a key factor in keeping the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach, even as political support for climate measures has wavered in all Western countries.
China's Dominance in Clean Energy
Massive Investment: China has invested more in clean energy technologies than the U.S. and the EU combined in recent years. In 2024, China accounted for over 40% of global renewable energy capacity.
Manufacturing Powerhouse: China manufactures approximately 80% of the world's solar panels and has a significant share in wind turbines and EV batteries, creating integrated and efficient supply chains.
Cost Reduction: The extraordinary scale of China's production has led to a significant drop in the cost of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries (between 60% and 90% since 2010), making clean energy more accessible and competitive with fossil fuels globally.
Global Impact: This has enabled many developing countries to "leapfrog" traditional fossil-fuel-based infrastructure and adopt renewable energy solutions more rapidly.
Geopolitical and Economic Context
"Decline of the West" Debate: The notion of a "decline of the West" and a shift in global power towards the East is a recurring theme in geopolitical discussions, driven by factors like China's rapid economic and technological rise, rising national debts in Western countries, and domestic political instability, and refusal to stop contaminating the environment with carbon dioxide.
Contribution to Climate Goals: China and other Asian nations are expected to account for a vast majority of new global electricity capacity in the coming decades, making their transition crucial for global climate targets. Some sources suggest that without a swift decline in China's emissions, the Paris Agreement goals would be nearly impossible to meet.
“A decade after the Paris climate accord was signed, political support for it is fraying in the West. President Trump has pulled the U.S. out again, and Europe and Canada are balking at the cost and political unpopularity of climate measures.
Yet the global shift to clean energy is barreling ahead -- driven largely by China's emergence as a clean-tech superpower. China's massive manufacturing investments in the sector have sent the cost of clean energy plummeting, making it competitive with fossil fuels in many markets with few or no subsidies.
As governments gather in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate conference, China sits at the center of the negotiations. Beijing's turn to clean energy is helping keep the Paris accord intact, despite developing nations' frustration with Western backsliding on climate goals.
But China is also the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and has yet to begin cutting emissions -- a big reason why global warming is on pace to crash through the accord's temperature targets.
"China has become the supermajor of clean tech over 10 years," said Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive of TotalEnergies, the French oil and gas producer that is one of the world's biggest investors in renewables. "We didn't really see it in 2015, but the acceleration has been spectacular."
Now Chinese manufacturers are flooding global markets with solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles. The cost of solar power is less than half what analysts in 2015 predicted it would be in 2025. Electric vehicles in China are cheaper than combustion vehicles, and low-cost models from Chinese giants such as BYD are pushing Western automakers to bring down prices. Meanwhile, China's production of batteries, for vehicles and grid-level storage, has slashed the cost of those products.
For poorer nations, the plummeting cost of clean energy is helping offset a sharp drop in climate finance from wealthier nations.
That matters less when one of the cheapest sources of electricity in many developing nations isn't coal but solar panels paired with batteries, both made in China. In India, companies are now ordering thousands of megawatts of solar panel and battery capacity from Chinese manufacturers without a dime of subsidized financing from the West.
"Across all regions, renewable technologies demonstrate clear cost advantages over conventional generation," said Ahmed Jameel Abdullah, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
While renewables produce cheap power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, their intermittent nature adds costs to the broader grid, analysts say. Natural-gas plants currently fill the gaps, but batteries are becoming cheaper and increasingly viable as an alternative.
The Paris accord, adopted by more than 190 countries, called for governments to limit global warming to "well under" 2 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the industrial age and strive to limit it to close to 1.5 degrees.
Most analysts now believe the 1.5 degree goal is out of reach. Global emissions have surged, and China is a major culprit. Its emissions of carbon dioxide jumped from about 10 billion tons when the agreement was signed to more than 12 billion tons last year, around a third of the global total. U.N.-backed climate scientists say global emissions need to fall 43% between 2019 and 2030 to keep warming to 1.5 degrees, yet greenhouse gases have continued to rise.
The average global temperature last year was 1.55 degrees higher than preindustrial temperatures, the first year in which annual temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees. That doesn't necessarily mean the Paris threshold has been breached, but the unexpected rise underscored how little margin remains.
Rather than accelerating climate efforts, some Western governments are pulling back, and the Trump administration is trying to reverse the shift away from fossil fuels. In Europe and Canada, the inflationary shock fueled by the reopening from Covid and the sanctions on cheap Russian energy has sowed a backlash against taxes to fund renewables deployment.” [1]
1. World News: China Powers Clean Energy --- Massive investment saves Paris accord and drives down the cost of renewables. Dalton, Matthew. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Nov 2025: A7.
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