China Invests More in Solar and Wind Than Coal Overseas for the First Time: Report

Nearly 70 percent of China’s foreign power investments from 2022 to 2023 were in renewables like solar and wind, surpassing fossil fuels for the first time since Beijing started backing power projects overseas in the early 2000s, according to a new analysis from the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center at Boston University (BU).

The shift highlights China’s increasing dominance in green energy technologies and the supply chains of critical minerals and metals that support them, reported Inside Climate News.

China’s overseas energy investments hit a record, with wind and solar making up the majority of spending for the first time.

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— Inside Climate News (@insideclimatenews.org) May 26, 2025 at 1:11 PM

“In September 2021, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged that China would stop financing new overseas coal-fired power plants and instead pledged to ramp up support for renewable energy projects,” a new policy brief by researchers from the BU GDP Center said. “This announcement marked an important shift in China’s global energy policy, with potential to fill the glaring gaps in the financing necessary for the energy transition in developing countries.”

The brief — No New Coal A Shift in the Composition of China’ s Overseas Power Plant Portfolio? — evaluates the implementation of the country’s 2021 pledge and offers a historical and recent overview of its overseas power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions, capacity, energy composition and investors, a press release from the BU GDP Center said.

An update to China’s Global Power Database, managed by the BU GDP Center, introduced new data on the country’s overseas power plant portfolio.

The authors of the brief found that the makeup of China’s overseas energy finance for development finance institutions and foreign direct development has shifted to 68 percent green energy. There have also been no new coal-fired power plant investments since 2021.

The findings are complicated, however, since the data shows a downward trend in total energy investments, and the overall stock is still heavily carbon intensive.

Coal plants that were in the pipeline before the country made its pledge “are still coming online and will emit carbon dioxide for decades going forward,” the researchers said, as Inside Climate News reported.

If those coal plants are finished, they will collectively emit annual carbon emissions equal to the country of Austria, the analysis said.

Another factor tempering the shift toward financing renewables in China’s overseas portfolio is that the country’s overall foreign direct investment has fallen since its peak in 2016.

“This shift does not represent a significant ramp-up in renewables, as the scale of financing remains relatively small,” the researchers said.

Just three gigawatts of wind and solar capacity were funded in 2022 and 2023. In comparison, China’s total overseas power investments between 2013 and 2019 averaged 16 gigawatts of capacity.

“China’s global energy financing is increasingly aligned with the green transition, but coal may continue to represent a significant part of China’s overseas power portfolio as previously announced projects continue to come online. Still, initiatives such as the Green Investment and Finance Partnership (GIFP), announced at the 2023 Belt and Road Forum, hold the potential to advance sustainable development, helping developing countries achieve their green energy objectives,” the press release said.