As the West watches China attempt to dominate the green energy market, many think it is a world leader in implementing the green agenda.
However, this image is an illusion. To achieve this questionable title of green champion, China must pollute and use fossil fuels on a massive scale.
While other countries are closing down coal power plants, China built 121 new plants in 2025, bringing its total to 1,195 already in operation. It is increasing its energy consumption to fuel its green manufacturing surge and control the green market.
The Deception of Green Investment
Headline numbers can be misleading. For example, China accounted for 39 percent of the $2 trillion invested globally in green energy in 2024. The U.S. and the European Union combined contributed 34 percent.
However, this raw spending figure reveals little about the type of investment, nor Beijing’s intentions. Under Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the primary goal has never been environmental stewardship, but rather economic and geopolitical dominance, regardless of the cost in lives or harm to the earth.
The True Environmental and Human Cost
Indeed, China’s rapid industrialization came at an enormous cost to its environment and the health of its people. China is the world’s largest polluter. Its major cities are cited for poor air and water quality.
The human toll is devastating. Life expectancy north of the Huai River is 5.5 years lower than in the south due to air pollution. Severe water contamination and scarcity are degrading the land. Environmental degradation is estimated to cost about 3-10 percent of its gross national income.
The impact of China’s pollution on health paints a bleak picture. Air pollution is linked to approximately 1.2 million premature deaths annually due to respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
Unsafe drinking water causes an estimated 11 percent of digestive system cancers in the country.
Xi Jinping’s message to the nation is that people are expendable in the quest for global dominance of green markets.
The Bursting Green Bubble
The “green” side of Chinese industry is likewise destructive to the nation. The CCP directed a massive amount of capital into the green industry, triggering overproduction, which destroyed markets.
Thus, China’s annual solar production capacity is now more than twice the world’s total solar panel sales for 2024. The result is poorly made, cheap panels flooding the global market with low-quality, low-cost products while establishing Chinese dominance.
This strategy is unprofitable. The International Energy Agency found that every part of China’s solar supply chain suffered massive losses last year, with some margins dropping to nearly 60 percent below the break-even point. Between early 2024 and mid-2025, more than 40 companies have delisted, gone bankrupt or been sold off.
The industry even cut its workforce by a third in 2024. To add to the contradiction, this production remains heavily reliant on enormous amounts of coal: every Chinese silicon smelter, a key component in solar panels, needs its own dedicated coal-fired power plant. China’s green illusion is built on a foundation of black coal.
The Electric Vehicle Illusion
Beijing also employed the same strategy in the electric car market. It overproduced vehicles, flooding the global market with an abundance of cheap EVs. The overcapacity is staggering. The consultancy AlixPartners estimates that of the 129 current Chinese EV and hybrid brands, only 15 will be financially viable by 2030.
Beijing’s EV wager can only bear fruit for the CCP if enough Western leaders mandate EVs and eliminate gasoline-fueled car sales.
While Chinese consumers buy nearly two-thirds of all EVs sold worldwide, this figure reflects artificial controls of the domestic markets. The CCP limits purchases of traditional gas cars while luring buyers to EVs with extremely low prices from government-subsidized production.
The environmental benefit of making everything “battery” operated is also an illusion. Chinese EV batteries are produced using coal energy and charged on a grid dominated by coal. A 2023 study in iScience shows that driving a Chinese EV emits 85- to 90 percent of the carbon of a gasoline car over its lifetime. The EVs also worsen China’s air pollution since they produce deadly sulfur dioxide and particulate matter pollution.
More Coal, Not Less
While China added unprecedented solar and wind capacity last year, it also reached a 10-year high for new coal plant construction. China remains the world’s top coal consumer, with over 87 percent of its primary energy coming from coal. The share of renewables in its energy mix was only 10 percent in 2023. At this rate, a complete green transition would take another 400 years.
The CCP shows no serious interest in abandoning coal, which it considers a reliable energy source to support its industrial ambitions. Despite recent promises to “strictly control fossil fuel consumption,” construction on new coal plants continues unabated.
The Real Lesson for the West
China is not the green giant it purports to be. The real lesson here is that China has used the issue to hide its ruthless race for abundant coal energy and global dominance. Meanwhile, the West, especially Europe, is killing itself with self-imposed energy restrictions and regulations. It should instead let Xi drown in his windmills and solar panels.
Green China is a façade for Red China. The West needs to diversify its energy production. If it does not start acting, it risks waking up in a world powered not by its own ingenuity, but by Beijing’s dictates.
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