What Trump got wrong on China, coal and climate

Republican candidate Donald Trump has cited China’s coal plants as a reason for the US to stick with fossil fuels – but he fails to acknowledge China’s massive clean energy industry

During a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, former U.S. president and GOP candidate Donald Trump stated that China is building one new coal plant a week and “doesn’t do anything” environmentally clean. This information was cited as a reason that the U.S. should flout the international Paris climate agreement and continue pursuing fossil fuels.  

My organization researched the data the former president misconstrued on China’s energy mix – and we’d like to set the record straight. 

It’s true that in 2023 China commissioned about 50 gigawatts (GW) of coal power, roughly equal to a new 1-GW coal plant a week – nearly twice as much as in 2021 and 2022. The increase is believed to have been largely fuelled by instability in global supply chains and energy market fluctuations due to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Yet the utilization of China’s coal plants has been hovering around 50% – in other words, they are just as likely to be unused as used. The Chinese government itself appears to be conceding they are a poor investment, with coal plant approvals falling nearly 85% in the first half of 2024 compared to H1 2023.  

While China is building new coal plants, the idea that “China doesn’t do anything” environmentally clean is “pants on fire” false. To the contrary, in the first nine months of 2024 China built an estimated 195 GW of solar and wind power. That is nearly four times as much as the 43 GW utility-scale solar and wind capacity and 7 GW of solar residential power the U.S. is expected to build in all of 2024. And China isn’t stopping: two-thirds of the utility-scale wind and solar capacity in construction worldwide is in China.  

In short, China is building about 20 solar and wind farms a week – and growing.  

Global leader in clean energy

China also dominates the manufacturing and sales of electric vehicles (EVs), due to government support for advanced developments in battery technologies. The country is home to over half of global EVs, with sales of EVs in China now outpacing conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. Its EV industry is the largest in the world.   

Quite simply, when it comes to clean energy, China is clearly the global leader. One analysis published on CarbonBrief, estimates that China’s pursuit of clean energy was the main driver of the country’s 5.2% GDP growth in 2023, contributing $1.6 trillion to China’s economy. 

Rather than replicate the success of China’s clean energy industries, Trump would rather slap tariffs on them and again withdraw the U.S. from the global Paris climate agreement. GOP opposition to clean power is holding the U.S. back from its full potential in capitalizing on this growing industry and leaving Democrats to pursue clean energy policies and international climate diplomacy without Republican support.  

In 2022 the Biden Administration signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the country’s largest clean energy bill to date incentivizing the production of clean energy technologies. Since its passage, companies have announced over $110 billion in clean energy manufacturing investments, creating an estimated 170,000 jobs to date and projected to spur over 1.5 million clean energy jobs over the next decade.  

Model for the U.S.

The growth in clean energy is projected to save Americans nearly $40 billion in lower electricity bills by 2030, as solar and wind power have no fuel costs. Greater usage of clean energy will also lessen the country’s exposure to fossil fuel price volatility, which drove an estimated one-third of recent inflation.

Not one Republican supported the IRA, and the party’s threat of a filibuster confined the legislation to a budget reconciliation bill with only “carrots” for clean energy and no “sticks” for fossil fuels like a price on carbon emissions – despite the mounting evidence that carbon emissions cost much more in other ways, including the growing number and intensity of multi-billion-dollar “natural” disasters. 

Republicans like Trump often point to China’s continued propping up of under-used coal plants as a reason to stick to fossil fuels. If re-elected, Trump would almost certainly exit the U.S. from the Paris agreement again, creating a permission structure for other countries to do the same. Yet Trump leaves out how China’s embrace of clean energy is leading to a multi-trillion-dollar industry – one the U.S. and the world could replicate.  

Cover photo: Large machinery works at the steel-structure cooling tower construction site of the 1,000 MW coal-fired unit expansion project of Gansu Power Plant in Zhangye city, Gansu province, China, March 6, 2024. (Photo: CFOTO/Sipa USA/via Reuters Connect)