China recorded a drop in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the first quarter of 2025, even as national electricity demand increased. This was the result of the country’s surging clean power generation, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief.
Emissions were down 1.6 percent year-on-year for the period thanks to wind, solar and nuclear-generated electricity – each of which has seen significant investments over the past few years – offsetting the impact of emissions-heavy coal. Demand for power, meanwhile, grew by 2.5 percent during the same quarter.
According to Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and a senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute, this is the first time clean energy had been responsible for a decrease in China’s CO2 emissions. He noted that previous dips had been due to “periods of economic stress.”
[See more: Clean energy made up over 10 percent of China’s GDP in 2024, study finds]
Myllyvirta said that if the trend could be maintained, it would show China’s power sector emissions had peaked – something President Xi Jinping had pledged would happen before 2030. There is some promising data to support the possibility of a plateau or structural decline in emissions, the analyst added, noting that China’s CO2 output had been stable or falling for more than a year.
However, Myllyvirta also said that as the quarter’s emissions were only slightly less than the latest peak, “any short-term jump could cause China’s CO2 emissions to rise to a new record.”
According to Carbon Brief’s China profile, the country overtook the US to become the world’s largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases in 2006 – although cumulative and per-capita emissions remain about half of those in the US.
