Opinion | What Happens if China Stops Trying to Save the World?

In climate world, something that once seemed almost unthinkable may now be happening.Preliminary data shows that while global carbon emissions are continuing to rise, China’s emissions may already be peaking — the longtime climate villain turning the corner on carbon before the planet as a whole does.Forecasts like these are not perfectly reliable, but already China has completely rewritten the global green transition story.

You may be familiar with the broad strokes of that story: that thanks to several decades of mind-boggling declines in the cost of solar, wind and battery technology, a new wave of climate advocacy and dramatically more policy support, the rollout of various green energy technologies is tracing an astonishing exponential curve upward, each year making a mockery of cautious projections from legacy industry analysts.But while this is often hailed as a global success, one country has dominated recent progress.When you look at the world outside of China, those eye-popping global curves flatten out considerably — green energy is still moving in the right direction, but much more slowly.Consider solar power, which is presently dominating the global green transition and giving the world its feel-good story.

In 2023, the world including China installed 425 gigawatts of new solar power; the world without China installed only 162 gigawatts.China accounted for 263 gigawatts; the United States accounted for just 33.

As recently as 2019, China was installing about one-quarter of global solar capacity additions; last year, it managed 62 percent more than the rest of the world combined.Over those same five years, China grew its amount of new added capacity more than eight times over; the world without China didn’t even double its rate.Take China out of these figures and the numbers look much less impressive: 90 gigawatts installed in 2019, 93 in 2020, 100 in 2021, 133 in 2022 and 162 in 2023.

There has been progress outside of China — a 62 percent...