Coal Is Rising in China’s Clean Energy Transition

China is not moving from coal to renewables in a linear transition. Instead, it is attempting to expand both simultaneously.

Deborah Lehr and Ruihan Huang as featured on The Diplomat.

China’s energy transition is entering a more complex phase than commonly assumed. While the country is rapidly scaling up renewable energy – China now leads the world in both investment and deployment – coal production and coal power investment are also increasing.

This contradiction reflects a deeper structural reality: China is not moving from coal to renewables in a linear transition. Instead, it is attempting to expand both simultaneously, balancing decarbonization goals with rising electricity demand and system reliability constraints.