China's exports of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries this year will avoid 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions outside China, according to a Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air analysis.
China's clean technology exports this year will cut carbon emissions outside its borders by an amount equivalent to Brazil's annual emissions from consuming fossil fuels, according to an analysis by the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, reported by Reuters on 29 October. Exports of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries will help the world avoid 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to 2% of annual emissions outside China.
The impact is growing: avoided emissions are up from 370 million tonnes last year, more than Britain emitted from fossil fuel consumption. The bulk of the avoided emissions came from countries in the Global South, as they increased imports from China and cleaned up fossil-heavy grids, with solar power by far the biggest source. Many of those countries are in sunny regions with rich solar potential.
Over the lifetime of the equipment exported from China in 2026, which for wind and solar farms can run for decades, the avoided emissions are forecast at 8,400 million tonnes, as much as the United States and India together emit in a year from fossil fuels. The analysis estimates it took around six months for clean technology imports to pay back the carbon dioxide emitted in manufacturing the panels, turbines and other equipment.
These are modelled estimates from an independent research centre, not measured emissions, and they depend on assumptions about what energy the clean technology displaces. The analysis itself notes the counterweight: despite concerns about industrial overcapacity, China's clean technology exports have in aggregate created new markets rather than displacing existing producers, but the surge in green exports drove down per-unit prices and cut into the revenues of incumbent producers.
China has labelled clean technology tariffs the new problem for climate action and has vowed to push back against them at COP31, the climate summit due next month. That positions the export story as a negotiating argument as well as an emissions story: Beijing will present its factories as a climate asset at the same time as other countries debate tariffs on their output.
COP31 next month is the next dated test, where the analysis is likely to be cited in arguments over tariffs, and where any agreement on clean technology trade would show whether the emissions argument changes policy.