China’s Green Energy Transition is Not as Rosy as It Appears, According to Op-Ed by Charlie Garcia

   While people like activist ideologue Bill McKibben have painted a rosy picture of China’s record-setting energy transition pace, the reality is stark, according to an op-ed by Charlie Garcia in Market Watch.

     First, he notes China’s unabated rise in coal consumption:

“China burns 56% of the world’s coal, has tripled consumption since 2000 and is building coal plants at the fastest pace in a decade.”

     Thus, he rightly criticizes China’s depiction as a global climate leader. He writes:

“China installed a record-setting 277 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2024. Headlines everywhere. The energy transition is here, they told us, and China is leading it.”

“What nobody mentioned: China’s solar industry lost $60 billion that same year.”

“More than 40 solar manufacturers have gone bankrupt or delisted since 2024. One-third of China’s 121 listed solar producers are operating in the red. The top four manufacturers — the giants that were supposed to dominate the 21st century — collectively lost $1.5 billion in the first half of 2025 alone. The previous year was worse. This year looks worse still.”

     He cites a Reuters report that 87,000 workers have been laid off as a result of the financial losses. He cites an Atlantic Council report that capacity factors for Chinese solar power are very poor, which makes them less economical, which I found a bit shocking.

“China’s solar-capacity factor, according to the Atlantic Council, stood at just 14.7% in 2023, compared with 23.3% in the United States.”

“IEEFA data shows utilization hours collapsed from 1,030 in 2020 to just 473 in 2024.”

     He calls Chinese solar installations “the world’s most expensive decorations.” He calls it a traffic jam rather than an energy transition and says that China is building solar faster than it can use it and when it doesn’t get used, profits for companies drop to zero. He cites a Doomberg article that notes curtailment rates of:

“…6.6% in the first half of 2025, up from 3.9% the year before. Wind rose to 5.7% from 3%.”

     While China cites grid constraints and transmission bottlenecks for the growing curtailments, he says binding coal purchase contracts are causing a lot of the curtailed solar as well. China’s market policies favor coal with long-term and medium-term contracts, where a penalty must be paid if the coal is not burned.

“The officially reported curtailment rate for late 2024 was 3.2%. Independent analysts at Carbon Brief who examined the data believe the actual figure was closer to 5.5%. The gap is not a rounding error. It is the distance between propaganda and reality.”

     He notes that Chinese coal mining companies are becoming vertically integrated by buying coal-fired power plants.

“In 2024, more than 75% of newly approved coal-power capacity in China was financed by coal-mining companies or energy groups with coal-mining operations.”

“Read that again. The companies digging coal out of the ground are now buying the power plants that burn it. They are not hedging against the energy transition. They are building walls against it. By owning both supply and demand, they guarantee themselves customers for decades regardless of what happens to solar costs or battery technology or climate policy.”

     However, that will only happen if the Chinese Communist Party allows it to happen. Perhaps, he forgets where the real power is in China. It is with the government, not companies.

     Next, he notes that Chinese coal mines are major releasers of methane into the atmosphere, accounting for about 70% of coal mine methane emissions globally. That could rise to 75% if all mining plans are implemented in the future, he says.

“Satellite data recently caught Shanxi province, China’s largest coal-producing region, emitting an estimated 1.2 million tons of methane annually from just 82 facilities. That is four times the integrated emissions from the Permian Basin and Four Corners hotspots in the United States, two of the most notorious oil and gas methane sources on Earth.”

“The International Energy Agency estimates that countries globally underreport energy-related methane emissions by approximately 80%. The gap between what governments tell the United Nations and what satellites actually observe is not subtle. It is a chasm.”

     He also notes that China’s coal imports have been rising as well.

“China’s coal imports hit a record 543 million metric tons in 2024. That was up 14.4% from the previous year, which was also a record.”

     He notes that coal provides baseload power, grid stability, and many jobs for Chinese citizens. If all this is true, then why has China deployed so many solar energy projects?

“The solar-manufacturing boom served multiple purposes: generate exports, absorb capital fleeing the property sector, create jobs and provide talking points for international climate conferences. Whether the panels actually displaced coal was never the primary objective.”

     He ends the op-ed noting that the green energy transition will eventually happen as technologies get better, but notes that China won’t be leading it:

“The green-energy transition will eventually arrive. Physics and economics guarantee it. Battery costs will fall. Grid technology will improve. Solar efficiency will increase. The math will eventually become undeniable even to bureaucrats with coal contracts to protect.”

“But China will not lead this transition. China is not the future of clean energy. China is the present of coal, dressed in solar-panel camouflage, marketed to a Western audience eager to believe that someone, somewhere, is solving the climate problem.”

“China is selling the T-shirt, pocketing the

 markup and burning coal to print more.”  

 

References:

 

China’s green energy revolution is losing $60 billion a year. Why are investors still throwing money at it? Opinion by Charlie Garcia. Market Watch. January 21, 2026. China’s green energy revolution is losing $60 billion a year. Why are investors still throwing money at it?