Global chances to improve energy security and drive sustainable growth

Editor's note: Tim Buckley is the director of theindependent thinktank Climate Energy Finance. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Electrification and decarbonization are key global themes in 2025, as are rapidly changing geopolitical circumstances. While some countries are abrogating their global commitments to act on climate science while upending world trade, there is also a growing interest in re-aligning towards countries and regions keen to pursue enhanced cooperation and collaboration.

As the environmental and economic costs of climate change continue to rise, both the economics and energy independence benefits of the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) pledge by almost 200 countries back in 2023 to triple renewable energy deployments by 2030 looks more and more strategically compelling.

China has invested aggressively in enhancing technologies and building manufacturing scale in zero emissions industries at an unprecedented rate. China's domestic cleantech deployments have likewise been world-leading. The next step is a significant lift in global capacity building as like-minded countries jointly address these strategic priorities.

As global oil prices shoot up in response to the events in the Middle East, we are reminded yet again of the massive energy security benefits of embracing electrification and decarbonization. Including petrochemicals, fossil fuels represent close to 40 percent of global seaborne trade, and with each geopolitical event that undermines that global trade and drives fossil fuel price volatility, the world gets a reminder that beyond simply the necessity of acting on the climate science, there are clear national benefits of energy independence that come from embracing zero emissions technologies.

Renewable energy continues to experience dramatic sustained deflation – progressively lowering costs as technology improvements combine with ever-greater economies of scale. Internationally traded solar module prices in 2025 are at or below $0.10 per watt, down 85 percent in a decade, at least for countries without massive import tariff barriers. Meanwhile battery pack prices are down at least 75 percent over the same period, dramatically improving the value of solar power.

Electric vehicles reached a 20 percent share globally of all car sales in 2024, and Rho Motion calculates global EV sales grew another 28 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2025, led by China. Rapid new model deployments, aggressive discounting and rapid battery and ultra-fast charger technology improvements are accelerating consumer interest as range anxiety becomes a thing of the past.

Beyond the climate science, the two trends of cutting fossil fuel import dependence and renewable energy deflation combine to reinforce the strategic logic of almost 200 nations committing to triple renewable energy deployments to 11,000 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 at COP28 with the aim of keeping to the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming. Beyond China, the rest of the world collectively is far from delivering on this collective commitment.

2024 saw China install a staggering 370.9 GW of renewable energy capacity, up 25 percent year-on-year. China installed over 60 percent of all renewable energy capacity additions in 2024, across onshore and offshore wind, utility and distributed scale solar as well as hydroelectricity. China has installed another 127.5 GW of renewables capacity in the first four months of 2025, up 60 percent year-on-year.

The scale of China's domestic cleantech manufacturing capacity has grown dramatically, well ahead of global deployments, driving increased price competition. China was also the leading force of cleantech solutions globally in 2024.

The energy sector changes in Pakistan illustrate the profound energy independence, deflation and energy availability improvements that can rapidly materialize in response to these new trends. 2024 saw Pakistan import 17 GW of solar modules from China, the second year in a row that imports doubled. Solar generation in March, 2025, contributed a record 27.9 percent share of the country's total, up from 15.8 percent in March, 2024, and just 10.1 percent in March 2023. This has dramatically reduced Pakistan's reliance on expensive, high emissions imported fossil fuels, showing the massive merits of increased Pakistan-China collaboration.

Despite some countries turning inwards, walking back their climate commitments and advocating for deglobalization, we see growing evidence of other nations embracing collaboration and cooperation to mutual benefit.

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) has also tracked another very exciting trend. China's outbound foreign direct investment in cleantech sectors has grown rapidly. Since the start of 2023, CEF has tracked over $165 billion of new outbound investment globally, with the majority of this going into Global South countries.

This month saw China's AESC, the battery subsidiary of green tech company Envision Group based in Shanghai, commission a new 10 gigawatt hours annual capacity electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Douai, in northern France, to localize supplies to Renault, providing employment for 1,000 workers. Reflective of the importance of this China-France high-tech collaboration, President of France Emannuel Macron attended the inauguration.

Last December saw China's leading battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology announce a new battery manufacturing joint venture with Europe's Stellantis in Spain, an even bigger 4.1 billion euros ($4.31 billion) investment proposal. Global collaborations are building mutually beneficial outcomes that chart a far more optimistic and constructive path forward. This is entirely consistent with the European Commission's ambitions to build sovereign capacities and strengthen its energy resilience, and the need to act now on the climate crisis.

Facing some Western proponents who have criticized China for building overcapacity in cleantech, China's efforts should be viewed as it building the global manufacturing and technology capacities required ahead of time to enable the world to collectively deliver on the much needed cleantech demand growth rates the world has committed to, and the climate science dictates we need.

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