What is China's pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?

Under the Highest Possible Ambition scenario, electricity demand in the power sector would continue to grow until 2060. Compared to the 2023 levels, demand would grow by over 60% by 2035 and by nearly 150% by 2050. Despite growing demand, China’s power sector CO₂ emissions would peak around 2025 and decline rapidly thereafter, approaching full decarbonisation by 2050, and turning to negative emissions by 2060.

This transition requires a near total phase-out of coal and gas by 2040 along with a massive scale-up of renewables. By 2040, solar generation increases roughly fifteen-fold to almost 9 PWh from 2023 levels, while wind grows seven-fold to about 6.3 PWh. Structurally, solar power would account for nearly half of the power mix from 2040, while wind power would supply over one-third by 2040. Hydropower would maintain a roughly 10% share of the power mix.

In 2024, solar and wind together accounted for 18% of China’s power mix, doubling their 2020 share.⁴4 In 2025, generation from solar and wind saw an annual increase of 43% and 14% respectively, adding 360TWh and 130TWh of clean electricity.⁵5 Sustaining this pace of growth would place China’s power sector on a 1.5 °C-compatible pathway.

China’s 2022 and 2025 NDCs target more than 1200 GW of combined wind and solar capacity by 2030, and over 3600 GW by 2035.⁶6^,77 By 2025, installed wind and solar capacity exceeded 1800 GW, surpassing the total thermal capacity.⁸8 The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) advances decarbonisation through a strengthened CO₂ emissions and CO₂ emissions intensity dual-control framework, combining regulatory measures with market-based mechanisms.⁹9 It prioritises accelerating the deployment of non-fossil energy, increasing clean power consumption, and peaking coal and oil consumption.¹⁰10 The plan also promotes the construction of a new-type power system, which incorporates microgrids, virtual power plants, and AI-enabled grid management, alongside the large-scale expansion of new-type energy storage system (non-pumped hydro technologies which are primarily lithium-ion batteries) to support system flexibility and renewable integration.¹¹11^,1212^,1313

Coal is expected to remain in the system in the near term to provide flexible load, not aligned with our HPA scenario.¹⁴14 Rather than setting a fixed phase-out timeline, China is prioritising efficiency improvements through retrofitting coal plants and using market mechanisms to moderate coal plant utilisation. These include the national emissions trading system, the development of a unified electricity market, and emerging capacity payment mechanism designed to shift coal toward a balancing role as renewable penetration increases.

While the priorities set out in the 15th Five-Year Plan send some positive signals, coal’s continued role in the system leaves uncertainty around how China will align with 1.5°C, and raises concerns for how to manage excess coal capacity and the economic consequences of stranded coal assets.