U.S. Emissions Rise 4.2%, China's Fall 2.7%

Is there a future where China uses this as leverage with the rest of the world to put sanctions on the US if we don't transition?

China is doing this for energy independence. Their fossil fuel supply chain is critically vulnerable. They don't care about the climate, but will happily play the optics.

Neither the US cares about the climate amd doesn't care about the optics either.

This is capitalism in action: solar is cheaper than anything else per kwh. The obsession with fossil in the West is due to the fossil fuel lobbies, not because of the rational market forces. China doesn't have that.

I'm as big of a proponent on solar as anyone, but to avoid confusion, understand that those cheap solar figures come from using state subsidized Chinese panels on near worthless land in the cloudless remote southwest.

If you are trying to use American made panels near population centers in the Northeast or the Midwest, the economics become much more challenging.

California obtains almost 80% of their daily needs from solar, and is the world’s fourth largest economy. Almost the entire US could run off of solar and batteries based on current utility scale costs of both technologies (but will likely continue to use a mix of nuclear, renewables, batteries, transmission, demand response, and fossil gas for filling in the gaps as learning curves continue to deliver cheaper low carbon energy).

It's simply a matter of will (or in the case of the US, lack thereof).

https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-beats-the-heat/

https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/

https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35097.pdf

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31072025/inside-clean-ene...

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...

https://electrek.co/2025/06/20/batteries-are-so-cheap-now-so...

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/26/there-is-one-clear-winn...

No they don't. They get 56% of their power from coal:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#...

And they onboarded more coal plants in 2024 than any time in the prev 10 years:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...