Kerry Tells the World to Follow China's Green Energy Lead as Cop31 Opens

Cop31 is underway in Turkey, and the loudest question in the room is what China will actually do with its newfound appetite for climate leadership. John Kerry, the former US secretary of state, told the Guardian that Beijing has already lapped the field. In his words, China is the only country that has hugely accelerated, while the rest of the world stumbles along as nature sends stronger signals by the week.

The numbers back him up. China's clean-tech exports cleared $220bn in 2025 and are expected to climb again this year, making the world's biggest emitter its top supplier of clean energy technology. It holds roughly 85% of solar and 80% of lithium-ion battery supply chain production capacity, and nearly three-quarters of electric cars built in 2025 came out of Chinese factories.

Kerry credits self-interest, not altruism. He said China realised it was too dependent on oil and gas from elsewhere and decided to go independent, a calculation other countries have now made too — helped along, he noted wryly, by the war in Iran and the interrupted strait of Hormuz. His verdict on the resulting renewable boom: a massive uptick in deployment, and 'Thank you, Donald Trump.'

Even autocratic states without free elections will follow the money, Kerry argued. They can read a spreadsheet, he said, and see where costs are exorbitant and where the better deal sits. Renewables paired with storage and some transitional gas now beat going straight to fossil fuels, he added, calling the global shift to electricity unstoppable.

China has signalled it wants Cop31 to tackle the free flow of green technology against what it calls intensifying geopolitical conflict — widely read as a jab at US and EU tariffs on Chinese EVs and solar gear. Li Shuo of the Asia Society Policy Institute framed the stakes: climate action was once seen as a drag on growth and is now a driver of it, leaving China one question — will it lead out of duty or out of self-interest?

Beijing's five-year plan, adopted in March 2026, pledged for the first time to actively participate in and lead global climate governance. Xi Jinping casts China as a 'doer and go-getter' for global development, and state media keeps showcasing Chinese renewables in Indonesia, Pakistan and Kenya. Green energy deals under the belt and road initiative in the first half of 2026 already outran the whole of 2025, and Kevin Tu of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies expects China to find allies in Brazil, India and South Africa over tariff costs. Kate Logan, also of ASPI, reckons Beijing would settle for a cooperative summit with no major drama — and analysts will be watching its climate finance pledges and any bid to host Cop33 in 2028.