GLOBAL CHINA INITIATIVE

The Global China Initiative (GCI) advances policy-oriented research on China’s overseas economic activity and engagement with international institutions in order to enable financial stability, human well-being and environmental sustainability.

GLOBAL CHINA RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Photo by Sarvar Samigov via Unsplash.

In September 2021, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged that China would stop financing new overseas coal-fired power plants and instead pledged to ramp up support for renewable energy projects. This announcement marked an important shift in China’s global energy policy, with potential to fill the glaring gaps in the financing necessary for the energy transition in developing countries.

An update to the China’s Global Power (CGP) Database, managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, introduces new data on China’s overseas power plant portfolio. A new policy brief evaluates the implementation of China’s 2021 pledge and offers both a recent and historical overview of China’s overseas power plants in terms of capacity, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy composition and investors.

The authors find, for the first time, the composition of Chinese overseas energy finance for both foreign direct investment (FDI) and development finance institutions (DFIs) has shifted to green energy, and there has been no new investment in coal-fired power plants since 2021. 

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