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Welcome back to Current Climate. China may dominate global sales of clean energy technology, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, but it’s also the planet’s top carbon emitter owing to a heavy reliance on coal. But that unhealthy addiction is starting to change.

With its head-spinning production and installation of renewable energy, coal’s supremacy in China is weakening. In the year’s first six months, coal produced 49.7% of the country’s power, falling below 50% for the first time in recent history, the government said last week. And at the current pace of installations, which could reach 4,300 gigawatts by the end of the year, solar power may pass coal to become China’s top source of electricity in the third quarter, according to the China Electricity Council.

That would be a major milestone, yet the country’s reliance on coal won’t fade rapidly. That’s because just like in the U.S., electricity demand is spiking, as the country builds more AI data centers and consumers keep switching to EVs. As a result, even with more solar and wind power being added to the grid, total coal use may still grow in the next few years, even as it’s outstripped by renewables. China’s target is for coal use to peak no later than 2030, and decline from that point onward.

While the growth in renewables is encouraging, environmental groups want to see it expand even faster. “Solar and wind play a central role in outcompeting and displacing coal. But solar and wind generation is still only at 25%,” said Gao Yuhe, Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing-based project lead. “Stronger targets for solar and wind generation will have a knock-on effect to further undercut coal. China’s current 2030 target for wind and solar is 30%, but we can easily hit 33% by 2028. Without stronger targets, coal will linger in the interim.”

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© Forbes