China races to build world’s largest solar farm to meet emissions targets

Chinese government officials last month showed off what they say will be the world's largest solar farm when completed high on a Tibetan plateau. It will cover 610 square kilometers (235 square miles), which is the size of Chicago.

- By KEN MORITSUGU and NG HAN GUAN.

China has been installing solar panels far faster than anywhere else in the world, and the investment is starting to pay off. A study released Thursday found that the country's carbon emissions edged down one percent in the first six months of 2025 compared to a year earlier, extending a trend that began in March 2024.

The good news is China's carbon emissions may have peaked well ahead of a government target of doing so before 2030. But China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, will need to bring them down much more sharply to play its part in slowing global climate change.

For China to reach its declared goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, emissions would need to fall three percent on average over the next 35 years, said Lauri Myllyvirta, the Finland-based author of the study and lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

of the year, more than America's entire capacity of 178 gigawatts as of the end of 2024, the study said. Electricity from solar has overtaken hydropower in China and is poised to surpass wind this year to become the country's largest source of clean energy. Some 51 gigawatts of wind power was added from January to June.

Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, described the plateauing of China's carbon emissions as a turning point in the effort to combat climate change.

‘Moment of global significance’