How China, not the U.S., became the main climate solution story in 2025

How China, not the U.S., became the main climate solution story in 2025

toggle caption Julia Simon/NPR

EUREKA, Calif., and ZHANGBEI COUNTY, China– Twenty miles off the misty northern coast of California, off of Humboldt Bay, there's a plan to build offshore wind turbines to power more than two million American homes.

The marine terminal that will assemble the turbines was supposed to be shovel-ready as soon as 2026, says Chris Mikkelsen, executive director of the Humboldt Bay Harbor District. That's no longer realistic, he says, in part because the Trump administration recently canceled more than $426 million in federal grants for the port. The project now needs to find new sources of money.

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"Now we've been on pause since we got the news in August, we've been pencils down," Mikkelsen says. "It very much contributed to the delay."

The Trump administration is reversing federal support for renewable energy, which it labels as risky and unreliable. But across the Pacific ocean, America's biggest competitor, China, is heading in the opposite direction, says Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society.

China now dominates the global renewables sector. In the first half of this year, China built more solar than the rest of the world combined. China accounts for 74% of all large scale solar and wind under construction, according to the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor. The U.S. accounts for 5.9%.