The uncomfortable success of China’s climate autocracy

It’s getting difficult for even the most fervent of climate deniers to ignore the current wave of environmental disasters sweeping the world. That won’t stop some of them, like Donald Trump, from encouraging America’s private sector to add to the problem by opening new fossil fuel projects, all of which encourages developing countries (Opens in new window) to do likewise.

There are glimmers of hope, however, albeit faint ones. Even Trump thinks that oil companies are “making too much money (Opens in new window)” from his woefully ill-conceived war with Iran, for example. While this unexpected observation may just reflect the fact that he and his family are not personally benefiting (Opens in new window) from this windfall, it does raise a real question about the way we are collectively responding to an unprecedented global crisis: is the profit motive the best way of solving the problem?

To judge by a recent article in The Economist (Opens in new window), the answer is still yes. Given that The Economist has been the influential flag-bearer for liberal politics and economics for over a century, this comes as no surprise. What is more surprising at this historical juncture, however, is that the author chose to make this point in the context of a critique of China’s “eco-authoritarianism”.

The key failing of the Chinese approach to environmental management in this reading is that its top-down approach means that “the government does not listen to the people that its environmental policies harm. And sometimes it does not listen to environmentalists, either.” Much the same could be said of the Trump regime, of course. Trump has gone much further by systematically undermining the authority and capacity of the Environmental Protection Agency and appointing another climate change sceptic (Opens in new window) to oversee a “National Climate Assessment”.

By contrast, China’s bossy, interventionist, undemocratic government can point to some notable real-world achievements in defence of its approach to policymaking. Apart from lifting millions of people out of poverty at an extraordinary speed and scale, it has managed to do so without some of the horrors that accompanied the industrialisation process in places like Britain (Opens in new window).

True, no one knew what the implications for the environment would be when the industrial revolution began, but we do now. It’s to China’s credit that its autocratic leaders recognise this and have at least tried to balance economic development and environmental sustainability. CO₂ emissions in China seem to be plateauing (Opens in new window) and it accounted for 60% (Opens in new window) of newly installed global additions to renewable energy stocks in 2025.

Meanwhile, America accounted for a third of the global increase in CO₂ emissions in 2025 (Opens in new window), as coal usage increased. Nor is this a uniquely American problem either, of course. Australia, another champion of free markets and business-friendly policies, continues to allow massive fossil fuel developments that climate scientists (Opens in new window) warn will further exacerbate its own and the world’s environmental problems.

At least in China they talk about the necessity of developing an “ecological civilisation (Opens in new window)” predicated on a “moderately prosperous” standard of living. This is another reality policymakers in the Global North are unwilling to confront: it may not be possible to have endless economic expansion and consumption on a finite planet without crossing critical planetary boundaries (Opens in new window) and risking catastrophe.

Will China be able to square the circle of continuing economic development and sustainability? Who knows. But at least China is making real progress (Opens in new window) in addressing its own emissions and helping to facilitate a possible green transition in the Global South thanks to its dominance in the production and export of solar panels. Actions famously speak louder than words.

Unpalatable and unattractive as China’s approach to environmental management may be for policymakers in places such as the US and Australia, it is making a tangible difference, and not just for China: the sheer size of China’s population and economy means that anything the People’s Republic does will have an impact on the rest of us, too.

Helping address the world’s environmental challenges may not be Xi Jinping’s primary goal but adopting policies that don’t make things worse is something to be celebrated at this extraordinarily perilous moment in human history. Business as usual simply isn’t an option, and states around the world need to recognise this and act accordingly.

One of the ironies of the current historical juncture is that it wasn’t hard to see it coming (Opens in new window). And yet policymakers, especially in democracies, continue to privilege short-term political considerations over long-term survival. If we really are in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, as Joe Biden (Opens in new window) used to claim, it would be helpful if democratic leaders and captains of industry could point to a similar record of achievement as China’s.