China’s clean-energy exports are on track to keep about 450 million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the air this year, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Finland-based think tank. The estimate covers solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles shipped abroad in 2026, and it equals roughly the yearly fossil emissions of Brazil. It is a projection built on nine months of customs data, not a count of tons already avoided.
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The number needs careful reading. Myllyvirta’s analysis, published on 29 October 2026, treats 450 million metric tons as annual avoided emissions outside China from equipment exported in 2026, and it assumes the growth seen in the first three quarters carries through the fourth. Once the panels, turbines, batteries and vehicles are installed and running, they are expected to displace about that much carbon dioxide each year, around 2 percent of global emissions outside China. Counted over the working life of the same equipment, the savings come to about 8,400 million metric tons.
From port to power grid, the equipment carries the estimate
The method follows equipment from the port to the power grid. Each exported solar panel or wind turbine is assumed to displace electricity in the country that receives it, using that country’s capacity factor and the carbon intensity of its grid, while each electric vehicle is assumed to replace a comparable fuel-burning car, net of charging emissions. Lifetimes are set at 20 years for solar and wind, 10 years for vehicles and batteries and five years for electric two-wheelers, and manufacturing emissions in China are subtracted. Solar shipments are traced to final destinations with UN Comtrade data, so panels rerouted through third countries are counted where they land, as Myllyvirta’s Carbon Brief analysis lays out.
The electric two-wheeler piece rests on an assumption that about 48 percent of e-bike travel replaces motor-vehicle travel, which the analysis names as a key uncertainty.
Which exports are driving the growth
Growth in the first three quarters of 2026 against the same period a year earlier was led by electric cars and heavy vehicles, up 61 percent, followed by wind turbines at 45 percent, batteries at 39 percent, solar at 22 percent and electric two-wheelers at 21 percent. Solar still dominates the climate arithmetic because panels last two decades. Of the roughly 6,800 million metric tons avoided over the lifetime of 2025 exports, about 6,400 million came from solar, with wind near 180 million, electric vehicles and batteries near 170 million and two-wheelers near 40 million. The analysis also cautions that Chinese-owned overseas projects avoid far less carbon dioxide than equipment exports do, so the 450 million tons mostly reflects shipped hardware.
Demand has been pushed by the energy crisis tied to the Iran war. In an Associated Press report carried by Fast Company, exports to Southeast Asia rose nearly 160 percent according to Ember, while Chinese clean-tech shipments to the United States still climbed 13 percent despite higher tariffs. The same story, republished by Mongabay, notes that the subject is likely to reach the agenda of the UN climate talks in Turkey next month.
How much weight the figure can bear
Myllyvirta described the surge to the AP as a pivot point for the outlook of global energy and global emissions, and said demand is much stronger than he had expected. In Fortune’s version of the story, independent experts said the estimate fits the scale of China’s exports but that they could not validate the underlying data. That version also describes the 8,400 million ton lifetime figure as about 24 percent of annual global emissions. The comparison sets savings spread over decades against a single year of emissions, so it does not mean global pollution fell by a quarter in 2026.
The author has done this before. A July 2025 analysis hosted by the research centre concluded that China’s clean-energy exports in 2024 alone would cut overseas carbon dioxide by 1 percent, using the same export-flow and grid-intensity approach. The 2026 estimate is larger because the shipped volumes are larger.
The destination mix shapes the result as much as the volume. A panel installed on a coal-heavy grid avoids more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour than one on a grid already rich in hydropower or nuclear, which is why the analysis uses each receiving country’s own electricity data and applies an EU-average grid to destinations that act as re-export hubs. Missing or implausible data are filled with regional or global medians. Those choices are visible in the published methodology, and they are the places where a reviewer would look first if the estimate were challenged. Muyi Yang of Ember, quoted in the AP account, compared China’s energy transition to replacing a ship’s engine while it is still at sea.
Whether the 450 million figure holds depends on the fourth quarter, which the analysis projects rather than measures, and on China’s domestic solar market, since the analysis warns that a slowdown at home could raise trade tensions abroad. Until customs data for October through December arrive, the number remains a forecast resting on three quarters of shipments.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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