Above, more from Scott Galloway’s interview with Oxford University Data Scientist Hannah Ritchie. ( I set to start at 7:26 to save your time)
The breakneck speed of China’s deployments of solar panels, wind turbines, and nuclear reactors has done much to curb its emissions, even as the People’s Republic remains heavily reliant on coal. But Beijing’s effort to weather the shock of losing steady access to oil and gas out of the Persian Gulf is paying off as the country accelerates its transition away from hydrocarbons to alternative fuels and electrification.
Last month, I told you when Sinopec’s chief executive predicted that China’s demand for oil had already peaked. Now a new report shows that China’s emissions dropped by 1% in the second quarter of 2026 as a result of plummeting oil consumption amid the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
Analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Helsinki-based research nonprofit that tracks China’s energy transition, produced for Carbon Brief found that China’s total carbon dioxide emissions fell despite a rebound in coal-fired power generation because oil dropped by 9% overall and by a whopping 16% for transportation.
It’s the first time a reduction in oil consumption was directly responsible for falling emissions in China. And the country is likely to see further emissions drops. After all, Chinese technology essentially “saved the world from Trump’s energy crisis,” as my colleague Robinson Meyer teased out in a recent Shift Key episode.
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Chinese video below reports that Chinese Solar has now overtaken coal in total generation.