Clean Energy Tech Now Contributes 10% to Chinese GDP

Clean energy technologies contributed more than 10 percent to China’s economy in 2024, according to a new analysis by Carbon Brief and CREA. This equates to nearly $1.9 trillion (13.6 trillion yuan) in green sales and investments, which is similar to the size of these industries in a number of major economies. According to Carbon Policy, clean energy sectors have now overtaken several other major sectors such as real-estate sales (9.6 trillion yuan) and agriculture (9.1 trillion yuan) in terms of the share of China’s economy.

As the following chart shows, electric vehicles and batteries were the biggest contributor to the clean energy economy, accounting for $736 billion in 2024 alone, with the production of goods and services in the category growing by 20 percent from one year before. The wind and solar power industries were the next most valuable industries, accounting for $508 billion combined, while rail transportation summed to $256 billion. For this analysis, “clean energy” sectors cover renewables, nuclear power, electricity grids, energy storage, energy efficiency, EVs and railways.