Image by Sonika Agarwal.
But Net Zero Needs $7 Trillion/Yr
China is establishing a world leadership role via green energy as the consummate bargaining tool. Its foreign direct investment, led by its green tech industry, over the past three years, is upwards of $227 billion. According to Bloomberg (China’s Marshall Plan Is Running on Batteries d/d September 9, 2025) adjusted for inflation that figure equals the post WWII Marshall Plan. China’s green tech alone came to $138 billion in 2023-24
But, “Net Zero” is the costliest endeavor in human history.
According to an extensive study by Bloomberg NEF, it requires a staggering $7 trillion a year in renewable investments to achieve net zero by 2050, totaling $175 trillion by 2050. Hmm.
Accordingly, in 2024 the world invested a record amount, or roughly $2 trillion, which was $5 trillion short of what is necessary per annum for net zero/2050. That $5 trillion shortfall increases the bogey next year and the years after for every year below $7 trillion, until it’ll take $8 trillion in one year, then $9T, then more.
For comparison purposes: The Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program, cost approximately $13.3 billion between 1948 and 1952. Adjusted for inflation, it would be roughly $130 billion in today’s dollars, looking very peaked next to Net Zero.
China is rapidly gaining favor to win the Green Award of the 21st Century. Thanks to Chinese foresight, nearly 2/3rds of emerging markets now have a larger share of solar power in grids than does the US at roughly 9%. “The US is increasingly resembling a steampunk relic still dependent on 19th century furnace and turbine technology to fuel its dreams of artificial intelligence.” (Bloomberg) This backwardness is reminiscent of the 19th century’s final wagon train lumbering West as trains sped by.
In a direct shot at the heart of America’s archaic oil production CO2 emissions, China’s solar exports alone in 2024 were enough to cut global CO2 emissions by 4 billion metric tons. This is happening as China’s greenfield spending takes stride, e.g., COBCO, a $2B lithium-ion battery factory opened in Morocco in June with capacity of 70 gigawatt hours of batteries per year, or sizeable enough to power 1.2 million EVs annually.
Another China victory, in Jakarta, a solar panel factory has been built to produce 1.6 gigawatts of modules per year, which will accommodate Indonesia’s plans for 17.1 GW of photovoltaic power generation by 2035.
China’s foreign investments in the Global South brings in its path jobs, energy independence, economic growth, clean air, and hopefully, reprieve from the threat of disruptive climate change, although this challenge is nearly out of control after a couple hundred years of burning fossil fuel with CO2 emissions. It’ll take decades and trillions upon trillions of dollars to tame the CO2 beast.
Aside from China’s direct foreign investment in the Global South, US tariffs have been a bonanza for China’s solar panel industry as African imports increased by 60% over the past year.
The US abandonment of green energy is quickly looking like one of the greatest blunders in US history, missing out on a moonshot of rapid growth with high paying jobs, the formula for national greatness. There is evidence that the clean-energy revolution isn’t losing because of Trump policies. Rather, it is relocating by leaving the US behind coughing in clouds of dust. For example, the EU increased green investment dollars up 63% to nearly $76 billion, double the US paltry $37 billion.
Investment capital is fleeing the US renewable market to go elsewhere for razor-edge green investments, e.g., both TotalEnergies SE and German energy giant RWE AG are rerouting wind energy plans to the North Sea at the expense of US investment projects in wind. Major international green players are abandoning the US market as the president claims wind energy is “ruining our country.”
Fascinatingly, both India and China are working hard towards becoming clean energy superpowers. For example, India is installing record amounts of renewables and retiring fossil fuels but still forced to add coal power plants to meet heavy power requirements of a rapidly emerging middle class, and extraordinary demands for power to counter global warming to meet surging sales of air conditioners, 13.3 M units in 2024, up 30% over 2023, and demand is skyrocketing, as global warming leaves its mark on India.
“As the climate warms, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe across India. Indians have recently experienced extreme heat waves, floods, water shortages, and irregular monsoon patterns.” (Yale Climate Change Communication, May 22, 2025)
Meanwhile in America, according to a recent Bloomberg subtitle: “When will US citizens realize how badly they’ve been shortchanged on renewables?
It wasn’t that many years ago when the US was the world’s sole clean energy superpower, leading the world in connecting wind and solar to the grid. It was an enviable position that others sought to emulate. And they are doing just that. China added eight times (8x) more renewables than the US last year. Now, India is on the hunt, connecting 22 gigawatts of wind and solar in the first half of 2025, as America sucks up into its tailpipe.
Renewables investment dollars are universal and do not honor national borders. They honor return on investment (ROI), and international investment is rapidly shifting from US renewables to India and the EU where governmental policies actively promote development. Indeed, it is one of the major growth stories of the 21st century.
Only a few years ago nobody would have predicted America’s world leadership role in renewables would deteriorate, stooping to a level where, finally, “the US is the big loser”.
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