Power from solar, wind and nuclear grew more than twice as much as electricity demand.
Oil use in transport fell 9 percent, and half of the new heavy trucks sold in September were electric.
Emissions have been flat or falling for more than two years, since March 2024.
China's CO2 emissions fell 3.1 percent in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. It is the largest quarterly drop since the Covid lockdowns in 2022.
The figures come from an analysis that Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the research organization Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), did for Carbon Brief. He bases the calculations on official figures and commercial data.
Both coal and oil use fell
Coal use fell 3 percent and oil use 4 percent during the quarter. Over the first three quarters of the year, emissions are about 0.5 percent lower than the year before, according to the estimate.
China accounts for about a third of the world's CO2 emissions. The country is therefore one of the reasons global fossil fuel CO2 emissions are projected to fall by about 0.4 percent in 2026, according to the Global Carbon Project.
Clean power grew twice as much as demand
Power generation from solar, wind and nuclear rose by 110 terawatt-hours compared with the same quarter of 2025. This means that clean power grew more than twice as much as electricity demand. The increase equals Germany's total power generation over the same three months.
As a result, coal power generation fell 3.3 percent. Less solar and wind power also went to waste than the year before. In addition, electricity demand grew more slowly, partly because the weather was unusually mild during the quarter.
China is still building new coal power plants at a near-record pace. But when more plants share less coal power generation, the number of hours each plant runs goes down. Running hours are falling faster than coal power generation, and this is eroding the plants' profits. Myllyvirta estimates that clean power will grow more than total energy demand in 2026, so that fossil fuel use keeps falling.
Electric vehicles replace oil
Oil use in transport fell 9 percent. In September, 67 percent of the new passenger cars sold in China were electric cars or plug-in hybrids, a record. The same month, half of all new heavy trucks were electric.
The electricity used by China's electric vehicles rose 53 percent. That is faster than the number of electric vehicles grew. According to Myllyvirta, this suggests that the electric vehicles already on the road are being driven more, in place of vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz after the war in Iran also continued to push down oil demand.
We have previously written that, for the first time, gasoline cars account for less than half of the world's car sales.
Cement, steel and chemicals
Emissions from cement and steel kept falling, as construction in China shrank at a faster pace. Growth in the coal-to-chemicals industry, where coal is used as a raw material for chemicals, continued to slow. High coal prices made that business less profitable.
The economy also grew more slowly, but growth is still within the government's target. That reduces the pressure for new stimulus. The stimulus the government has announced covers, among other things, the power grid and transport, where policies already favor low- and zero-emission solutions.
Two years without a rise
Measured as a rolling 12-month total, China's emissions have been flat or falling since March 2024, or for more than two years. In the third quarter of 2025, emissions were unchanged from the year before.
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