The politics and policies governing China’s coal transition: implications for climate mitigation

As the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, China’s coal transition is crucial to the global low-carbon energy transition and achieving global climate goals. Yet over the past decade, despite goals to limit coal use, reduce air pollution and achieve climate goals, China’s domestic coal consumption has continued to grow. This trend calls into question China’s state capacity to transition away from coal. This study examines the policy frames introduced by the Chinese government related to coal transition and the role of bureaucracy in shaping the coal transition process. By analyzing an original dataset of coal policies promulgated by the national government between 2013 and 2025, we find while the national government has introduced a series of policies targeting the coal industry, the policy instruments for coal reduction led by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment are much weaker than those maintaining coal production advanced by the National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration. This paper greatly improves our understanding of the politics of China’s coal transition and the role of bureaucratic agencies with diverging interests in influencing China’s state capacity in low-carbon energy transitions. At the same time, it also advances the literature of state capacity and climate policy by shifting the focus from the separation of power in the bureaucracy of Western industrial democracies to the competing bureaucratic influence over coal policymaking in emerging authoritarian economies such as China. We argue that to achieve its 2060 carbon neutrality pledge, the Chinese government must further coordinate its environmental and economic goals while strengthening its entire suite of policy instruments that support coal reduction.