China's crude oil imports fell by no less than 41% on year in June and 11% in the first half of the year. Fossil gas imports were down 3% in H1 while coal imports were up 2% but still down 10% compared with 2024.

Coal consumption and PM2.5 pollution levels are clearly correlated in China, but until 2022, regulation was able to drive a big wedge between the growth rates of the two; this has narrowed as the low-hanging fruit is picked and progress now relies more on reducing coal use.

Over the longer term, progress on air pollution has been slowing down and recent targets are unambitious. Reductions in PM2.5 pollution, where coal and industry play a much larger role, have slowed down after 2022.

EVs displaced an estimated 1.4 mn barrels/day in the first half of the year, up more than 40% year-on-year.

NEW from us: China's traffic-related air pollution levels dropped sharply after the Hormuz crisis, as fuel consumption fell and EV use surged. This is more evidence that the fall in China's oil import isn't just inventory drawdown but real consumption cuts. 🧵

A Turkish court overruled the permit for the expansion of the country's most polluting coal power plant, citing impacts on human health and other negative impacts.

The previous chart made countries with nuclear retirements look worse than they are - there is only so much nuclear to retire and e.g. Germany's progress will accelerate now that the retirements are complete, other things equal. So here's a version that takes that into account.

If countries kept growing the share of clean power at the same rate as in the past 6 years, when would they have 100% non-fossil power? By this simple measure, 13 developed countries are on track to clean power by 2035, and 7 developing countries by 2050. Others need to speed up.

Where's Germany in these charts? Nowhere, for two reasons. The nuclear phase-out, obviously, but the country also failed to build renewables at scale, as we keep highlighting. Germany's status in people's (incl. many Germans') minds as renewables champion is a decade out of date.

The largest clean power increases in the past six years relative to 2019 energy consumption were in Lithuania, Finland, Belarus, North Macedonia and Pakistan. Brazil, Vietnam and Chile also stand out.

The U.S., India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Turkiye, Australia, Pakistan, and the UAE saw the largest increases in absolute clean power supply after China. EU countries Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and France follow.

China’s new five-year environment plan, Building a Beautiful China, is out. For energy and air quality, the plan sends two different signals: stronger action in the main air pollution control regions, but weak national-level ambition.

Solar power, especially with storage, is a natural partner for AC because cooling demand rises when solar output is strong. During the recent week of record heat at the end of June, the increase in power demand was covered by the jump in solar power during the hot, sunny weather.

Raising AC penetration to the levels found at the same climate in the U.S. would increase electricity demand the most in German, France and the UK, while Italy is already close. All of these are small however as a percentage of total electricity consumption.

Bonus: does the exceptional drop in wind speeds relate to the developing strong El Nino? Statistically, no.

China's fossil power generation continued to rebound in May, up 2%, driven by exceptionally bad wind conditions. Without the drop in wind speeds, increased clean energy supply would have easily pushed down power generation from coal and gas. Industrial emissions fell. 🧵

Until recently, EV sales in Indonesia were far behind the Asian leaders, Vietnam and China, held back by subsidized fuel prices. This is changing: EV sales have been on a tear recently. It was too little too late to avert the current crisis but will help future-proof the country.

Electrification, replacing the direct use of fossil fuels and biomass with electricity, is the key way to eliminate dirty fuels in transport, industry and households. Indonesia has made progress on this, but lags behind the leaders in Asia, including Vietnam, Malaysia and China.

The share of clean, non-fossil power generation has barely increased in Indonesia over the past decade, and now lags well below ASEAN average and other major Asian economies, a product of the state-owned utility being married to subsidized coal.

The spike in oil prices hurts Indonesia because the net imports of oil and gas have been rising steadily for years, reaching an all-time high in January 2026, just before the current crisis. This is driven by both the rise in consumption and decline in domestic production.

Another key source of pressure on the currency is weakening trade balance. The oil&gas import bill jumped 83% on year in April while exports fell in value. As a result, the country's usual trade surplus disappeared almost completely, the weakest print since 2020. (Migas=Oil&gas)

An additional challenge now is that much of the wasted wind and solar goes unreported due to statistical trickery. Addressing the issue will require both political pressure on provinces and power generators and fixing the statistics to fully capture the issue.

As a result, emissions in the power sector increased by 4% year-on-year. Power-sector CO2 would have been flat without the rise in “wasted” wind and solar. Nuclear generation also fell due to long maintenance outages.

Shipments from the Gulf look to have stabilized at less than half of the pre-closure levels, with the loss of supply amounting to 10 mbd rather than the commonly cited 20.

How has the oil market balanced after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz? Drop in supply from the Gulf has averaged 10 mbd after rerouting, and just five countries have absorbed 9 mbd of that: China, U.S., Japan, Brazil and South Korea. Will they keep doing it?

China looks set to cut seaborne oil imports by 34% and net imports by 38% in May, year on year. There are lots of wild theories about how such a drop is possible.

Lots of confusion about how China is able to cut seaborne oil imports so drastically. I think a significant blind spot in most analysis is China's stockpiles of refined products. These are reported in China's official energy data. 🧵

Another concern is that the new methodology shifts emissions from the use of chemical industry products, such as plastics and fertilizer, outside the emission statistics.

The issue is the vast reported increase in fossil fuel use from 2020 to 2023. To make the emission numbers add up, much more of the carbon in the fossil fuels consumed would have to have ended up in chemical industry products than can be accounted for by industrial output data.

Converted to changes in emissions, China now says its CO2 emissions increased by just 7% from 2020 to 2025, instead of the 14% implied by earlier statistics. This revision is equal to the total emissions of Germany or South Korea.