Focus on Arts and Ecology

By Shanna Hanbury, 10 Feb 2026

Brazil has suspended a decree on dredging and privatizing the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, after protests shut down a grain terminal — but Indigenous groups are pressing for its full revocation.

Hundreds of Indigenous protesters have since Jan. 22 blockaded the Cargill grain facility in the Amazonian city of Santarém over the threats they say the decree poses to the 14 Indigenous territories and hundreds of riverine communities living along the Tapajós.

The decree was a part of an infrastructure project called the Tapajós waterway, which plans to allow private sector actors to expand sections of the Tapajós, Madeira and Tocantins rivers. The project would make the rivers navigable year-round for large barges carrying soy, corn and other grains from Brazil’s agricultural states in the Cerrado and the Amazon to ports on the Atlantic coast.

After almost three weeks of protests, the federal government suspended the decree on Feb. 6, but protesters continue to demand that the decree be revoked entirely.

“The suspension was announced but for us it is insufficient,” Indigenous leader Alessandra Munduruku told Mongabay in an audio message. “It doesn’t guarantee our rights, our lives or our river. This is what we want.”

According to Munduruku, as of Feb. 9 an estimated 800-900 protesters are still blocking access to the Cargill facility. The U.S.-based multinational would be one of the main beneficiaries of the proposed Tapajós waterway expansion, which would allow it to export more grain at a lower cost.

Protesters say affected communities were not consulted, despite Brazil’s Constitution requiring the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities.

The affected Indigenous nations represented in the protest include the Arapiuns, Apiaká, Arara, Borari, Jaraqui, Cara Preta, Cumaru, Maytapu, Munduruku, Tapajós, Tapuia, Tupayú, Tupi and Sateré-Mawé.

Four local civil society organizations sent the government a joint letter in October 2025 criticizing the social and environmental impacts of the waterway project. In November, smaller protests were held in boats along the Tapajós River. 

Local communities say the 250-kilometer (155-mile) infrastructure project would increase dangerous river traffic for locals for whom the river is a lifeline. Already, waves caused by barges have made river navigation unsafe for smaller boats used by residents for daily activities like fishing and transporting children to and from schools.

“If there is already damage now, imagine the impact once the river is dredged to allow large ships to pass through all year round. How will these populations survive?” Haroldo Pinto, regional coordinator at the Indigenist Missionary Council, a Catholic organization that advocates for Indigenous rights, told Mongabay reporter André Schröder by phone in November 2025.

Local right-wing politician Malaquias Mottin nearly ran over an Indigenous protester on Feb. 5 while trying to drive through the blockade. Protesters filmed the incident, and a citizen’s report was lodged with Santarém City Hall demanding Mottin be removed from office.

(Sources: Mongabay)

Importing more sustainable produce and boosting green finance could help accelerate the greening of agriculture across developing Asia, write three experts. 

By Ma Jun, Shao Danqing, Huang Leike, February 11, 2026

Palm oil is almost everywhere – from the snacks we eat to the shampoo we use – and increasingly as biofuel. Indonesia and Malaysia dominate global production but decades of oil palm expansion have, in some instances, been associated with deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainable palm oil offers a way to break this cycle. By following strict environmental standards, producers can ensure forests, peatlands and wildlife are protected. China, currently the world’s second largest palm oil importer, is beginning to use green procurement to drive the industry towards sustainability.

In 2024, China imported 4.36 million tons of palm oil. Nearly 500,000 tons of this was certified sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the leading certification body for promoting ethical palm oil. By July 2025, 480 Chinese companies were members of the RSPO.

There is huge potential for China to support green agriculture like this across Asia’s developing countries.

At the Institute of Finance and Sustainability, a think-tank based in Beijing, we recently published a report on the issue. We found that China stands at a turning point: it has the opportunity to go from being just a source of demand for agricultural produce to a catalyst for the region’s shift to green farming.

In a nutshell, China can buy more sustainable agricultural products, creating green value chains. While on the supply side, it can use and improve green finance mechanisms to invest in sustainable farming practices.

Agriculture needs a faster green transition

As well as providing nourishment, farming accounts for a large share of jobs and GDP in the Asian developing nations our report covered. These nations are also highly vulnerable to climate change and will suffer some of its worst impacts.

Currently, in parts of these countries, agricultural expansion may involve land conversion, inefficient water use and overapplication of agricultural chemicals. A coordinated transition to greener farming models is urgently needed in these countries. This is not just to meet environmental and climate goals, but also to provide inclusive growth for people in rural areas.

More buyers and investments are needed

Two main things are hampering the green transition of agriculture in Asia’s developing nations.

The first is a lack of buyers for sustainable agricultural products, both at home and abroad. This makes it hard for projects to get investment and means farmers and firms lack motivation to shift to greener models.

When it comes to selling overseas, these countries struggle due to a lack of detail in their sustainability standards and because their certification regimes are not well established or widely recognised. Few mechanisms exist to aid mutual recognition with standards in target markets, such as China and the European Union, or green-trading mechanisms that might be built on that alignment. Such markets increasingly demand sustainable food products but buy little from Southeast and South Asia.

The second problem is a lack of commercial investment. This comes down to an unfavourable risk-reward ratio for green agriculture projects. Green finance tools and policy support are sorely needed.

The need to improve green finance

In Asia’s developing nations, much of green finance is anchored in debt instruments – green loans and green bonds. The ecosystem for green investment funds and climate-linked insurance remains nascent. It is mainly governments and a handful of big financial institutions that participate in green finance markets. The market lacks vigour due to a paucity of smaller institutional and private investors.

In these nations’ agriculture sectors, sustainable finance standards are not yet fully formed and policies incentivising use of green finance are lacking.

Green finance from overseas could do much more. This kind of investment in Southeast Asia up to 2023 stood at USD 45 billion – far less than the estimated USD 1.5 trillion the region needs until 2030 to fund its green transition. In any case, little of that went to agriculture.

Investment is constrained by the lack of common standards for sustainable agricultural financing and associated certification, as well as product labelling. This increases risk and compliance costs for international companies.

Sustainable agriculture projects tend to be small, diverse and scattered. International investors find it difficult to package them up for large-scale investments and to use standardised financial instruments, as they can in the energy and transportation sectors.

Something that can help is the blended finance mechanism. This sees public or philanthropic funds helping to mobilise private investment, for example through subordinated debt so smallholder farmers can make green upgrades. But less than 10% of blended finance in Southeast and South Asia is spent on agriculture, according to a 2024 report by Convergence.

China’s strengths: Purchasing power and green finance

China imported USD 215 billion of agricultural products in 2024, but only 16% came from Southeast Asian nations.

As China is importing large amounts of agricultural products from developed economies like the US, EU and Australia, a portion of those purchases could be shifted to developing Asian nations, with a focus on certified sustainable agricultural products, demand for which is growing in China.

China’s leading agri-food companies could create the necessary supply chains, from field to factory to port. They have predictable market demand, can use contract farming embedded with sustainability requirements, provide technical guidance and build processing and cold-storage facilities.

These companies could then support smallholders and small food businesses in meeting sustainability requirements, through transfers of agricultural technologies and capacity building.

If China establishes mutual recognition of sustainability certification for key products such as rice, fruit and palm oil, and simplifies certification and customs processes, green imports from Asia’s developing nations will jump.

China has the world’s largest green loans and green bonds markets and a good range of green financial products. However, these are mainly used domestically. Most Chinese agri-food companies have not yet used innovative green financial instruments, like sustainability-linked loans, to promote a green transition in Southeast and South Asia.

Such loans depend on the performance of the borrowing company. The interest rate will fall if it hits given targets, such as 50% of its output or purchases being certified sustainable.

Most Chinese agri-food companies still lack awareness of such financial products. Across developing Asia, basic climate and environmental data is generally lacking for agricultural products, while sustainability certification and green trading mechanisms are not yet in place.

Changing this situation could empower Chinese firms to drive a wholesale green transition in Asian agricultural value chains.

China as the green catalyst

As China’s engagement in green finance, trade rules and regional cooperation continues to grow, the country can help accelerate Asia’s agricultural green transition as a catalyst.

First, China can collaborate with regional partners to promote greater alignment of sustainability standards and enhance mutual recognition of agricultural products and financial mechanisms. These collaborations could reduce compliance costs and lower entry barriers to green products and financial markets. Linking these efforts with measures to facilitate green trade, such as by lowering tariffs and raising import quotas for certified sustainable products, would incentivise producers to shift practices.

Second, China can play a constructive role in supporting sustainable market practices and promoting corporate engagement. Strengthened sustainability disclosure requirements for large agri-food companies would help promote a green transition along value chains, rather than at isolated production sites. Combined with large-scale green procurement and greater outbound investment in sustainable agriculture across Asia, these efforts could send a clear demand signal to producers. Expanding the use of green financial instruments – along with RMB-denominated financing for agricultural trade and logistics – would also help lower the cost of capital for the green transition, particularly where RMB financing offers relatively lower borrowing costs.

Finally, China can help de-risk investment through regional financial cooperation. Favourable lending terms remain crucial for agricultural production and trade infrastructure in developing Asian countries, particularly when blended finance mechanisms are used to crowd in private capital. China can play a role in such lending through multilateral development banks it plays an important role in, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as well as through its national development banks. At the same time, improving “interoperability” among Asia’s voluntary carbon markets, especially for agricultural carbon credits, could improve the bankability of green agriculture projects and unlock new revenue streams for farmers.

Taken together, these actions would help to turn Asia’s agricultural green transition from a policy aspiration into an investable reality.

With the right policy, coal is not essential to ensuring a reliable electricity supply. 

By Song Wanyuan, January 29, 2026

When California stopped using coal power late last year, the momentous departure was the culmination of long-term policy designed to transition the state to clean energy.

On climate action California has consistently maintained a cooperative stance with China, unlike the US federal government.

As China watches its partner make major progress towards an energy transition from fossil fuels, what lessons can it draw from the experience?

Coal’s historical role in California

In December 2025, the city of Los Angeles stopped importing coal-fired electricity from the Intermountain power plant in Utah. This cut the city’s, and California’s, final link to coal-fired generation.

Mayor Karen Bass described the move as a “defining moment” in Los Angeles’ clean energy transition and a “milestone” that will “accelerate our transition to 100% clean energy by 2035”.

Christine Shearer is project manager of the Global Coal Plant Tracker at Global Energy Monitor, a California-based NGO. She tells Dialogue Earth the state only had limited in-state coal generation to begin with, “which reduced some of the political and economic barriers seen elsewhere”.

According to state data, coal accounted for just 2% of the power mix in 2024, compared with 34% from natural gas, a share that itself is steadily declining.

Meanwhile, the share of renewable energy grew from 22% in 2015 to 41% in 2024.

“California’s political will in pursuing the energy transition has remained consistent, at least by American standards, through multiple administrations and governors,” says Li Shuo. He directs the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a nonprofit headquartered in New York City.

California has raised its renewable-energy targets several times since 2002, when it set the goal of 20% of electricity sales being served by renewables by 2017.

That goal later became 33% by 2020 and currently stands at 50% by 2030. By 2045, the aim is for renewables to supply 100% of retail sales of electricity to “end-use” customers, and 100% of state agencies’ power needs.

Shearer explains that California’s exit from coal followed “an incremental process” spanning two decades. Clear renewable targets and measures, multiple policies, and market developments all reduced coal’s role in California.

California, the federal government and China

The state’s path away from coal is quite distinct in the US context.

Yang Fuqiang is senior adviser on the Climate Change and Energy Transition Programme at the Beijing Rock Environment and Energy Institute. He tells Dialogue Earth: “Under the US constitution, states and the federal government exercise distinct powers. California can formulate its own coal-reduction policies and measures, but it cannot speak for the federal government.”

US president Donald Trump has described coal as “clean” and “beautiful” and his government has repeatedly extended the operation of ageing coal power plants.

At the end of 2025, the last coal-fired facility in Washington received an emergency order to continue burning coal for 90 days, despite plans to switch to gas-fired generation.

US energy secretary Chris Wright explained the decision resulted from increasing electricity demand and “accelerated retirement of generation facilities”. However, Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, tells Dialogue Earth there was no “emergency situation” with the electricity supply.

“Historically, ‘emergency situations’ have only been used in truly imminent crises, like the grid might collapse tomorrow,” says Wansted. “Now the government is simply requiring plants to continue operating because there might be a problem in the future. This has never happened before.”

He says many of the plants ordered to remain online were too old to maintain cheaply, or already had replacement plans. Forcing consumers to pay twice – for active plants that were due to retire and new replacements sitting idle – does not make long-term sense, he adds.  

A 63‑year‑old coal power plant in Michigan, for example, has received emergency orders twice, costing USD 113 million to continue operating. In December, the US court of appeals received an appellate brief to overturn that order.

Besides, Trump has disparaged renewables, fancifully calling wind the “most expensive energy ever conceived”, and falsely claiming that China exports wind turbines but barely uses them at home.

By contrast, California has embraced collaboration with China on clean technology. “California has long been a climate leader and aims to show differences when the federal government falls behind,” Li says.

Despite California-China collaboration “de-escalating” under Trump’s administration, the partnership has spanned three governors and developed a “muscle memory”, Li adds.

In 2019, former governor Jerry Brown established the California-China Climate Institute. In 2023, California’s current governor Gavin Newsom signed a memorandum of understanding on low-carbon collaboration with China’s National Development and Reform Commission. This included collaboration on carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies, and regional cooperation with Guangdong and Hainan provinces.

Li believes that in renewing its partnership with California, China aimed to prevent a complete “decoupling” with the US. It even added subnational cooperation into the 2023 Sunnylands Statement.

Yang says both governments expect “bottom-up” initiatives. The ports of Shanghai and Los Angeles have launched a “green shipping corridor”, which involves expanding capacity to refill ships with sustainable fuel, among other measures. Meanwhile, the Chinese firm BYD operates in California, where its electric school buses started receiving state subsidies in 2024.

Coal’s future and lessons from the US

While coal’s story has ended in California, its decline is still ongoing in the rest of the US.

Data from Global Energy Monitor shows coal-fired capacity has dropped from a peak of 340 gigawatts (GW) in 2011 to 190 GW in 2025.

Former president Joe Biden set out a plan to eliminate emissions from the country’s power sector by 2035. Shearer says: “While that commitment currently faces challenges under the Trump administration, more than 60% of remaining US coal-fired capacity is still planned to retire over the coming decades.”

About 7 GW was retired in 2024 and that figure is likely to have been even larger in 2025.

“The main obstacle facing the US today is policy uncertainty,” says Shearer. “Over the longer term, however, the shift away from coal is clear, due to the advanced age of many US coal plants and the pressure from market forces and competing technologies.”

Many US coal plants were not permanently retired but converted to fuels like gas.

Wamsted says this was often done to lower costs rather than reduce emissions. “We do not favour doing that, because it still keeps fossil fuels in the system,” he adds. Gas emits less CO2 than coal when burned but it also comes with methane leakage risks. Methane has a much stronger short-term greenhouse effect than CO2, making its climate impact nearly as bad as coal over 20 years.

Wamsted believes replacing coal and gas with renewables and storage is the most direct approach – and this is precisely California’s method.

Since 2019, the state has added about 40 GW of renewable power and battery storage, with battery storage now 2.5 times its 2022 level, according to The Guardian.

“It is hard to have 1 v 1 lessons,” Li says, “but China can learn from California’s long-term planning – scaling up storage and renewable energy to accelerate the phase-out of coal. China’s energy transition boils down to coal reduction and phase-out. Large-scale energy storage is essential to enable mass and effective coal retirement.”

China still needs coal in the short term. Yang notes that Beijing municipality’s coal use has fallen from 30 million tonnes in 2000 to under 600,000 tonnes today. “I believe Beijing’s de-coalification is essentially complete. The remaining coal is mainly for heating in rural areas, which is dispersed and requires switching to electric, gas or developing renewable heating to reach carbon zero.”

China’s National Energy Administration pledged to secure coal supply for residential heating and electricity at a press conference late last year. The government approved at least 42 GW of coal projects in 2025, but coal consumption did not rise.

Yang explains: “These coal projects mainly address short-term, fluctuating demand growth and replace old coal plants. Thus, new approvals do not proportionally increase total carbon emissions.”

Wamsted says that in China, new coal replaces old coal, while in the US, ageing coal is kept as expensive power “insurance”.

Both nations’ concerns over grid reliability have kept coal in place, says Shearer, “but coal is neither the only nor the most effective way to ensure reliability”. Grid resilience can be built through battery storage, pumped hydro, as well as more flexible market rules.

According to Wamsted, Texas’s “energy-only market” proves renewables can scale in a free electricity market where buyers and sellers trade freely by need and price. As a result, the state’s renewable share in electricity generation has risen from 15% a decade ago to nearly 38% today.

Song Wanyuan

Small-scale mining in developing Asian economies bring new challenges to the fight against mercury pollution and its lasting harms. 

By Zhang Yiyi, February 4, 2026

Paracale in the Philippines has a long gold mining tradition. The pretty coastal town’s emblem features a shovel, pickaxe and miner’s helmet.

It is estimated that four-fifths of Paracale’s residents rely on gold mining. Miners gather ore from riverbeds, mines and even metres-deep pools of mud. Many mix it with mercury, which bonds to any gold particles lodged in the ore. When the mixture is heated, the mercury evaporates and leaves gold behind.

The process releases large quantities of mercury into the atmosphere. Rain and rivers also carry this toxic, heavy metallic element into the ocean, where it can spread further.

Mercury levels in Mambulao Bay, near Paracale, are extremely high. This poses health risks to local people, specifically their central nervous systems. The mercury levels detected in one fish sample in 2017 breached the food safety standards of multiple nations. Reckoning with these impacts, some miners have since abandoned the conventional practice of using mercury.

Though mercury emissions have fallen in the Global North and China, overall they have continued to rise globally, researchers have found. The largest sectoral contribution to this concerning growth is no longer being made by coal combustion, but by gold mining in the Global South.

Mercury moves south

Scientists recently published a study into mercury pollution in the northern hemisphere based on their studies of flowers growing at Mount Everest. Levels in 2020 were 70% lower than those in 2000, they found.

But the global picture is far less rosy. Liu Maodian, a researcher at Peking University’s College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, helped produce a dataset that shows anthropogenic mercury emissions increased by 330% between 1960 and 2021.

Liu says emissions hotspots have shifted south. Mercury pollution in the European Union and US was brought under control in the 1980s and 1990s. The past decade has seen China slash its emissions, though it remains the largest single-nation source. But over the same period, emissions have risen in emerging industrial economies in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Latin America. This has completely offset reductions elsewhere.

The researchers’ calculations found that in 2021, the Global South excluding China accounted for two-thirds of all mercury emissions. Southeast Asia’s contribution is particularly prominent, with emissions having risen there by 700% over the past 62 years.

The cost of gold mining

Artisanal and small scale gold mining has been driven by the price of gold, which has increased by almost 500% in the past decade. Now such mining accounts for 15-20% of gold production globally.

In economically marginalised places like Paracale, gold mining is seen as a reliable livelihood, says Abigail Ocate. She represents the Philippines in her role as a national project manager at planetGOLD, a project funded by the Global Environmental Facility.

Mercury is not necessary for these small-scale operations but it is easy to access and use, and cheap. Sometimes, middlemen who buy the gold provide it at a low cost. So, mercury use continues, even in places where it is illegal – like the Philippines.

Of course, other growth areas are driving mercury pollution, too. These include coal power generation in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and India, nickel mining, improper urban waste incineration, and skin lightening products that contain mercury.

In “gold towns”, mining threatens water quality, fishing and farming. Ocate tells Dialogue Earth that an environmental and health assessment carried out by her team in Paracale discovered raised levels of mercury in samples taken from local wildlife, residents and miners.

The harm mercury does to the human body is not yet fully recognised. Ocate says that in small-scale mining areas, symptoms of mercury poisoning such as tremors, memory problems and headaches are often misdiagnosed or attributed to ageing.

Mercury in the ocean and seafood

The element is particularly dangerous when it reaches the ocean. Most mercury found in the human body comes from eating contaminated seafood.

Mercury in the ocean comes, in turn, from precipitation, rivers and particulates in the atmosphere. The metal can travel surprisingly far in the atmosphere. Research into mercury levels in zooplankton found that emissions from the coast of Asia, mostly airborne at first, could have an impact in the central Pacific Ocean.

Bacteria convert inorganic mercury compounds in seawater into a more toxic form: methylmercury. This then accumulates up through the marine food chain, beginning with phytoplankton and tiny organisms. As it moves upward to carnivores such as sardines, the concentration intensifies, reaching its peak in top-tier predatory fish, such as tuna.

In non-human animals, exposure to mercury can result in a loss of fertility and mobility. In humans, long-term consumption can damage the central nervous system when the element crosses the blood-brain barrier.

Fish consumption is on the rise globally. As people in Asia eat more fish on average than those elsewhere, they are more vulnerable to rising mercury pollution.

Wang Wenxiong, a professor at the City University of Hong Kong’s School of Energy and Environment, says mercury movements are complex; mercury levels in seafood are not always linked to local emissions.

China offers a good example. Despite being the biggest emitter of mercury, China’s “fish has basically never breached standards, with very low levels … it’s a strange thing”, he says.

Research by Wang and his team found that overfishing off China’s coast has eroded the food chain, reducing the number of larger predators and leaving mostly smaller fish. This prevents mercury from accumulating upwards. Also, eutrophication (a process in which nutrient buildup, often from agricultural fertiliser runoff, fuels excessive algae growth) has interfered with the bioaccumulation of methylmercury.

Wang says consumers need not worry about mercury in Chinese seafood. However, fish from more distant and apparently “clean” waters may contain much more mercury. Testing, therefore, should focus on the more expensive imported fish. Wang says: “Assessing mercury risks should be led by widespread and credible testing by government.”

As China’s environmental management improves, there is less overfishing and eutrophication. For this reason, Wang warns, the authorities should keep a close eye on mercury levels.

Stronger policy guidance needed in the Global South

Liu Maodian thinks scientists and policymakers need to take the rise in mercury pollution, and the shift in sources to the south, seriously. Monitoring and data collection are essential parts of tackling the problem, but this work is not being done in developing nations.

Abigail Ocate says the Philippines does not yet monitor mercury levels in all its waters, just those near some mining areas. Scientific studies across Southeast Asia are also relatively limited compared to those in East Asia, with most of them overlooking the methylmercury that accumulates in seafood.

Alongside more monitoring, Ocate thinks governments should keep track of human exposure to mercury – and guide their societies towards a healthy and mercury-free future.

Zhang Yiyi

China's engagement in overseas renewables grew once again, though not as much as in oil and gas. 

By Tom Baxter, February 3, 2026

Last year, Chinese companies’ “engagement” in 150 countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached its highest level since the BRI was launched 12 years ago.

The value of construction deals involving Chinese companies reached USD 128 billion, up 81% on 2024. While investments totalled USD 85 billion, up 62%.

The unprecedented boom has been revealed by annual data from the Griffith Asia Institute, an Australian think-tank, and the Green Finance and Development Center, a think-tank hosted in Fudan University, Shanghai.

“I did not foresee last year that 2025 would be such a strong year [for BRI engagement],” said report author Christoph Nedopil Wang during an online launch.

“Engagement” refers to both investments by Chinese companies, implying an ownership stake in a project, and the value of construction contracts awarded to them for engineering services.

The striking upsurge comes after years of government-directed messaging, and analyst predictions, that the initiative would focus more on “small and beautiful” projects, rather than the mega projects pursued in its early years.

“Small yet beautiful should be seen as a bygone,” Nedopil Wang said, noting both the total value of construction and investment deals, and the growth in average project value.

Last year also saw notable shifts in the targets for Chinese companies’ activities around the world.

Their engagement in renewable-energy projects grew in 2025 but not as rapidly as in oil and gas projects, which will concern many.

Rapid growth in engagement in mining, and in the technology and manufacturing sector, demonstrates the evolution of the BRI since it began in 2013.

Finally, Africa became the top destination for Chinese companies’ overseas engagement.

The end of ‘small and beautiful’?

Last year saw a marked rebound in the size of projects. The average value of investments reached USD 939 million, up from USD 672 million in 2024 and three times higher than deal sizes five years ago, during the BRI’s Covid contraction. The average value of construction deals reached USD 964 million, up from USD 496 million the previous year.

Nedopil Wang says this indicates the end of “small and beautiful” BRI projects, a term promoted by the Chinese government in response to financial headwinds and the environmental and social problems which arose in the first five years of the initiative.

Chinese government discourse has certainly not dropped the emphasis, however. On 27 January, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, stated that “more than 700 aid projects, including … small and beautiful livelihood projects” were delivered overseas in 2025.

Booming renewables – and fossil fuels

Energy was once again the top sector for engagement in Belt and Road countries, accounting for about 43% of the total. Total engagement in energy sectors reached USD 93.9 billion, the highest ever recorded.

However, while just a few years ago renewable-energy projects accounted for nearly half of total energy projects overseas, in 2025 renewables made up just 21%, while fossil fuels accounted for over 75%.

Nedopil Wang sees risks in the boom in oil and gas engagement.

“I see a rapid rise of oil and gas engagement as an environmental risk due to the associated climate emissions. They also become an economic risk under declining fossil-fuel-demand scenarios driven by electrification of mobility and scaling of green electricity,” which would lead to lower oil and gas demand, respectively, he told Dialogue Earth.

The dominance of oil and gas projects also implies an emphasis on energy extraction, rather than generation. According to the report’s breakdown, the value of investments and contracts in extractive projects amounted to USD 51.4 billion, while generation accounted for USD 25.8 billion.

That said, Chinese companies’ engagement in oil and gas projects is primarily via construction contracts rather than equity ownership. This may minimise some of the economic risks Nedopil Wang identifies.

When it comes to renewable projects, while these make up a smaller proportion of total energy engagement in 2025, they have seen a marked increase in real terms. Last year saw engagement worth USD 21.4 billion, up from USD 12.3 billion in 2024.

“2025 was both the greenest and the brownest year” for the BRI, Nedopil Wang said during the report launch.

Renewables, by their nature, also contribute to generation rather than extraction. Last year saw projects worth 23.8 GW of solar, wind and hydro generation capacity, compared to around 15 GW in 2024.

“I do not immediately read the surge as a return to fossil-fuel expansion,” notes Fikayo Akeredolu, senior research associate in climate policy and justice at the University of Bristol. She points out that while oil and gas projects accounted for a large proportion of the value of construction contracts in 2025, foreign direct investment from China is supporting renewables. Meanwhile, at least in Africa, lending from China’s government-backed policy banks is backing power-transmission projects. The lending data comes from the recently updated Chinese Loans to Africa database, published by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

“[We see] a segmentation of instruments, rather than a reversal of China’s energy-transition stance,” Akeredolu says.

Moving up value chains

Another key sector of growth in 2025 was technology and manufacturing, referring to both traditional manufacturing activities and high-tech areas such as solar PV and batteries. Its growth demonstrates the evolution of the BRI over the last 12 years, from a focus on infrastructure to an increasing interest in developing manufacturing bases overseas.

The sector saw 27% year-on-year growth in engagement and has been growing steadily since 2023. Engagement in green tech like solar PV and batteries dropped slightly compared to 2024, however.

“The growing role of tech and manufacturing highlights China’s growing ability to build and manage factories (and in particular high-tech-related factories) across the world,” Nedopil Wang told Dialogue Earth. “While the original BRI engagement was concentrated in infrastructure, the new BRI is seeing the expansion of China’s manufacturing base to overseas markets.”

Metals and mining also saw strong engagement in 2025, a record high of USD 32.6 billion. This was dominated by construction contracts for two mega projects in aluminium and steel in Kazakhstan, worth USD 19.5 billion together. However, other regions also saw major deals, the African continent in particular.

Interestingly, data from the report shows a higher proportion of engagement in processing rather than extractive mining facilities. Processing of mined minerals and metals is seen by many resource-rich countries as a key strategy for moving up value chains, particularly in green technologies. For now, however, it is unclear if the data represents a trend or simply a one-off.

In contrast, transportation infrastructure is in decline, with only USD 13.3 billion, the least since the BRI began life being touted primarily as a global connectivity project.

Nedopil Wang suggests this may be connected to problems securing finance for traditional infrastructure projects, including the fall in lending from China’s development finance banks.

Africa rising

In 2025, the largest market for Chinese companies’ engagements along the BRI was Africa. Belt and Road partners on the continent saw USD 61.2 billion worth of engagement, a 283% expansion compared to 2024, according to the report. The majority of that engagement was in the form of construction contracts, rather than investment.

Nedopil Wang indicates this may have to do with Chinese companies seeking ways to avoid US tariffs.

Akeredolu from the University of Bristol points to “Africa’s growing role in resource security amid global supply-chain fragmentation” as another reason shaping the boom in Chinese engagement in African economies.

“Whether this is good news for African governments depends on bargaining power,” says Akeredolu. “Where states can secure local content, downstream value addition, or revenue-sharing, opportunities exist. Where engagement is limited to turnkey construction without equity or technology transfer, the developmental upside is thinner.”