China's photovoltaic industry helped the world avoid about 4.91 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions between 2015 and 2025, while reducing global solar module procurement costs by an estimated $175.3 billion from 2011 to 2025, according to a report released in Beijing on Wednesday.
The report comes as COP31 continues in Antalya, Turkiye, where the Turkish presidency is promoting the conference as an "Implementation COP", focused on turning climate pledges and targets into measurable action on the ground.
Officially known as the 31st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP31 opened on Monday and will run through Nov 20.
Jointly published by the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences and the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, the report assesses the industry's contribution to global climate action through two independent measures: avoided emissions and cost savings.
It found that solar modules exported by China and installed domestically between 2015 and 2025 could help avoid a combined 37.78 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions over an assumed 25-year operating life.
During the period, China exported modules with a combined capacity of about 1,217.4 gigawatts, which had already helped avoid an estimated 2.14 billion metric tons of emissions overseas. Meanwhile, domestic installations totaling 1,175.3 GW had avoided another 2.77 billion metric tons.
The report also examined the "learning effect" — cost reductions resulting from accumulated production and deployment experience. Such experience enables manufacturers to address production problems, improve product yields and material efficiency, and optimize manufacturing processes and supply chain management.
It estimated that the learning effect associated with China's accumulated module exports had made global solar module prices in 2025 about 23.2 percent lower than they otherwise would have been.
As a result, global buyers saved an estimated $175.3 billion on module purchases between 2011 and 2025, including $83.39 billion in overseas markets. Nearly 73 percent of the savings occurred between 2022 and 2025, as global solar deployment expanded rapidly.
The report noted that the estimate covers module procurement costs rather than total project investment, which also includes financing, land, grid connections, installation and maintenance.
It said affordable solar power could help support the COP31 presidency's "35 by 35" initiative, which seeks to increase electricity's share of global final energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035.
The report called for stronger international cooperation on installation tracking, power generation data and assessment methods to enable more transparent and widely recognized evaluations of the climate contributions of clean technologies.
