Key Highlights

Pakistan has become the world's second-largest destination for Chinese solar panels while simultaneously hosting Chinese-financed coal power plants that are rapidly becoming stranded assets. This brief examines the contradiction between China's solar export dominance and its legacy coal investments in Pakistan under CPEC. Its objective is to assess what China's evolving energy footprint in Pakistan reveals about its global climate leadership and what a coherent clean energy partnership should look like. Chinese coal plants in Pakistan operated at an average of just 11% capacity utilization in FY2024, while capacity payments to Chinese IPPs reached PKR 668 billion, effectively subsidizing underutilized assets at the expense of Pakistani consumers. China must choose between protecting narrow coal interests and championing a comprehensive clean energy ecosystem through technology transfer, green finance, and early coal retirement mechanisms if it is to be a credible global climate leader.