This is the indicator from planet money.
I'm Adriene Ma.
And I'm Emily Fang, one of NPR's international correspondence.
I cover China.
Adrian and I wanted to explore with you this incredible transformation that happened while I was living in China.
It used to be this country that was completely dependent on coal fired electricity and other fossil fuels.
Oh, I mean, I have visited Beijing a few times, and I remember when I first went in the nineties, it seemed so smoggy there.
I can't help but wonder if part of the reason was all those fossil fuels you just mentioned.
Absolutely.
And while coal is still number one there, we are seeing things begin to change because China as a country now actually dominates the world in solar energy.
It doubled five times in the past ten years, from about eleven gigawatts in 2013 to 350 gigawatts in 2023.
This is Sophie Liu.
She's a researcher at Global Energy Monitor, which is a nonprofit that tracks global energy.
And Sophie says China is now the world leader in solar.
On today's show, we'll find out how that happened and how China changed the global energy market.
That's coming up after the break.
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