As a major global investor, I carefully watched how the United Nations General Assembly presidential speeches by Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and then US President Donald Trump were suddenly upstaged by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s contrasting tone of hope as he pledged to cut carbon emissions. Faced with our greatest single global threat, man-made climate change, Xi has much more power to change the future than Trump, who claimed China invented global warming and promised to bring back coal but instead oversaw a national coal industry collapse at a faster rate than his predecessor Barack Obama. While the world media’s attention is firmly focused on the US presidential election, this is a critical period for China as it develops its 14th five-year plan , to be announced at the National People’s Congress in March 2021. The global implications of this plan are hard to exaggerate. The main question is whether Xi will use the plan to stand up to the Chinese power industry and provinces to stop the flood of new coal being approved as the central government relaxes restrictions. You cannot cut carbon emissions and also build coal. While the coal and wider fossil fuel industry have faced massive disruption during the pandemic, renewables are increasing their share of global electricity demand, speeding the shift towards cleaner energy. China’s announcement that it would achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060 was hugely welcome, but it comes against the backdrop of the country approving new coal plants . The 250 gigawatts of new coal power under development is larger than the entire coal fleets of the United States (246.2GW) or India (229.0GW). Bear in mind that China is already responsible for just over half of global coal power generation, the most polluting source of energy. This is out of touch with the rest of the world as the coal industry faces collapse and decline everywhere you look. If coal plant building continues, it will make China a much less attractive destination for investors. Last year, in Europe and the US, carbon emissions were cut as coal generation dropped by 24 per cent in the European Union and 16 per cent in the US in 2019. The US multinational GE has just exited coal plant building worldwide. In Asia, Vietnam and Bangladesh are signalling major shifts away from coal, and solar power has been rapidly replacing new coal plants in India. Along with India, South Korea and Japan registered coal declines in 2019. Despite mass national clean energy deployment , Chinese provinces are still directing their capital at coal. This is a colossal waste – nearly 60 per cent of China’s current enormous coal fleet is running at a loss. Now is the time to lock in a green stimulus with the right plans and policies. There is clear potential for solutions in the five-year plan. Zou Ji, president of Energy Foundation China, is calling for a carbon cap and related policies to be able to measure, monitor, report, audit sources and ultimately bring down carbon emissions in the short term. This kind of plan is vital and will bring China into closer alignment with Europe and its green new deal, opening up new opportunities for collaboration. A coal cap and a carbon cap go hand in hand. As Zou rightly states, approving new coal-fired power plants to boost the economy is like “drinking poison to ease thirst”. The high stakes and pitfalls of China’s drive for carbon leadership President Xi Jinping also has the opportunity to prove US Vice-President Mike Pence wrong and upend US plans to undermine the Belt and Road Initiative by using its global reach to boost solar and wind, not coal, beyond its borders. I believe this is possible but, according to Boston University academics, during the last decade, the leading policy banks, China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of China, have provided most of the US$183 billion in energy finance to belt and road countries for coal, oil and hydropower projects, with a paltry US$4.8 billion spent on solar and wind projects. This shift overseas can start from aligning the international energy portfolio and policy support with renewables trends taking place within China. The country has financially supported the domestic expansion of renewables, especially solar and wind, and prioritised their connection to the grid . China can reverse the coal-focused trend and win itself positive receptions in countries where the Belt and Road Initiative is under increasingly harsh scrutiny . Why Beijing must keep coal out of its belt and road plans Faced with trade wars, the global demise of coal and the race for technological advancement, China remains in a strong position to strengthen its solar and wind industries to fuel a great green energy boom at home and possibly abroad. But it needs to shift gears to stay ahead. Solar and wind power are changing the way Europe powers its economies, meeting 21 per cent of the continent’s total electricity generation in the first half of this year. Solar and wind reached almost two-thirds penetration in Denmark and 42 per cent in Germany, while Spain undertakes the biggest coal-to-clean-energy transition ever seen. China is still at the head of the clean energy pack but other countries are catching up very fast. The International Energy Agency has recently stated that solar is the new “king of electricity”. We urge the Chinese leadership and Chinese companies to extend their lead in these renewable technologies as investors will always be there to provide support when the right policies and plans are in place. This approach can be used to eclipse climate-destroying, high-carbon infrastructure, especially coal, and it will propel China into pole position as a global climate and technology leader. Investors are counting on a clean energy-driven five-year plan, and we pledge to put our money into that solar and wind power. President Xi can show global leadership with a five-year plan that makes China a clean energy superpower. Jeanett Bergan is head of responsible investment at KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund