Chris Mikkelsen, government director of the Humboldt Bay Harbor District, stands on the positioning of a deliberate marine terminal in Eureka, Calif. that may assemble wind generators. The Trump administration not too long ago canceled greater than $426 million in federal grants for the port.
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EUREKA, Calif., and ZHANGBEI COUNTY, China– Twenty miles off the misty northern coast of California, off of Humboldt Bay, there is a plan to construct offshore wind generators to energy greater than two million American houses.
The marine terminal that may assemble the generators was presupposed to be shovel-ready as quickly as 2026, says Chris Mikkelsen, government director of the Humboldt Bay Harbor District. That’s not real looking, he says, partly as a result of the Trump administration not too long ago canceled greater than $426 million in federal grants for the port. The undertaking now wants to seek out new sources of cash.
“Now we have been on pause since we acquired the information in August, we have been pencils down,” Mikkelsen says. “It very a lot contributed to the delay.”
The Trump administration is reversing federal help for renewable power, which it labels as dangerous and unreliable. But throughout the Pacific ocean, America’s greatest competitor, China, is heading in the other way, says Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub on the Asia Society.
China now dominates the worldwide renewables sector. In the primary half of this 12 months, China constructed extra photo voltaic than the remainder of the world mixed. China accounts for 74% of all giant scale photo voltaic and wind underneath development, in line with the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor. The U.S. accounts for five.9%. “It could not be a stronger distinction between the 2 nations,” Li says.
China’s wager on the inexperienced transition is paying off. More than 1 / 4 of China’s financial progress in 2024 got here from wind, photo voltaic and battery applied sciences, in line with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a nonprofit. Energy specialists say it is too early to know the total influence of the Trump administration’s anti-renewable insurance policies, however within the first half of 2025, U.S. renewable funding fell by 36%.
In an emailed assertion, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers writes, “Rolling again the unpopular Green Energy Scam and unleashing power sources like pure gasoline, nuclear, and delightful, clear coal are commonsense insurance policies that may improve base load energy, strengthen grid stability, and decrease power prices.”
Large photo voltaic and wind initiatives present extra cost-competitive power than pure gasoline, nuclear, and coal initiatives, in line with monetary companies agency Lazard.
By backtracking on renewable power investments, the U.S. federal authorities is forfeiting a key driver of financial progress, says Jeremy Wallace, professor of China research at Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. can be now on the sidelines of the worldwide battle to gradual international warming. “What America does,” he says, “isn’t the principle a part of the story. It’s a cute facet character.”
“China’s efforts,” Wallace says, “are the principle story for preventing local weather change.”
Wind generators are pictured in Jinhu County, Huai’an City, in China’s japanese Jiangsu province on September 22, 2025.
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In China, betting on renewables as a driver of progress
In China’s Zhangbei County, between Beijing and the sting of the Mongolian plateau, wind generators’ large blades whoosh, delivering large circles. On the roads, vans carry turbine blades the size of two basketball courts.
The arid and sparsely inhabited excessive plains and deserts of China’s northwest are house to a lot of China’s renewable power assets.
China’s renewable trade progress did not occur in a single day. Two many years in the past, authorities in Beijing started making strategic selections for a extra sustainable mannequin of financial progress, together with constructing a provide chain for renewable power applied sciences, and key investments in grid infrastructure.
In the previous, China’s financial progress got here at the price of air air pollution from burning fossil fuels. No longer, says Qin Haiyan, vice chairman of the World Wind Energy Association.
“Developing the financial system and lowering carbon emissions to deal with local weather change are not contradictory,” Qin says.
Investments in a strong community of provide chains have made renewables not simply plentiful, however low cost, Li says. China is now exporting generators, photo voltaic panels and batteries around the globe, from Pakistan to Nigeria to Brazil.
Renewable applied sciences, each native and exports overseas, are a shiny spot in China’s slowing financial system, particularly its slumping actual property sector.
“ People who was once swinging hammers constructing business actual property are actually swinging hammers putting in photo voltaic panels,” says David Fishman, principal on the Lantau Group, a consulting agency in Shanghai. “Of course you’d double, triple down on that.”
Li attributes China’s success in renewable power to “very constant, predictable, and powerful coverage help” over a number of many years. The U.S., Li says, is demonstrating the precise reverse of consistency.
The marine terminal in Eureka that plans to assemble wind generators was presupposed to be shovel-ready as quickly as 2026, Mikkelsen says. That’s not real looking, he says.
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The U.S. dismantles federal help for renewables
On the coast of Eureka, Mikkelsen drives an outdated police cruiser previous wood homes and pine timber with hanging moss. “It’s simply an outdated seaside city,” he says looking the window.
The deliberate port, the place the wind generators will get constructed earlier than being introduced offshore, is on the positioning of an deserted pulp mill. Piles of wood logs are nonetheless seen by way of the rusted fences. “The remnants of what as soon as was,” Mikkelsen says.
Mikkelsen says the wind undertaking and port will “change the financial viability of our neighborhood.” His inexperienced eyes begin to properly up. “My voice will get somewhat shaky ‘trigger it is gonna make a greater alternative for our children.”
Mikkelsen says he is nonetheless confused as to why the Trump administration determined to terminate the grants for the marine terminal. The mixed wind and terminal initiatives goal to create as many as 270 long-term native jobs.
The White House press workplace didn’t reply on to questions in regards to the cancellation of grants for the marine terminal. Spokesperson Rogers mentioned in her emailed assertion, “President Trump’s power dominance agenda is essential to placing an finish to Joe Biden’s inflation disaster and financial catastrophe.”
Mikkelsen says the administration that was not too long ago elected, “actually ran on a platform that we’re gonna construct again America. That we’re gonna create jobs in rural America. Good, expert, skilled, high-paying jobs.”
Mikkelsen gestures round him on the pulp mill and the creaky dock underneath his toes. “There’s no higher place,” he says.
Off the coast off of Eureka, Calif. there is a plan to construct offshore wind generators to energy greater than two million American houses. China accounts for 74% of all giant scale photo voltaic and wind underneath development, in line with the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor. The U.S. accounts for five.9%.
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“Standing in the way in which”
For the previous eleven months the Trump administration has been dismantling federal help for wind and photo voltaic industries. In 2022, the Biden administration was capable of push by way of a local weather legislation that helped bolster manufacturing for the renewables sector, and prolonged federal tax credit for wind and photo voltaic. The new GOP spending legislation handed this 12 months ends these tax incentives years prior to initially scheduled, throwing 1000’s of initiatives throughout the U.S. into doubt. The Trump administration additionally canceled greater than $13 billion in funds for inexperienced power initiatives and tried to halt offshore wind initiatives already underneath development.
Trump is undercutting a rising U.S. renewable trade, says Jesse Jenkins, a professor of engineering at Princeton University and adviser to the Biden administration on the 2022 local weather legislation. In 2025, greater than half of newly deliberate electrical energy capability will come from photo voltaic and wind, in line with the Energy Information Administration, a federal company. A report from the enterprise group E2 finds that final 12 months, clear power jobs grew 3 times quicker than these in the remainder of the workforce.
Jenkins and his workforce calculated the influence of the lack of federal tax incentives on the renewable power sector. They estimate that between now and 2035, the U.S. will see far much less photo voltaic and wind, the equal of “greater than your entire contribution of all of our nuclear crops or coal crops,” Jenkins says.
“We would’ve taken two steps ahead underneath the prior [climate] legislation. Now we would take one step ahead and what the Trump administration is doing is standing in the way in which of even that step,” Jenkins says.
A employee makes a part of wind generators at a manufacturing facility in Lianyungang, in China’s japanese Jiangsu province on September 18, 2025.
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“The finest hope for international local weather progress”
China and the U.S. are nonetheless the world’s two largest polluters driving international warming. But due to photo voltaic panels, wind generators and batteries, their tales are actually diverging.
Jenkins says it is nonetheless exhausting to know what Trump administration anti-renewable power insurance policies means for America’s planet-heating air pollution. In addition to rolling again renewable power investments, the U.S. is seeking to eradicate key air pollution management legal guidelines, which is able to have an effect on air pollution requirements for vehicles, vans, energy crops, and fossil gasoline manufacturing.
China’s emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, the primary time power demand progress hasn’t resulted in additional emissions, says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst on the nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
China’s emission reductions largely come right down to the growth of photo voltaic and wind, which are actually cheaper than coal and gasoline. While China continues to construct new coal energy crops, it operates them largely as backup, when hydropower is not working or electrical energy demand is excessive, Myllyvirta says.
Because of worldwide Chinese exports of EVs, photo voltaic, and wind parts, China helps different nations scale back their very own planet-heating emissions, too.
“ I’d argue the Chinese renewable power story might be a very powerful storyline to look at for the worldwide local weather agenda,” Li says.
“You’ll in all probability see China as one of the best hope for international local weather progress over the approaching years.”
NPR’s Julia Simon reported from Eureka, Calif., NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reported from Zhangbei County and Beijing, and NPR’s Cao Aowen contributed to this report in Zhangbei County and Beijing
