Global investments in clean technology manufacturing peaked in 2023 and have since dropped 42% to $155 billion in 2025, largely driven by huge declines in China and the US, a Rhodium Group report found.
The figures can seem surprising given recent headlines of record demand for green energy as countries focus on weaning themselves off volatile fossil fuel markets. But the decline across the world’s two biggest markets has had a greater impact, though in different ways. In China, where investment has dropped nearly 70% from its 2023 peak, the fall is less alarming than it seems, the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel said, because it mostly reflects an oversupplied market from years of intense state support.
That same logic doesn’t apply to the US, which also saw a decline but unlike Beijing, is experiencing it before significant planned investments have been realized and before a robust domestic market has taken hold. The administration’s rollback of the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy tax incentives, and stricter rules on Chinese imports played a role in ultimately leading to this year’s weakest first quarter of clean tech manufacturing investment in nearly three years. Washington’s unpredictability has also pushed Beijing to pull back: Chinese companies in the green sector scrapped roughly $2.8 billion in planned US manufacturing projects last year, while more than half of proposed investments were canceled, paused, or delayed.
