The roots of China's EV surge go back nearly two decades.
Legacy automakers in the US, Japan and Europe had "such a big head start" on gas-powered vehicles that it was unlikely China would ever catch up, Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said. EVs offered the chance to dominate a new market.
It was "a pretty big bet," said Ilaria Mazzocco, an expert in Chinese climate policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And the road wasn't smooth. A few years in, "it was considered kind of a failure."
The government started introducing EV-friendly policies in earnest around 2009, Mazzocco told CNN, offering manufacturers cheap credit and funding for research.
But ultimately the bet paid off, thanks to a combination of consistent support from China's city and central governments, advances in battery technology and a slew of highly competitive companies, she said, including Tesla's main rival, China-based BYD.
The country now boasts a robust charging infrastructure and homegrown EV expertise, technologies and materials. It's producing large amounts of cheap EVs that people actually want to buy, Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said. It's a very different picture in the US, where the economic case for EVs without subsidies is weaker, he added, because gas is "extraordinarily cheap" and Americans prefer "absolutely massive vehicles."
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📸 : Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Sustainable construction is under intensifying scrutiny as the climate agenda accelerates while policy certainty wanes. The UK faces warnings that withdrawing the Energy Company Obligation could erase tens of thousands of retrofit jobs, exposing how dependent the sector remains on stable incentives. Protecting retrofit capacity is critical for achieving net zero carbon buildings and advancing environmental sustainability in construction. Efficiency remains the most cost-effective route to decarbonising the built environment and reducing the carbon footprint of construction.
Global frameworks are tightening around embodied carbon and whole life carbon assessment. The Paris Agreement’s next phase favours coalitions of clients, cities, and contractors willing to lead on embodied carbon reduction and develop credible lifecycle assessment standards ahead of regulation. For construction supply chains, rising expectations on due diligence mean contractors and designers must integrate whole life carbon strategies, life cycle cost analysis, and environmental product declarations (EPDs) into procurement and specification. Financial institutions now view verified data on embodied carbon in materials and low carbon construction materials as core to investment decisions.
Negotiations toward a global minerals accord at the UN Environment Assembly faltered, leaving constructors reliant on voluntary disclosure frameworks to manage the environmental impact of construction. The pressure to adopt sustainable building practices and circular construction strategies will rise as green infrastructure investors demand transparent reporting on resource efficiency in construction and low embodied carbon materials.
Scotland’s indicative cap on incineration capacity points to a structural shift from waste-to-energy dependence to true circular economy in construction. This pivot compels the use of recycled aggregates, end-of-life reuse in construction, and eco-design for buildings with disassembly in mind. Demolition protocols are tightening, pushing sustainable building design to minimise waste generation throughout the building lifecycle performance. Such policy evolution aligns with the principles of sustainable material specification and circular economy integration mandated in BREEAM and BREEAM v7 frameworks.
Industrial decarbonisation is taking shape through low carbon design clusters such as the proposed green chemicals hub at Grangemouth. The initiative, supported by the Just Transition Fund, targets renewable building materials, low carbon feedstocks for insulation, and carbon neutral construction manufacturing. These projects signal a shift from pilot schemes to scalable, commercially viable low carbon building solutions that align with whole life carbon and net zero whole life carbon metrics.
The pathway forward for the sector demands consistent application of lifecycle assessment methodologies, greater adoption of sustainable building design, and measurable carbon footprint reduction. Firms that embed circular economy principles, optimise energy-efficient buildings performance, and employ green construction products stand to lead in life cycle thinking in construction. Waiting for complete policy alignment risks both competitiveness and compliance as markets move toward verifiable net zero carbon delivery.
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