In June 2026, a “standards offensive and defensive war” surrounding the green industry in China and Europe is quietly taking place.
A report by Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung revealed an intriguing reversal: when the EU exempted most companies from sustainability reporting obligations due to corporate backlash, China introduced a similar mandatory information disclosure system.
Michael Boulos, a member of the Green Party of the European Parliament, pointed out: “China’s strategy is to become a global standard setter.”
China is tightening regulations on one hand and expanding its scale on the other.
2026 is China’s first mandatory disclosure year of ESG information, covering index sample companies such as SSE 180 and Science and Technology 50, and is required to disclose quantitative indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
As of April 30, 2026, 2,706 A-share listed companies have disclosed their 2025 ESG reports, accounting for 49.0%, of which 65.9% have disclosed carbon emission data.
At the same time, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Notice on Carrying out Three-Year Action for Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction in Key Industries” in June 2026. The goal is that by the end of 2028, the proportion of energy efficiency benchmark production capacity in eight key industrial industries such as steel and electrolytic aluminum will increase by 20 percentage points on average, and the cumulative energy saving will be more than 100 million tons of standard coal.
The policy logic has shifted from “producing less” to “producing more efficiently”, and the central government has even provided subsidies based on 20% of the total approved investment.
In terms of industrial scale, China has significant advantages.
In the photovoltaic field, modules account for more than 70% of the global production capacity. The mass production conversion efficiency of LONGi HPBC 2.0 cells reaches 24.8%, maintaining a 3-5 year technological leadership.
In the field of electric vehicles, global production accounts for 70%, and battery cell production accounts for more than 80%. The energy density of CATL condensed matter batteries has reached 500Wh/kg, and the first flight verification of a 4-ton commercial aircraft has been completed.
In 2025, the export volume of the “three new items” of photovoltaics, lithium batteries and electric vehicles will reach 1.28 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28%.
In contrast to China’s “tightening of rules”, the EU is falling into the contradiction of “reverse adjustment”.
In order to protect local manufacturing, the European Union introduced the “Industrial Accelerator Act” in March 2026, setting hard thresholds for photovoltaic, battery and other industries: if a country’s relevant production capacity accounts for more than 40% of the world, foreign shareholding must not exceed 49%.
However, the “protective effect” of this policy is not optimistic by the outside world.
Edenhofer, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said bluntly: “It is absurd to think that competitiveness can be restored by simply canceling climate regulations.”
While blocking the outside world, the EU is “releasing water” internally and exempting most companies from their sustainability reporting obligations. This is interpreted as sacrificing the right to speak on long-term standards in exchange for short-term industrial breathing space.
Burrows warned that German companies are withdrawing from the formulation of standards and specifications, which will hinder the globalization of European standards.
Reuters analysis shows that the EU’s policy of excluding Chinese inverters implemented in May has begun to backfire. The ban may affect at least 14 GW of new solar installed capacity, causing the cost of new energy systems to increase by about 2%. The Czech Solar Energy Association does not support this ban.
The strength of the two parties in the game is unequal, and the core lies in the gap between cost and production capacity.
In 2026, Europe’s annual installed photovoltaic capacity demand will be as high as 65GW, but its local production capacity is only 10-12GW, a gap of more than 80%.
The cost of local photovoltaic modules in the EU is 19 euro cents/watt, while the cost of Chinese products of the same quality is only 8.7 euro cents/watt, less than half of that in Europe.
In the field of inverters, European product prices are 20% to 40% higher than those in China.
CICC Chairman Chen Liang pointed out that China has a huge supply of green funds and a mature capital market, and is well-positioned to provide low-cost financing for global green projects through tools such as green panda bonds.
Huang Yiping, a professor at Peking University, believes that green transformation is “the track with the largest cooperation volume and the highest certainty of implementation” between China and Europe. The implementation of the Green New Deal in Europe cannot bypass China’s supply chain.
The final direction of this game depends on whether both parties can get out of the debate about “the number of rules” and see the deep connection between “standard-setting power” and “industrial foundation.”
