As the world grapples with the urgent need for energy transition, a fierce contest for global dominance in energy exports is playing out between the United States and China. But the battle lines are not just drawn along national borders; they also cut through the heart of policy debates, market reforms, and the lived realities of ordinary people in countries like New Zealand. The latest developments, lawsuits, and policy reversals on three continents reveal a high-stakes struggle over who will shape the future of energy—and who will pay the price.
According to a report released on October 6, 2025, and cited by Bloomberg, China has surged ahead in the race for clean energy export supremacy. In August alone, China’s exports of electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries hit a staggering $20 billion. Over the first seven months of the year, China’s green technology exports soared to $120 billion, outpacing U.S. fossil fuel exports by $30 billion. While American oil and gas shipments tallied $80 billion through July, China’s clean tech juggernaut kept accelerating, despite falling technology prices.
“China reached a record value in cleantech exports even as technology prices have fallen sharply,” Euan Graham, a data analyst for Ember, told Bloomberg. The numbers are eye-opening: August saw China exporting a record 46,000 megawatts of power capacity. Notably, more than half of its electric vehicle exports now go to developing countries outside the OECD, signaling a shift in global energy influence.
Meanwhile, U.S. energy policy under both the Trump and Biden administrations has doubled down on fossil fuel production. The focus has been on boosting oil and gas exports, while green technology development has been comparatively restrained. China, in contrast, remains a major oil and gas importer but consumes most of its manufactured clean technology at home. Its domestic electric vehicle sales this quarter are set to surpass total U.S. car sales across all fuel types—a sign of just how rapidly the energy landscape is changing.
“Clean energy exports is hardware, which once a country has bought it, will generate electricity for a decade or two to come,” Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, told Bloomberg. “Whereas with gas, the day you buy it, you use it, it’s gone forever.” This fundamental difference in export strategy could have lasting implications for global influence and long-term energy security.
Yet, the international competition masks a deeper struggle over how the benefits of the energy transition are distributed—and who is left behind when policies shift. Nowhere is this more evident than in the United States, where the abrupt cancellation of the $7 billion Solar for All program has sparked outrage and legal action.
On October 6, 2025, a coalition of groups and nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the Solar for All initiative. The program, designed to make solar power accessible to more than 900,000 lower-income Americans, was axed in August. It was part of a larger $20 billion green funding push—including the Solar Reduction Fund and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund—established under the Biden administration in 2022, all of which were dismantled under President Trump.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin defended the move, characterizing the canceled funding as "a fraudulent scheme fraught with waste." But the lawsuit, filed on behalf of affected communities and nonprofit advocates, argues that the termination was illegal. Plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to order the EPA to reinstate the program, which they say would have delivered clean power and lower bills to families struggling with energy costs.
“This is an attempt by the Trump administration to roll back a program representing climate-friendly policy at the expense of families and in favor of fossil fuel companies,” said Kate Law, an advocate with the Conservation Foundation, in a statement quoted by the Associated Press. She added, “The program would have provided affordable air and power, improved incomes for lower-income people, and reduced extreme energy bills during the year.” The lawsuit estimates that the program’s cancellation will cost recipients over a million metric tons in avoided greenhouse gas emissions and millions of dollars in cumulative electricity bill savings.
The Solar for All program’s demise is just one example of how political swings can upend long-term energy goals. The Trump administration’s broader rollback of environmental regulation and green funding has been described by critics as an assault on climate-friendly policy, with hundreds of grants and regulatory measures either canceled or weakened.
While the U.S. and China duke it out over export revenues and market share, another front in the energy battle is playing out in New Zealand. On October 6, 2025, Greenpeace Aotearoa published an article highlighting the country’s electricity market woes and calling for a clean energy future. The piece, originally published in The Conversation, paints a grim picture: New Zealand’s energy market is “broken,” beset by structural, legal, and distributional failings that have led to soaring prices and growing energy poverty.
Most of New Zealand’s electricity comes from low-cost renewables—hydro, geothermal, and wind—but the market is skewed by the high-cost, coal-and-gas-fired Huntly power station. Since reforms in the mid-1980s, wholesale prices have been set by the highest-priced supplier (usually Huntly), resulting in windfall profits for asset owners and hardship for households and businesses. The article calls for bold reforms: breaking up the monopoly power of the combined generation and retail companies (the “gentailers”), resurrecting local supply authorities, and bringing in large-scale wind, solar, and battery projects to force genuine competition and bring down prices.
But as the author notes, entrenched interests stand in the way. “Bringing prices and profits down will mean writing down the asset values of the gentailers, the national grid and the lines companies—at the expense of their shareholders. New Zealanders in general may be big winners. But there would be powerful and noisy losers.”
The stakes are high. Energy poverty and job losses have steadily increased, while asset values have soared. Governments, caught between their role as owner-shareholders and the public interest, have so far been reluctant to act decisively. The arrival of energy-hungry data centers threatens to absorb any new low-cost generation, potentially locking in high prices for years to come.
Across the globe, the energy transition is proving to be as much about politics, power, and equity as it is about technology. Whether it’s the U.S. and China battling for export dominance, legal fights over access to clean power, or the uphill struggle for market reform in New Zealand, the outcomes will shape not just who profits, but who gets to participate in a cleaner, fairer energy future.
As policymakers, activists, and industry leaders weigh their next moves, one thing is clear: the road to a sustainable energy system is long, winding, and fiercely contested—but the decisions made now will reverberate for decades to come.
