"In the first quarter of 2025, China's newly installed wind and photovoltaic power capacity totalled 74.33 million kilowatts, bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 1.482 billion kilowatts," China's national energy body said.

"It has surpassed the installed capacity of thermal power (1.451 billion kilowatts) for the first time," it said, without defining thermal power in its short statement.

China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases that drive climate change, has pledged to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

While around 60 percent of China's energy comes from coal, the country is also a renewable energy powerhouse, building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined, according to research published last year.

China's leader Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that "no matter how the international situation changes", the country's efforts to combat climate change will not slow down.

Xi also said China would announce its 2035 greenhouse gas reduction commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), before COP30 in November, and that it would cover all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide.

That came as President Donald Trump has pulled the United States, the world's second-largest polluter, out of the Paris climate accord while pledging a vast expansion in fossil fuel exploitation.