Renewable energy is helping China complete its economic transformation and achieve "energy security". China rapidly has moved along the path of renewable energy development. About 17 percent of China's electricity came from renewable sources in 2007, led by the world's largest number of hydroelectric generators. China had total installed capacity of hydropower up to 197 gigawatts in 2009. China has set a target of 190,000 MW for 2010. Technology development and increased amounts of investment in renewable energy technologies and installations have increased markedly throughout the 2000s in China, and investment in renewables is now part of China's economic stimulus strategy. Researchers from Harvard University and Tsinghua University have found that the People's Republic could meet all of its electricity demands from wind power by 2030.

After the dissolution of the Energy and Industry Department in 1993, China has been running without a government agency effectively managing the country's energy for 16 years. Related issues are supervised by multiple organizations such as National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Commerce, State electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) and so force. In 2008, National Energy Administration was founded under NDRC, however, its work has been proved inefficient. In January 2010, the State Council decided to set up a National Energy Commission (NEC), headed by current Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The commission will be responsible for drafting national energy development plan, reviewing energy security, major energy issues and coordinating domestic energy development and international cooperation.

The Chinese government is implementing multiple policies to promote renewable energy. China has invested 34,600,000,000 dollars in clean energy in 2009, an amount ranked No.1 among G20 countries, almost twice of the number of the U.S. investment following it. The Renewable Energy Law passed in 2005 explicitly states in its first chapter that the development and the usage of renewable energy is a prioritized area in energy development. The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the current plan, also gives great emphasis on green energy. Detailed incentive policies and programs include Golden Sun program providing financial subsidies, technology support and market incentives to facilitate the development of solar power industry; the Suggestions on Promoting Wind Electricity Industry in 2006 offering preferential policies for wind power development; and many other policies. Besides promoting policies, China has enacted a number of other policies to standardize renewable energy products, to prevent environmental damage, and to regulate price of green energy. These policies include, but not limited to Renewable Energy Law, Safety Regulations of Hydropower Dams and National Standard of Solar Water Heater.

Several provisions in relevant Chinese laws and regulations address the development of methane gas in rural China. These provisions include Article 54 of the Agriculture Law of the People’s Republic of China, Articles 4 and 11 of the Energy Conservation Law of the People’s Republic of China, Article 18 of the Renewable Energy Law of the People’s Republic of China and Article 12 of the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China Concerning Restoring Farmland to Forest.

On April 20, 2007 the Environment and Resources Committee of the National People's Congress and the National Development and Reform Commission convened a conference on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Renewable Energy Law. There were approximately 250 people who attended the conference from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Construction, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the National Bureau of Forestry, the National Power Network Company, science and technology institutes, oil companies, large energy investment companies, companies manufacturing renewable energy equipment, etc. Other conferences held including: The 3rd Annual China Power & Alternative Energy Summit 2007 was held on May 16–20, 2007 at the Swissotel, Beijing; The 2nd China Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Products and Technology Exhibition was held on June 1–3, 2007 in Beijing at the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall; and The 2007 China International Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Engineering Exhibition was held at the Beijing International Exhibition Center on June 25–29, 2007. The sponsors of the exhibition included the Asia Renewable Energy Association, the China Energy Enterprises Management Association and the China Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Enterprise Association.

According to China's "Energy Blue Paper" recently written by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the average rate of recovery of coal from mining in China is only 30%, less than one-half the rate of recovery throughout the world; the rate of recovery of coal resources in the U.S., Australia, Germany and Canada is 80%. The rate of recovery of coal from mining in Shanxi Province, China’s largest source of coal is approximately 40%, though the rate of recovery of village and township coal mines in Shanxi Province is only 10%-20%. Cumulatively over the course of the past 20 years (1980–2000) China has wasted upwards of 28 billion MT of coal. The same causes for a low rate of recovery in coal mining - that extraction methods are backwards - lead to safety problems in China’s coal mining sector. Another reason for the low rate of recovery is that the majority of extraction comes from small scale mining; of the 346.9 billion MT of coal extracted by China, only 98 billion MT has come from large or mid-sized mines while 250 billion MT are extracted from small mines. Based on coal production in 2005 of 2.19 billion MT and a current rate of recovery of 30%, if China were able to double its rate of recovery it would save approximately 3.5 billion MT of coal.

On April 13, 2007, the Department of Science, Technology and Education of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture hosted the Asian regional workshop on adaptation to climate change organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate change will affect Asian countries in different but consistently negative ways. Temperate regions will experience changes in boreal forest cover, while vanishing mountain glaciers will cause problems such as water shortages and increased risks of glacial lake flooding. Coastal zones are under increasing risk from sea level rises as well as pollution and overexploitation of natural resources. In 2006 in China storms, floods, heat and drought killed more than 2700 people; effects ranged from drought in the southwest of China, which were the worst since records began to be kept in the late 19th century, to floods and typhoons in central and southeastern China. The weather events in China in 2006 were seen to be a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more common due to global warming. Topics discussed by representatives of Asian countries and developed countries, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations, included vulnerability assessments, implementing adaptation actions in various sectors of the economy and in specific geographical areas, such as coastal and mountainous regions.

Based on a recently completed survey in 2007, the Standardization Administration of China plans to further develop and improve standards for conservation and comprehensive utilization of natural resources in the following areas: energy, water, wood and land conservation, development of renewable energy, the comprehensive utilization of mineral resources, recovery, recycling and reuse of scrap materials and clean production.