Long Read: Will China Fulfill Its Key Climate Pledge?

As progress has slowed sharply, China needs stronger targets to meet its Paris Agreement goals

(Dialogue Earth) — After exceptionally slow progress from 2020 to 2023, China is badly off track meeting its 2030 commitment on reducing the carbon intensity of its economy. Getting back on course is possible, but will require much stronger targets than the government has been willing to set over the past two years.

The carbon-intensity target China sets for the next five-year plan period (2026-2030) will be a key test of its commitment to the pledges it has made under the Paris Agreement.

Since the 2009 UN climate conference in Copenhagen, carbon intensity has been the centerpiece of China’s climate commitments. The country’s current commitment under Paris is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by more than 65% by 2030, taking 2005 levels as the baseline.

China’s carbon-intensity targets have been assessed as “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker. This means that, to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement, they need to be substantially exceeded. If China misses the 2030 target, its emissions would peak at a higher level. This growth would make it much harder for global emissions to peak during this decade, putting the world much further off the path to meeting global climate targets.

After the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., China’s leadership emphasized its determination to respond to the climate threat. Fulfilling its existing commitments will be the fundamental test of that determination.

How China’s carbon dioxide target fell off track

Until the Covid-19 pandemic, China was ahead of schedule in reducing carbon intensity. It had fallen by 48.4% from 2005 to 2020, according to China’s report to the UN climate change secretariat in 2023. This comfortably exceeded the pledged target of 40-45% for 2020 and the pace required to meet the 2030 target.

At that point, it seemed that China would almost effortlessly deliver its future carbon-intensity targets, and that the key step would be a shift to absolute emission targets. However,