China presented cautious climate targets for 2030
China, as part of a new five-year plan, introduced climate targets for 2030. The goal is to reduce CO₂ emission intensity per unit of GDP by 3.8% in 2026 and by 17% by 2030.
With the planned GDP growth of 4.5–5%, this means that absolute emissions could continue to rise.
The new target is lower than the previous ambition of 18% from the last five-year plan, which China reportedly did not meet.
At the same time, Beijing changed the methodology for calculating emission intensity — it now also includes industrial processes, which allows accounting for the drop in emissions from the cement sector due to the real estate market crisis.
Coal continues to account for more than half of China's energy consumption. The five-year plan only assumes that coal consumption will peak, whereas the previous 2021 commitment spoke of a gradual reduction.
Targets for installing solar and wind capacity have not been updated, even though the ones set for 2030 were already met by China in 2024.
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