Report maps China's emissions trajectory

BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from China Daily.

China's carbon dioxide emissions are expected to peak around 2027-29 and then fall by more than 10 percent from the peak by 2035, according to a scenario analysis in an interim report released on Monday at the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development's 2026 general meeting.

Ren Yong, a member of the council, former chief engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and leader of the report's core expert group, presented the findings at an open forum titled "China's Path in the Global Green Transition Process: Innovation and Cooperation". The report was prepared by more than 50 Chinese and foreign experts from nearly 20 international institutions.

The report identifies 2025-35 as a critical period for moving from carbon peaking to emissions reductions and notes China's 2035 target of cutting economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent from the peak.

The report also says a considerable gap will remain on the path to carbon neutrality before 2060.

Ren said China's green transition has gained irreversible momentum. "Since around 2014, economic growth has become decoupled from emissions of major pollutants, while resource and energy consumption has shown increasingly pronounced relative decoupling," he said.

According to the report, by 2024, China's carbon emission intensity had decreased by more than 51 percent compared to levels in 2005. The share of coal in total energy consumption dropped from 56.8 percent in 2020 to 53.2 percent in 2024, while the share of nonfossil fuels rose from 15.9 percent to 19.8 percent.

China has also built the world's largest renewable energy system and a comprehensive new energy industrial chain, the report says.

Green industries are expected to become an increasingly important growth driver. The research team estimates that China's green industry could account for roughly one-fifth of the economy by 2035, Ren said.

He cautioned, however, that while the transition is reshaping China's development model and creating new opportunities for high-quality growth, it has not yet become a pervasive feature of economic and social development.

China's transition has moved beyond the stage in which relatively simple measures could deliver rapid gains, he said. Marginal costs are rising, some existing policies are producing diminishing returns, and greater reliance is needed on technological innovation, market mechanisms and structural reform.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), energy demand is projected to increase by more than 30 percent and total electricity consumption may exceed 13 trillion kilowatt-hours, according to the report.

Integrating renewable power into the grid, expanding energy storage and modernizing the power system will remain challenging, it says. Coal-fired power must balance energy security with emissions reduction, while steel and cement industries face technology lock-in.

Hydrogen-based metallurgy and carbon capture remain costly and are largely at the demonstration stage. Critical minerals and changing global supply chains create additional risks for the new energy sector.

The report also highlights social and environmental challenges. Restructuring in the coal, steel and cement industries could affect jobs and local economies, making retraining and people-centered, just transition measures important.

As extreme weather becomes more frequent and severe, China still has shortcomings in coastal flood defenses, power grid resilience, urban underground utility corridors, urban flood control and rural disaster prevention.

The report calls for stronger climate adaptation planning, biodiversity protection and coordination across regions, departments and river basins.

It recommends making green transition and green productive forces key themes of the 15th Five-Year Plan, shifting from "light green" to "deep green" development and from end-of-pipe treatment to source control.

It also urges coordinated action on climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, stronger green finance and carbon-market mechanisms, support for breakthrough technologies and more systematic assessment of climate risks to infrastructure.

Addressing the open forum, Xie Zhenhua, China's former special climate envoy, said the world is facing governance deficits, development pressures, geopolitical uncertainty and a worsening triple planetary crisis.

He called for China to uphold multilateralism and expand practical cooperation among governments, businesses, research institutions, cities and civil society. China's green technologies and products, he said, should better serve developing countries, particularly those in the Global South.

Andre Hoffmann, co-chair of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum, said innovation and cooperation must advance together.

Innovation without cooperation cannot reach the necessary scale, while cooperation without innovation cannot meet the complexity of the challenge, he said.

China's next phase should move beyond deploying individual technologies toward transforming whole systems, including grids, storage, energy efficiency, finance and human capital, he said.

Achim Steiner, former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said China's experience in green finance, policy experimentation and large-scale implementation offers useful lessons. But he added that no country has all the answers, making shared interests, mutual learning and workable compromises essential to the future of the global green transition.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-maps-chinas-emissions-trajectory-302894133.html

SOURCE China Daily