By: Taylah Bland and Lauri Myllyvirta

The Paris Agreement mandates that countries submit their next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by February 2025. NDCs reflect a country’s domestic climate ambition, and collectively they play a crucial role in evaluating the international community’s progress toward achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

China is responsible for 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 90% of the growth in CO2 emissions since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. Its 2035 NDC targets will significantly shape the world’s climate future. Decisions on China’s targets are under review amid a recent surge in emissions, heightened geopolitical tensions, and challenging economic headwinds. All these trends and factors complicate the decision-making process. But a rapid clean energy boom and early signs of a decline or plateau in emissions should give Beijing’s leaders confidence in strong 2035 targets.

The China Climate Hub has been working to ascertain what level of ambition is necessary to keep China on the Paris pathway and in strong alignment with its domestic political economy goals. In our view, China should peak its emissions imminently and start reducing them persistently by at least 30% by 2035. Doing so would make the country’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal achievable and credible and allow its world-leading cleantech industries to continue driving China’s economy. 

Why This Level of Ambition?

Based on a China Climate Hub survey (published today on Dialogue Earth) of studies, including those conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to align with the 1.5°C goal set out in the Paris Agreement, China’s GHG emissions must be reduced by at least 30% from the peak through 2035 (range: 31% to 64%).

As China’s emissions continued to rise until 2023, the idea of realizing significant absolute reductions in emissions over the next decade might seem daunting to China's policymakers. Yet there are opportunities to achieve a 30% emissions reduction by 2035 by building on existing trends, policies, and targets.

Furthermore, a 30% reduction represents linear progress from the emissions peak to carbon neutrality before 2060, so it is a consistent and credible approach to implementing the long-term target.

How it Can be Achieved: Zeroing in on the Power Sector

One critical area for realizing the 30% reduction is the power sector. After the record expansion of solar and wind in 2023, China is already on track to peak power sector emissions and begin to reduce them. The latest statistical release from China confirms this. The country’s emissions fell by 3% in March 2024, ending a 14-month surge after the country’s zero-COVID measures were lifted. If the level of renewable energy additions achieved in 2023 can be maintained, this would help push the country’s emissions down for the rest of 2024 and put China on track to triple renewable energy capacity from 2022 to 2030, in line with the global ambition agreed at COP28 in Dubai.

Combining projections, China’s renewable power capacity would more than triple, from 1130 GW in 2022 to 3400–3800 GW in 2030. This would allow a more than 20% reduction in power generation from coal, and a 35% reduction in overall coal consumption including other sectors, by 2035.

Besides factoring this outlook into the overall emissions reduction target, China should include new renewable or non-fossil energy targets in its 2035 NDC. This would provide greater certainty for the industry and a strong complement to absolute emissions targets. 

Promoting strong NDC targets for renewable energy and electric vehicles should be in China’s interest given the importance of these sectors to economic growth, evidenced by China’s pivot to the “new three industries.”

In addition to the power sector, reforms in and specific NDC targets for the steel, cement, transportation sector, as well as non-CO2 GHGs like methane and hydrofluorocarbons, could aid China’s advancement toward significant emissions reductions. These sectors and GHGs are major contributors to China’s emissions and offer notable opportunities for continued reductions.

The Domestic Benefits of 30%

The dramatic acceleration of clean energy deployment in 2023 has opened up the possibility of setting more ambitious targets than previously anticipated, both in terms of the emissions peaking timeline and the reductions achievable by 2035. Maintaining this rate of clean energy deployment until 2035 would enable CO2 emissions reductions of at least 35% from 2023 to 2035, or 30% from 2020 levels.

After the unprecedented investments made in clean energy manufacturing and supply chains in the past few years, accelerating the energy transition and upgrading targets are necessary steps to make these investments a success and maintain technological competitiveness. Slowing down the rate of deployment would undercut the significant economic bet that China has made in these sectors.

This progress makes a significant positive impact on the international climate agenda as well as the domestic sphere. Reducing China’s emissions in line with the carbon neutrality goal would also fulfill Xi Jinping’s vision of China becoming an “important contributor” to climate action and bolster its image in international climate negotiations.

Domestically, allowing the cleantech sectors to prosper would enable high-quality economic growth: growing new, clean industries and reducing reliance on low-quality, high-energy, high-emissions industries, thereby supporting the 2035 goal of building a modernized economy. Additionally, reducing fossil fuel use would make a major contribution to improving air quality, ecological protection, and supporting the 2035 Beautiful China goals.

As we move toward the time for NDC submission, the China Climate Hub will continue its work in this area. A persistent reduction of at least 30% through 2035 is key not only to China’s domestic climate achievements but also to the overarching goals of the Paris Agreement.