China offers sign of climate diplomacy's new landscape
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China's long-awaited emissions target is either a nod to realism (and the benefit of under-promising) or a dangerous failure of ambition, depending on who you ask.
Why it matters: The country is the world's largest carbon emitter by a mile. It's also the world's largest energy consumer.
- China's future energy mix will help sway how much Earth warms.
- Its evolution ripples through markets as the top oil importer and a huge gas buyer.
👟Catch up quick: China on Wednesday vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7%-10% and hopefully more by 2035 from peak levels — a peak that may be here already.
- It pledged to increase non-fossil sources' share of energy consumption to over 30%, and expand wind and solar capacity 6x over 2020 levels.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping offered the non-binding Paris Agreement targets in video remarks to the UN yesterday.
The big picture: It's an early — and somewhat ambiguous — sign of climate diplomacy's new landscape.
- China's target arrives amid President Trump's latest pullback and divides within the EU, which has tough climate policies but is grappling with internal divisions.
What they're saying: "China's underwhelming show of ambition reflects leaders' preference for caution amidst economic and geopolitical volatility," Kate Logan, who directs the Asia Society's China Climate Hub, said in a statement.
- She noted that China didn't specify a peak year (it has previously targeted a peak by 2030 and ideally sooner), which risks allowing emissions to tick back up again.
- "[I]f Beijing is 'striving to do better' — as Xi said — then they could start by acknowledging an early peak and sticking to it," she said.
John Podesta, who negotiated a 2014 Obama-era deal with China that helped enable the Paris Agreement, said its new pledge is "taking their strategy of under-promising to a new art form."
- He cited China's "astonishingly" fast deployment of zero-carbon power, and EV growth.
- It could cut emissions by 30% by 2035 instead of their new 7%-10% goal, he said.
- "They blew an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, at a time when the world is trying to come to grips with the Trump Administration's radical climate denying ideology," he told Axios via email.
What we're watching: Facts on the ground in China, by far the world leader in renewables and EVs, but also by far the largest coal-fired power source.
- "If China's pace of deployment of renewables and EVs, and rate of emissions decrease (which was 1% in the first half of 2025, year over year) continues, China would overdeliver on its 2035 target," said Melanie Robinson of the World Resources Institute.
- "China has overdelivered in some areas in the past, notably on renewables," Robinson, WRI's global director for climate, finance and economics, said in an email.
- The Guardian gathered other criticism and analysis of the pledge.
The bottom line: "With little pressure from the international community, Chinese leaders see lots of risk and little reward for pushing the envelope on ambition," the Asia Society's Logan said.
- "And in the end, China's real economy performance, rather than paper targets, will be the ultimate determinant of climate progress."
