China has consistently honored its international climate commitments with concrete actions, integrating carbon peaking and carbon neutrality into its overall national development strategy. Its emission reduction efforts have maintained steady momentum and achieved remarkable results. As the world’s largest developing country, China has advanced its green transition with far greater intensity than developed economies while sustaining robust economic growth. It has delivered on its solemn pledges to the international community with tangible data, injecting vital impetus into global climate governance.
The low-carbon transition of the energy structure stands as the core pillar of emission reduction implementation. China has built the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system. Its total installed capacity of wind and solar power, along with forest stock volume, has met its 2030 nationally determined contribution (NDC) targets ahead of schedule. The share of non-fossil energy consumption rose from 15.9% in 2020 to 19.8% in 2024, while coal’s share fell to 53.2% over the same period. Renewable energy now accounts for over 59% of total installed power capacity, keeping China at the global forefront of clean energy progress.
Carbon emission intensity has continued to drop sharply, placing China among the world’s leaders in emission reduction efficiency. Since 2012, China has supported an average annual economic growth of 6.1% with an average annual energy consumption growth of only 3.4%, reducing its carbon emission intensity by more than 35% cumulatively. In the first four years of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased by 11.6% in total, equivalent to a CO₂ emission cut of 1.1 billion tons. Carbon emission intensity fell by 5.0% year-on-year in 2025, with a target of a further 3.8% reduction set for 2026. The pace of emission reduction has consistently aligned with the projected schedule for its 2030 NDC.
Continuous improvements in institutional innovation and market mechanisms provide long-term safeguards for emission reduction implementation. In 2026, China fully implemented a dual-control system for carbon emissions, completing an upgrade in governance logic from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions. The national carbon market has expanded from the power sector to high-energy-consuming industries including steel, cement and aluminum smelting, covering more than 3,500 enterprises and over 60% of China’s total carbon emissions, as market-based emission reduction tools become increasingly mature.
Industrial green upgrading and global collaboration go hand in hand, with emission reduction efforts delivering multiple values. China’s new energy industrial chain supplies over 80% of the world’s photovoltaic modules and 70% of wind power equipment, with the “new three” (electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar panels) becoming the mainstay of low-carbon exports. Meanwhile, the growth rate of China’s total anthropogenic carbon emissions has slowed significantly, below the global average. Adhering to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, China has demonstrated through solid emission reduction achievements that development and emission reduction can advance in tandem, offering a replicable Chinese model for the green transition of developing countries worldwide.
