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Key developments
China’s first-ever pledge to cut emissions
NEW CLIMATE TARGETS: In a video address to the UN last week, China’s president Xi Jinping personally pledged to cut his nation’s economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”, reported state broadcaster CCTV. Sky News called it a “landmark moment”, saying that this marked the first time China “made a commitment to cut its greenhouse gas emissions”. The announced target, along with other commitments such as expanding wind and solar power capacity to more than six times 2020 levels, will be included in China’s 2035 “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, which has not yet been submitted, reported BBC News. Carbon Brief published a detailed analysis of the announcement and hosted a webinar with climate policy experts to discuss their assessments. More details of the webinar can be found below.
AMBITION CRITICISM: In an article for Just Security, Sue Biniaz, former US principal deputy special envoy for climate, wrote that “at and around the UN event, the chatter regarding the announcement was generally negative”, adding that the announced target was “even lower than expected”. EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra described China’s new climate pledge as falling “well short of what we believe is both achievable and necessary”, reported Reuters. In response, China accused the EU of “being slow to act on its own climate targets”, according to another Reuters report. The outlet said that Hoekstra’s “criticism of China’s new climate pledges shows ‘double standards and selective blindness’, China’s foreign ministry said on Friday”.
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MEDIA REACTION: Media outlets including the Guardian and the Times raised questions about the ambition of the target. Similarly, Bloomberg said it was “seen as too modest to put the nation on a path to net-zero and galvanise global climate action”. An editorial in state-run newspaper China Daily, however, called the target a “milestone in the nation’s long-term road map toward green, low-carbon development”. Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, wrote in a comment for the New York Times that China’s targets “may seem tepid”, but “beneath them is a bold wager: that steady action, powered by industrial strength and vision shielded from political volatility, will ultimately do more to contribute to the global climate effort than lofty, fickle promises ever could”.
Electricity demand growth slowed
PRESSURE DROP: The rate of growth in China’s electricity demand slowed in August, with “cooler” weather helping to “take some pressure off the grid”, reported Bloomberg, citing official data. The outlet added that electricity consumption rose 5% in August, compared with 8.6% in July and 5.4% in June. Still, China’s electricity demand in both July and August exceeded 1,000 terawatt hours – the first time this happened globally, said Chinese finance media outlet Cailianpress. According to a report by the China Electricity Council, China’s “electrification rate” has already surpassed that of “major developed economies in Europe and the US”, wrote China Energy Net.
MARKET PRICE: Two coastal provinces, Guangdong and Shandong, have used China’s new market-based pricing system for renewables to “steer clean-energy investment to the areas that suit them best, reported Bloomberg. According to the outlet, Guangdong, which is “surrounded by relatively shallow waters”, offered “generous rates to offshore wind”. In Shandong, the pricing system was used to “correct course and reduce a glut of solar power that has built up over the years”, added the outlet.
Steel to face new controls
CAPACITY CURBS: China has released a work plan for 2025-26 to “ban new steel capacity and reduce production, in the latest move to help balance supply and demand”, reported Bloomberg. The plan came after Beijing promised to cut steel output at the Two Sessions in March, according to the outlet. It also called for “significantly enhancing green, low-carbon and digital development levels” of the country’s steel sector, according to the industry news outlet BJX News. Financial media outlet Caixin said “more than 80% of China’s crude steel production capacity has completed ultra-low-emission retrofits, according to the China Iron and Steel Association”.
ETS EXPANSION: Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued draft allowance plans for the steel, cement and aluminium sectors for 2024 and 2025 in its national emissions trading scheme (ETS), reported Cailian Press. (The ETS was expanded to these sectors from 2024 in a draft policy, published late last year and covered by Carbon Brief. The expansion, which means that the ETS covers 60% of China’s emissions, rather than 40% previously, was confirmed in March.) Meanwhile, a report published by the State Council said that a total of 189m tonnes of carbon dioxide was traded on the ETS in 2024, according to Xinhua.
Typhoon Ragasa
DAMAGES IN ASIA: Nearly two million people in southern China had to be “relocated” after Typhoon Ragasa made landfall in Guangdong province last Wednesday, reported state news agency Xinhua. BBC News described the typhoon as the “world’s strongest storm this year” and said “a month’s worth of rain” was expected in the city of Zhuhai in one day. In the wider Asia-Pacific region, dozens of people were killed, while flights as well as businesses were also strongly affected, said the Financial Times.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Ragasa was intensified by “unusually hot oceans”, which can be linked to climate change, according to “preliminary studies” covered by the Hong Kong Free Press. “Rapid attribution” analysis by the French research group ClimaMeter concluded that cyclones such as Ragasa are around 10% wetter than they would have been in the past, added the outlet. Benjamin Horton, dean of the school of energy and environment at City University of Hong Kong, also linked Ragasa to climate change, saying extreme weather events “should not be happening at such regularity, so late in the season, of such intensity, of such high winds and of such big storm surges”, according to the SCMP.
40%
The share of China’s total solar capacity in 2024 made up by distributed photovoltaics – typically installed on rooftops – according to a report from the International Energy Agency, which said the share was up from 30% four years earlier. The report added that the “stock of electric cars grew by more than 650% over the same period”.
Spotlight
Experts: What China’s new climate pledge means for the world
Last week, president Xi Jinping announced several new pledges that will be included in China’s upcoming 2035 nationally determined contribution (NDC).
Carbon Brief held a webinar with several experts on what the new announcement means for China’s climate trajectory and the global energy transition. Below are the highlights of their answers. A recording of the webinar is available on the Carbon Brief website.
Ryna Cui, associate director and associate research professor at the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability
Our assessment of a plausible high ambition pathway for China [showed it] delivering a 27-31% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions by 2035…In addition, we also model[led] a current policy pathway for China, which…also achieve[d] a 10-14% reduction…Both scenarios suggest a larger reduction compared to the 7-10% overall emission reduction target.
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Under our current policy scenario for 2035, wind and solar total installed capacity is over 4,000 gigawatt (GW). It is over 4,700 gigawatt under a high ambition [scenario]. [The target announced by Xi is for 3,600GW by 2035.]
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The non-fossil share of total primary energy…is 40% [under current policies] and 48% [under high ambition], compared to the 30% target announced [by Xi].
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst and co-founder at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
At [China’s] rate of clean-energy growth, there is no more space for…coal, in general, to grow. So if you were to announce targets of 20-30% reduction in carbon dioxide, then you have to recognise that there’s going to be a major downsizing of the coal industry.
That seems to be a decision that China’s leadership is still postponing. Are you going to put reins on this clean-energy boom, or are you going to accept that the coal industry has to start downsizing in a big way?
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These targets really, to me, show that the leadership was not prepared to resolve that conflict and say that coal is the one that has to give.
Anika Patel, China analyst at Carbon Brief
[In terms of what’s next,] one of the big signals…is COP30. What else will be announced that could signal China’s relative level of climate ambition?
Will there be quantitative targets placed on things like climate finance?…Will there be more announcements around south-south cooperation? What will China’s signaling on fossil fuels – especially coal – in the final COP30 outcome be?
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At the same time, we’ve got the 15th five-year plan coming up…We’re expecting a new set of overarching targets for 2026-2030, and traditionally there have always been a couple of climate targets [among the plan’s headline targets]. From that, we can expect to start seeing signals about what the level of climate ambition for the next five years will be.
Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute
There has been a very strong alignment now in the Chinese system between its decarbonisation goals and its economic development agenda…I think that strong alignment is what will propel the country to cut more carbon over time.
I also think that when you begin to realise [that]…you will then begin to realise it is not necessarily just the [state-level] EU-China climate relationship…[or] COPs that we should pay attention to. New actors are emerging.
We need to pay attention to BYD [and] CATL. We need to pay attention to [low-carbon commercial and investment activity in] Brazil…[and] Indonesia. Those factors and actors, over the next ten years or so, will begin to drive carbon-emission reduction in a more significant and meaningful way than countries’ NDCs.
Watch, read, listen
‘NEW ENERGY’: A comment on the “high-quality development” of China’s “new energy” sector was published by the Communist party’s Study Times – an official newspaper edited by the central school of the Chinese Communist party – under the byline of Wang Hongzhi, head of the National Energy Administration.
HIGH-LEVEL COMMENT: The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily published an article under the byline Zhong Caiwen, used to indicate party leaders’ views on economic affairs, saying “green development is the defining feature of China’s high-quality economic growth”.
EXTREME WEATHER: Chinese media outlet 21st Century Business Herald conducted an interview with Xu Xiaofeng, former deputy director of the China Meteorological Administration and president of the China Meteorological Service Association, who talked about the “high intensity of extreme weather events” under climate change.
CARBON MARKETS: Ma Aimin, former deputy director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, told Jiemian that China’s carbon market (ETS) needed to enhance its “trading activity” and that the next two years will be a “critical period” for voluntary carbon trading (CCERs).
New science
Development policy affects coastal flood exposure in China more than sea-level rise
Nature Climate Change
Exposure to coastal flooding in China over the 21st century will depend more on “policy decisions” than the rate of sea-level rise, according to new research. The authors combined simulations of population and land use changes with flood models that incorporate factors such as sea level rise and storm surges. They said their paper offers a “more nuanced understanding of coastal risks” than other existing assessments.
Spatiotemporal patterns and drivers of wildfire CO2 emissions in China from 2001 to 2022
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Annual CO2 emissions from forest and shrub fires in China decreased over 2001-22, but increased for cropland fires, a new study found. The analysis noted that the upward trend in cropland fire emissions is primarily in the country’s north-east and is “closely linked to region-specific straw-burning policies”. The researchers found that emissions from grassland fires remained relatively stable over the two decades assessed.
China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 2 October 2025: China’s new pledge; electricity demand slows; steel overcapacity appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 2 October 2025: China’s new pledge; electricity demand slows; steel overcapacity
A formal petition to the U.S. government calls for sanctions on Chinese seafood imports as it highlights China’s loophole-ridden illegal shark fin trade.
For migrant workers trapped onboard Chinese distant water fishing fleets, cutting the fins off sharks as they writhe violently on rusted decks in the Indian Ocean isn’t accidental. It’s an intentional and lucrative act that marks the start of a bloody half-a-billion-dollar offshore supply chain, tacitly supported by Beijing yet covertly concealed from port inspectors globally.
New data on international climate finance for 2023 and 2024 suggests that wealthy countries are highly unlikely to have met their pledge to double funding for adaptation in developing nations to around $40 billion a year by 2025 amid cuts to their overseas aid budgets.
At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, all countries agreed to “urge” developed nations to at least double their funding for adaptation in developing countries from 2019 levels of around $20 billion by 2025. Funding for adaptation has lagged behind money to help reduce emissions and remains the dark spot even as the data showed overall climate finance rose to a record $136.7 billion in 2024.
A United Nations Environment Programme report warned last year that wealthy nations were likely to miss the adaptation finance target and the data released on Thursday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that in 2024 adaptation finance was just under $35 billion.
The OECD, an intergovernmental policy forum for wealthy countries, said the increase between 2022 and 2024 was “modest”, adding that meeting the doubling target would require “strong growth” of close to 20% in 2025.
More cuts likely
The OECD’s figures do not go up to 2025, but several nations announced cuts to climate finance last year. The most notable was the abandonment of US pledges to international climate funds by the new Trump administration but the UK, France, Germany and other wealthy European countries also pared back their contributions.
Joe Thwaites, international finance director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said developed countries were “not on track” to meet the adaptation funding goal.
Power Shift Africa director Mohamed Adow said adaptation finance is needed to expand flood defences, drought-resistant crops, early warning systems and resilient health services as the world warms, bringing more extreme weather and rising seas. “When that money fails to arrive, people lose homes, harvests and livelihoods – and in the worst cases, their lives,” he warned.
Imane Saidi, a senior researcher at the North Africa-based Imal Initiative, called the $35 billion in adaptation finance in 2024 “a drop in the ocean”, considering that the United Nations estimates the annual adaptation needs of developing countries at between $215 billion and $387 billion.
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UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court
A UN resolution endorses a landmark climate ruling by the International Court of Justice that states should reduce fossil fuels and repair the damage from global warming -
Electrification emerges as COP31 priority
The Turkish COP31 President has called for “a truly global conversation” about shifting the global energy system from fossil fuels to electricity -
UK halves Green Climate Fund contribution, as it spends more on security
After promising £1.6 billion to the UN’s flagship climate fund in 2023, the UK government has now said it will only hand over half as much
If confirmed, a failure to meet the goal is likely to further strain relations between developed and developing countries within the UN climate process. A previous pledge to provide $100 billion a year of total climate finance by 2020 was only met two years late, a failure labelled “dismal” by the UAE’s COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber and many other Global South diplomats.
Missing that goal would also raise doubts about donor governments’ commitment to meeting their new post-2025 adaptation finance goal. At COP30 last year, governments agreed to urge developed countries to triple adaptation finance – without defining the baseline – by 2035.
African and other developing countries have pointed to lack of funding as a key flaw in ongoing attempts to set indicators to measure progress on adapting to climate change.
Speaking to climate ministers from around the world in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Turkish COP31 President Murat Kurum stressed the importance of climate finance. “It is easy to say we support global climate action,” he said, “but promises must be kept.”
He said the COP31 Presidency will use the new Global Implementation Accelerator and recommendations in the Baku-to-Belem roadmap, published last year, to scale up climate finance – and will hold donors accountable for their collective finance goals.
He noted that developed countries should this year submit their first reports showing how they will deliver their “fair share” of the new broader finance goal set at COP29 in 2024, to deliver $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035. They are due to report on this once every two years.
Broader climate finance
The OECD data shows that the overall amount of climate finance – including funding for emissions cuts – provided by developed countries grew fast in 2023 before declining in 2024. In contrast, the amount of private finance developed countries say they “mobilised” increased in both 2023 and 2024, pushing the top-line figure to a record high.
While the OECD does not say which countries provided what amounts, data from the ODI Global think-tank suggests that the 2024 cuts to bilateral climate finance were spread broadly among wealthy nations.
Thwaites of NRDC welcomed the fact that overall climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries exceeded $130 billion in both 2023 and 2024. He said that this was “well above earlier projections” and “shows that when rich countries work together, they can over-achieve on climate finance goals”.
But Sehr Raheja, programme officer at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said these figures are “modest” when set against the new $300-billion goal.
“While the headline total figure of climate finance remains alright,” she said, “declining bilateral climate spending raises important questions about the predictability of high-quality, concessional public finance, which has consistently been a key demand of the Global South.”
She also lamented that loans continue to dominate public climate finance and that mobilised private finance is concentrated in middle-income countries and on emissions-reduction measures rather than adaptation projects. “Private capital continues to follow bankability rather than climate vulnerability or need,” she added.
Ritu Bharadwaj, climate finance and resilience researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the figures painted an outdated picture as climate finance has since declined as rich countries shrink their overseas aid budgets and increase spending on defence.
Last month, the OECD published figures showing that international aid – which includes climate finance – fell by nearly a quarter in 2025. The US was responsible for three-quarters of this decline. The OECD projects a further decline in 2026.
With Thursday’s climate finance report, the OECD is “publishing a victory lap for 2023 and 2024 at almost the same moment its own aid statistics show the funding base eroding underneath it,” Bharadwaj said.
The post New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
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