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China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
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
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US ga