Despite taking place just days after a major UN biodiversity summit, the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan produced few new commitments on food, forests, land and nature.
Countries did finalise the text on the remaining sections setting out the rules for international carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
They also considered a text “reaffirming” the “importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature”.
However, countries failed to adopt this document during COP29’s chaotic final plenary session.
During the summit, three countries came forward with their new UN climate plans, which included limited information on how these nations plan to harness nature to meet their emissions targets.
Elsewhere, a flurry of new declarations and initiatives – including on climate action for farmers, water and reducing methane emissions from organic waste – made up the presidency’s “action agenda”.
Some observers lamented the apparent lack of progress on food and nature topics, with one telling Carbon Brief that the two featured “pretty weakly” in the final outcomes.
Others were more sanguine, with another observer saying that “momentum was neither gained nor lost, just maintained” and giving it, “overall, a passing grade”.
Below, Carbon Brief explains how food, forests, land and nature featured inside and outside the negotiations at COP29.
- Article 6
- Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security
- Global Goal on Adaptation
- UAE Dialogue and the global stocktake
- Response measures
- Nature
- Food and nature in new NDCs
- Methane
- Food systems and water
- Deforestation
- Indigenous representation
- Greenwashing and ‘big ag’ influence
- Ecosystem restoration
Article 6
At COP29, countries reached a final agreement on the rules for carbon trading under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
The deal struck in Baku on Sunday brings a decade of negotiations to a close, but there are some key tools for “nature-based” removals and rights safeguards still to be developed.
Rules governing country-to-country carbon trading under Article 6.2, as well as a new international carbon market under Article 6.4 called the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), are now more or less complete.
The COP29 presidency hailed the agreement as a “breakthrough” that “achieves full operationalisation of Article 6”, a COP “win” that it pushed from day one of the two-week talks.
The outcome was “warmly welcome[d]” by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). In an emailed statement, IETA said:
“We now call on all governments to make use of Article 6 and to implement policies that spur international market-based cooperation. By mobilising private investment where emission reductions and removals are more cost-effective, Article 6 has the potential to enhance climate ambition, transfer technology and deliver finance flows where most needed.”
Activist groups that are part of the Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance (CLARA), however, slammed what they said was a decision to “outsource” responsibilities to ensure human rights and environmental integrity to “a handful of people” comprising the supervisory body (SBM) for Article 6.4, which is tasked with drawing up guidance and approving methodologies.
In a statement responding to the overall outcome on Article 6, CLARA coordinator Kelly Stone from ActionAid USA said:
“Nothing in the rules developed here will prevent carbon markets from repeating their history of harming communities and failing to deliver meaningful climate action.
“It is not a coincidence that carbon markets were delivered at what was supposed to be the climate finance COP. When you talk to developed countries about climate finance, they throw up their hands and point to carbon markets and anything other than what’s needed and owed: public finance.”
Talks on Article 6 – which are highly technical – have repeatedly fallen short, with countries failing to reach any agreement at all during COP25 in Madrid and COP28 in Dubai.
In Baku, carbon markets were given high priority, with the presidency pushing through a day-one deal endorsing Article 6.4 documents on methodologies and removals. These documents had been “adopted” by the SBM rather than being negotiated line by line by countries.
The SBM had also drawn up a mandatory “sustainable development tool” with environmental and human-rights safeguards.
The guidelines on methodologies set out requirements for the downward adjustment of the “baselines” against which carbon credits can be issued – a process intended to align baselines with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals. They also set out “additionality” checks to avoid projects “locking-in” high emissions.
Nevertheless, the manner in which these documents had been “adopted” by the SBM before the presidency pushed through formal endorsement on day one in Baku caused disquiet among some parties.
At the plenary on the first day of the summit, Tuvalu voiced its objection to this process, saying:
“We also recognise your interest in signalling progress. We have accepted this decision with some reluctance. Unfortunately, the manner in which we have adopted this decision at the start of the [COP] does not respect [a] party-driven process. We are very uncomfortable with this trend.”
Another COP29 decision, adopted at the closing plenary, “encourages” the supervisory body to “expedite” its work on baselines, additionality and the risk of removals being reversed. This is a particular concern for “nature-based solutions”, such as reforestation, given that increasingly frequent wildfires around the world could reverse these emission gains.
This decision also allows afforestation and reforestation projects created under the older “clean development mechanism” (CDM) to enter the new carbon market, subject to meeting rules on removals.
Effectively, afforestation and reforestation plantations from a pre-Paris era will be among the first projects allowed on the new market, without extra checks for additionality, or whether they actually achieved emissions reductions between 2021 to 2025.
While these projects form only a small percentage of CDM projects, experts told Carbon Brief that bringing them into Article 6.4 could “pave the way” for monoculture tree plantations to be considered removals.
At the same time, COP29 also reached a decision on country-to-country carbon trading under Article 6.2.
The lack of official rules to this point has not deterred countries from striking their own deals. Many of these have been flagged by observers for their “glaring lack of transparency”.
The COP29 decision, however, “requests” more upfront disclosure from countries reporting on their activities, a key ask of countries and observers who fear this mechanism could become a secretive “wild west”, where trading can take place with limited transparency.
At the same time, the decision has lax consequences for “persistent” and “significant” inconsistencies in Article 6.2 projects, although countries will need to disclose these inconsistencies to the public.
Isa Mulder from Carbon Market Watch told Carbon Brief:
“The option was on the table for much stronger language [that] made it through several iterations. So I think it was not impossible to get some teeth in there: just very difficult and it clearly didn’t succeed.”
Responding to the negotiations, UN special rapporteurs on human rights and climate change, as well as foreign debt, drew attention to transparency and rights concerns that linger in Article 6 carbon markets. In a statement on 19 November, they said:
“It is imperative to keep in mind that the public has a right to access information on carbon markets with regard to credible and verifiable evidence of emission reductions; expected impacts on land, waters, nature and human rights; as well as who is benefitting economically from carbon markets; and whether credits are being used to offset preventable emissions.
“This is even more important in a global context of widespread misinformation and disinformation on climate change and its impacts on human rights.”
Countries, however, were much more positive about the outcome. Blocs including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Environmental Integrity Group, the African Group and Australia welcomed the decision on carbon markets in the closing COP plenary.
During his final intervention, the EU’s commissioner for climate action Wopke Hoekstra said:
“We did deliver on Article 6 and this is a leap forward. We have witnessed a historic conclusion of the rule book for carbon markets. We now have standards that have a UN seal of approval on it, and this will drive investment, raise ambition and bring transparency and higher standards. This COP delivered on climate finance, it also delivered on trust…trusted rules on carbon markets.”
Finally, the talks in Baku agreed a deal on Article 6.8, spanning cooperation that does not involve markets.
Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security
Despite having held more importance at previous COPs and featuring in the global stocktake last year, actual outcomes on agriculture were constructive but relatively muted in Baku.
There is only one formal negotiation track for agriculture and food systems at the UNFCCC, known as the Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on the Implementation of Climate Action on Agriculture and Food Security (SJWA).
At COP29, the debates on the SJWA were largely around the functions and structure of the Sharm el-Sheikh online portal, where countries and observers can submit information on how climate action can support agriculture and food security.
On the very first day of negotiations, Egypt sought to clarify “how small farmers can make submissions” and called for the website to be more accessible.
Later, the G77 group, led by the Dominican Republic and Kenya, proposed “enhancing” the portal to make it more usable, searchable by region and theme and to allow projects, initiatives and policies to seek collaboration and finance, such as from the Adaptation Fund.
Carbon Brief understands that, while this was initially resisted by Australia, Canada and the US, countries eventually agreed to consider a submission template developed by the G77, led by the Dominican Republic and Kenya and, later, Australia.
On 15 November, a clean four-page text with no brackets was approved at the mid-week plenary of the subsidiary bodies, wrapping up the negotiating track.
It includes a draft template for submissions and “request[s]” the UNFCCC secretariat to make the portal more accessible and functional, while developing further elements, such as how projects can link to financial or practical support.
ActionAid’s global climate justice lead, Teresa Anderson, told Carbon Brief:
“In all, agriculture served a meagre salad this year. There was a low-key online portal discussion fight and an attempt to get the indicators on agriculture under adaptation to make sense.”
Global Goal on Adaptation
At COP28, countries agreed to ambitious but largely qualitative adaptation targets for food, water and ecosystems as part of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA).
The global goal on adaptation “urges” parties to increase their ambition on a series of targets. Source: UNFCCC (2023)
Indicators to translate these targets into achievable, but “globally comparable” actions and measure progress are still being developed by technical experts under the two-year UAE-Belem Work Programme.
Indicators “relevant to specific ecosystems” – such as marine, mountain and inland water ecosystems – were added to that list at COP29.
Crucially, experts will also have to draw up indicators for “enabling factors” that track – but are not limited to – “means of implementation (MOI)”, or how these adaptation actions are being financed, as well as progress towards “transformational” adaptation.
MOI indicators – widely understood to mean finance – were at the heart of the adaptation fight between developed and developing countries at COP29.
Observers told Carbon Brief that the EU, in particular, did not want MOI included, “as it was trying to balance expectations with regards to finance across the GGA and other tracks”.
The inclusion of “transformational adaptation”, such as “shifting entire farming systems to regenerative agricultural practices”, was also a subject of resistance from the like-minded developing (LMDCs) and least-developed countries (LDCs), as well as the African group and Arab group.
In a nine-hour meeting convened by the presidency to iron out differences, called the “Qurultay”, countries including Australia and the US opposed the establishment of MOI indicators for adaptation and emphasised the importance of “transformational” adaptation.
Meanwhile, developing countries – such as Pakistan and Zambia – pushed to include “means of implementation”. (See: Global Goal on Adaptation in Carbon Brief’s main COP29 summary.)
A “compromise” GGA text that went through nine iterations was published on 22 November, the scheduled last day of COP29, to the disappointment of many developing countries.
It encases MOI within “enabling factors”, which experts say could include other factors, such as transparency, governance or corruption.
This text was finally adopted, without intervention, in the closing plenary as the Baku Adaptation Roadmap.
Technical experts must now submit a consolidated list of all adaptation indicators to the subsidiary bodies four weeks before they meet in June next year. Parties will then have to pare that list down to “a manageable set of no more than 100 indicators” before they are adopted in COP30 in Brazil.
UAE Dialogue and the global stocktake
The UAE dialogue was established to follow up on the outcomes of the global stocktake (GST), a five-yearly “temperature check” for the Paris Agreement.
While some countries argued that the dialogue’s scope should be restricted to finance in order to support ambitious NDCs, many wanted it to cover “all outcomes” of the GST – particularly elements on mitigation.
(See where countries stood on the key issues in Carbon Brief’s interactive table of who wanted what from COP29.)
Much of the focus was on the fate of last year’s deal on transitioning away from fossil fuels, in the dialogue’s draft. However, discussions also included paragraph 33 of the global stocktake, which deals with biodiversity, terrestrial and ocean “sinks”.
For the first time, it had linked a zero-deforestation by 2030 target – a voluntary, non-negotiated pledge signed by 145 countries at COP26 – to the achievement of the Paris Agreement.
This paragraph was included in earlier iterations of text, but as an option and in brackets.
At a special single-sitting meeting called the “Qurultay”, Germany’s climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, remarked that there was “no guarantee of a space to discuss the collective progress” on fossil fuel and forestry provisions in the stocktake. She added:
“This cannot, and must not be, our response to the suffering of millions of people around the world.”
In a press conference on 21 November, Bolivia’s lead negotiator, Diego Pacheco, clarified the stance of the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), describing the inclusion of the targets as “a continued attempt by developed countries – which started in Glasgow – to “say 1.5C is within reach and transfer all responsibility” to developing countries. Pacheco added:
“At Baku, they are moving to having top-down targets for developing countries. If I don’t have the finance, how can I accept specific and intrusive targets?
“If we achieve sectoral targets [such as zero-deforestation by 2030], Bolivia will reach net-zero 20 years before developed countries. And that is really the best example of climate injustice. Is there any logic? This is real madness. They will say at the end ‘you have the Article 6 carbon markets’ [to deliver their financial obligations].”
(Bolivia is not among the 145 countries that signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at COP26.)
A bracket-free draft decision for the UAE dialogue, published just before the closing plenary, “reaffirms the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems…in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, the landmark nature deal agreed in 2022.
However, the COP29 presidency failed to find consensus to approve this text, meaning a decision on this has now been shunted to COP30 next year.
Response measures
At UN climate talks, “response measures” are a forum for discussing the effects of carbon-cutting policies on countries themselves. They are particularly relevant to nations where controls on emissions or deforestation pose a risk to their people and economy.
At COP29 in Baku, countries agreed on establishing a four-year work plan to discuss response measures for 2026-30.
Importantly, the work plan includes an item on the “cross-border impacts” of “measures taken to combat” climate change.
This means that trade-related climate measures – such as the EU’s deforestation regulation – now have a formal space to be discussed and their impacts assessed in UN climate talks.
Nature
COP29 started just over a week after the COP16 biodiversity summit wrapped up in Cali, Colombia.
Despite that, COP29 saw few new country initiatives on tackling nature loss or references to the need to tackle biodiversity loss and climate change together.
Ahead of the Baku summit, Azerbaijan, Colombia and Saudi Arabia – the presidencies of the climate COP29, biodiversity COP16 and desertification COP16, respectively – launched a “Rio trio” initiative at the UN general assembly meeting in New York in September.
The initiative is aimed at “enhancing synergies” between the three Rio conventions: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); and the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
The presidency partially dedicated its last “thematic” day to nature on 21 November. This included a “high level” event on the Rio trio initiative.
However, the day coincided with the start of the endgame in the negotiations, meaning many of the event’s speakers failed to show up, including COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev, biodiversity COP16 president Susana Muhamad and desertification COP16 president Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen Alfadley.
At a side event attended by Carbon Brief, several speakers noted the lack of new initiatives on biodiversity at COP29 and urged delegates to look forward to COP30 next year, which is being held in the rainforest city of Belém, Brazil.
Speaking at the side event, Hugo Mendes, a representative from the Brazilian environment ministry working on synergies between climate and nature, said that his government was working closely with the COP16 biodiversity presidency to make sure nature “will be at the heart” of COP30.
He added that Brazil was working hard in negotiating rooms at COP29 to ensure tacking biodiversity loss was included in UAE dialogue, a text outlining how to take forward the outcomes of last year’s “global stocktake”.
A bracket-free draft decision for the UAE dialogue “reaffirms the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems…in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, the landmark nature deal agreed in 2022.
However, as described above, the COP29 presidency failed to find consensus to approve this text, meaning a decision on this has now been shunted to COP30 next year. (See: UAE Dialogue and the global stocktake.)
Food and nature in new NDCs
Countries have until February 2025 to submit new national climate pledges, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
NDCs are updated every five years under the Paris Agreement, with countries outlining how they intend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of global efforts to limit warming.
Brazil, the UAE and UK were the early-bird countries who submitted their plans at COP29.
The UK’s full NDC has not yet been published, so it remains to be seen what that plan will outline for nature. But the country has pledged to cut emissions by 81% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels.
Below are some of the highlights from Brazil and the UAE’s climate plans relating to food, land and nature.
Brazil
Under its new climate pledge, Brazil plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 59-67% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels.
While setting a “band” of targets is not unheard of in NDCs, there is typically a much smaller disparity between the two targets.
These dual targets are “confirmation that [Brazil] could do much more” when it comes to its ambition, according to Claudio Angelo from Brazilian climate NGO group Observatório do Clima.
Deforestation was a major topic in the NDC for the world’s most biodiverse country, which is home to almost 60% of the Amazon Rainforest.
It outlined efforts to “achieve zero deforestation, by eliminating illegal deforestation” and making up for the emissions from the remaining “legal suppression of native vegetation”.
Observatório do Clima warned that this “still allows high levels of deforestation by 2035”. The pledge does not explicitly commit to reaching zero deforestation by 2030 – something the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has promised in the past.
But the Brazilian government has “done a very good job” to reduce deforestation levels in recent years, Dr Ane Alencar, the director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, told Carbon Brief.
On agriculture, an important sector for Brazil’s economy and a significant source of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, Brazil is planning to encourage and incentivise more “sustainable” agriculture as part of its emissions-cutting efforts.
(Read Carbon Brief’s article on five key takeaways from Brazil’s NDC for more details, including on renewable energy, carbon markets and sustainable development.)
UAE
The UAE’s new climate pledge outlined plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 47% by 2035, compared to 2019 levels.
The plan received criticism from policy experts and NGOs for “failing to include any measures to restrain the production of oil and gas”, said the Cable, a Nigerian news outlet, with one expert describing it as a “greenwashing exercise”.
The country committed to cutting emissions from agriculture by 39% by 2035, compared to levels in 2019. This reduction will largely come from reduced energy emissions in the sector, the NDC said, noting that “emissions from the rising numbers of livestock [will] remai[n]”. The plan added:
“The implementation of advanced technologies, best practices and supportive policies are crucial in managing emissions from agriculture and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the UAE’s agricultural sector.”
Nature-based solutions, which are methods of using nature to mitigate and adapt to climate change, are one of the main ways in which the UAE said it plans to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. It will also rely on “engineering-based solutions”, the NDC added, such as carbon capture and storage.
It intends to plant an additional 160m mangroves by 2030, the NDC noted.
The pledge also referenced the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the nature deal signed off by almost every country in the world in 2022.
Methane
Methane featured in several events and pledges at COP29.
Agriculture is a major source of the potent, but short-lived, greenhouse gas – accounting for around 40% of human-caused methane emissions.
Speaking at a methane event in Baku, COP29 president Mukhtar Bubayev said that “action on non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions is critical” to limit global warming. He noted that methane from organic waste, such as wasted food, is a “growing problem that demands urgent action”.
More than 30 countries signed up to the Reducing Methane from Organic Waste Declaration, a new pledge focused on setting sectoral targets in future NDCs to cut methane emissions from waste.
Brazil, the US, UK and the other signatories are responsible for almost half of global methane emissions from organic waste, according to the COP29 presidency.
The move will boost ambition “in the prevention, separate collection and improved management of organic waste…helping us keep food out of landfills”, Martina Otto, the head of the UN’s Climate and Clean Air Coalition, said in a statement.
The initiative is intended to support the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to slash overall methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
This pledge, first launched at COP26 in 2021, now has the backing of 159 countries. But experts are sceptical that its ambition will be met, as methane emissions are still rising.
Azerbaijan joined the pledge earlier this year, which COP29 president Babayev said “further strengthens” the country’s “reputation as a reliable green-energy partner to the world”. Tajikistan, Guatemala and Madagascar also joined this year.
On 12 November, the US, China and Azerbaijan held a summit on methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases in Baku.
Additional funding was also put towards methane reduction at COP29.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged almost $500m in new global grant funds for methane abatement, meaning more than $2bn has been raised for this issue in recent years, a Global Methane Pledge statement said.
The statement added that a funding initiative focused on enteric fermentation, launched at COP28 in Dubai, has so far raised more than $60m for research into “cost-effective breakthrough technologies to reduce livestock emissions”. These include ongoing projects into feed additives aimed at reducing methane from cattle.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development launched a guidebook intended to help developing countries weave ways of reducing methane from agriculture in their national climate plans. It particularly focused on emissions from livestock, rice production and organic waste.
Meanwhile, a new report launched during COP29 by the Changing Markets Foundation, a campaign group, identified “methane greenwashing tactics” in the climate commitments and initiatives from 22 “big meat and dairy” companies. (See: Greenwashing and ‘big ag’ influence.)
Food systems and water
During a high-level event in the first week of the summit, ministers and heads of state took stock of their progress towards the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Food and Agriculture, announced at COP28 last year.
Participants at the event discussed integrating food systems into both NDCs and national adaptation plans, as well as increasing finance flows for food-systems transformation.
(A report from Climate Focus, released during COP29, found that only 14% of international public climate finance for agriculture was directed at small-scale farmers.)
Accompanying the Emirates Declaration at COP28 was the Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation (ACF), which was also updated at this year’s summit.
The ACF is a group of five countries that have committed to taking stronger action and setting an example for food-systems transformation. The countries that initially made up the ACF are Brazil, Cambodia, Norway, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.
One of the key asks of the ACF countries is to integrate food systems into their updated NDCs, due in February 2025. (See: Nature in new NDCs.)
The ACF released a “progress snapshot” detailing actions that each country has taken – as well as priorities for future work – towards transforming food systems within their borders.
Tanzania and Vietnam both expressed their intent to, or interest in, joining the ACF during the summit.
Food systems were also both directly and indirectly included across several of the COP29 presidency’s action agenda items.
The Baku Harmoniya Climate Initiative for Farmers, hosted at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, was officially launched on Tuesday 19 November, after having been announced earlier this year.
The Harmoniya initiative is focused on combining and streamlining the flows of information around climate action for farmers.
Its other stated objectives are increasing public and private investment in food systems by making it more attractive to investors and empowering farmers – especially women and youth – to adapt to climate change.
However, the Harmoniya initiative was not accompanied by any new pledges or commitments.
Clement Metivier, senior advisor for international advocacy at WWF-UK, said that the initiative “helps in maintaining much-needed momentum around food-systems transformation in the international climate process”. He told Carbon Brief:
“But to really make a difference on the ground, new initiatives and coalitions must mobilize finance for healthy, equitable and resilient food systems, and push governments to better integrate food in their national climate plans.”
Food systems or food-related items were also mentioned in the Multisectoral Actions Pathways Declaration for Resilient and Healthy Cities, the Declaration on Enhanced Action in Tourism and the Declaration on Reducing Methane from Organic Waste. (See: Methane.)
The COP presidency also launched the Baku Declaration on Water for Climate Action, which was endorsed by nearly 50 countries, and the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action. Going forward, the Dialogue will ensure formal discussions on water are on the agenda at subsequent COPs.
On the overall presence of food systems at COP29, Oliver Camp, environment and food systems advocacy advisor at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, told Carbon Brief:
“Momentum was neither gained nor lost, just maintained – which, after the euphoria of Dubai and with the anticipation for Belem, may be all we needed…Overall, a passing grade: few exciting new launches and commitments, but we keep moving forward.”
Deforestation
Tropical deforestation, which accounts for around 20% of human-caused CO2 emissions, was scarcely mentioned at COP29.
The COP29 presidency’s action agenda did not mention deforestation or land-use change, meaning there were no new country pacts spearheaded by Azerbaijan.
The presidency did partially dedicate its last “thematic” day to nature on 21 November.
On this day, there was a “high-level” event on forests, which saw COP30 host Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva, emphasise the role of trees in tackling both environmental and social challenges.
However, the day coincided with the start of the endgame in the negotiations, meaning many of the event’s speakers failed to show up, including COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev and UK energy secretary Ed Miliband.
During the first week of the summit, UK foreign secretary David Lammy appeared at an event to announce new programmes under the Indigenous peoples and local communities’ forest tenure pledge, which was first launched at COP26 in Glasgow.
He told delegates that the UK will spearhead a 10-year, £50m programme “to reduce illegal logging and benefit forest people”, as well as a £94m programme “to strengthen forest communities’ voices in governance processes, particularly for the Amazon”. He also announced a “project to train local scientists in the Congo Basin”.
Separately at the summit, the UK announced a £239m package “to support forest-rich countries in protecting nature and tackling deforestation”.
Carbon Brief understands that all of these new programmes will be financed from existing money and do not represent new spending. The UK is currently far behind on meeting a promise to spend £1.5bn on protecting forests globally as part of its climate finance commitments between 2021 and 2026, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Elsewhere at the summit, a new report launched by a coalition of environmental NGOs found that less than half of nations with more than 100,000 hectares of forest include a specific target to reduce emissions from deforestation in their UN climate pledges.
Indigenous representation
Indigenous peoples and local communities had less “momentum” at COP29 compared to the biodiversity COP, held just a few weeks earlier in Cali, Colombia, Clement Metivier, senior advisor for international advocacy at WWF-UK, told Carbon Brief.
Fany Kuiru Castro, leader of the Uitoto people in the Colombian Amazon and general coordinator of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), noted in a video interview with the environmental non-profit organisation Sachamama that, in Baku, “there [was] not much presence of Indigenous peoples from Latin America, especially from Amazon countries”.
Despite the limited representation of Indigenous participation at this climate summit, the main body representing them within the UNFCCC negotiations, the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), was very clear in its position, highlighting that countries have failed to phase out fossil fuels and implement a just energy transition.
Among the IIPFCC’s chief demands was the creation of financial mechanisms for Indigenous peoples worldwide, including targeted funding under the new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG) to support their conservation and restoration actions.
In fact, the main demand of Indigenous peoples at this COP was direct access to climate finance, Kuiru told Sachamama.
Following the COP’s conclusion, the IIFPCC condemned that the new collective funding goal did not explicitly mention human rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights, according to a statement released at the close of the negotiations.
Metivier told Carbon Brief that this was “an opportunity that has been missed” since “[those] communities are doing critical work to tackle climate change and protect ecosystems”.
The IIFPCC also opposed carbon markets and the provision of loan finance, which increases the debt burden on developing countries. (See: Article 6.)
Elsewhere, COP29 adopted the Baku work plan to “bring the voice of Indigenous peoples and local communities to climate action”. This plan will seek to promote knowledge sharing, mainstream these knowledge systems into climate policies and actions, plus boost capacity building among Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The work plan will be implemented from 2025 to 2027 by the Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP), which was established at COP24 in Katowice, Poland.
During the second week of COP29, the Global Forest Coalition, along with more than 30 civil society organisations, released the Baku Forest Declaration. This declaration seeks to push for the protection of forests and Indigenous rights in the negotiations, as well as the recognition of traditional knowledge in forest conservation.
The declaration says that forests should not be viewed solely as carbon sinks and recommends moving away from market mechanisms and carbon trading. Instead, the signatories call for climate policies to focus on community-based solutions, human rights and gender equality.
Greenwashing and ‘big ag’ influence
Concerns about greenwashing and lobbying are often raised at UN climate summits. COP29, held in the “petrostate” of Azerbaijan, was no different.
Before the summit took place, COP29 chief executive Elnur Soltanov was secretly recorded “discussing ‘investment opportunities’ in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor”, BBC News reported, based on an investigation by Global Witness.
A separate Global Witness investigation found that more than 1,700 fossil-fuel lobbyists registered to attend COP29, lower than the record at COP28 but still larger than most party delegations. (See the Azerbaijani leadership section of Carbon Brief’s main COP29 summary for more.)
On the agriculture side, hundreds of “lobbyists for industrial farming” attended COP29, according to analysis from DeSmog and the Guardian. More than 200 delegates from agriculture companies and trade groups registered for the talks.
Nearly 40% of these travelled with delegations of countries, “giving them privileged access to diplomatic negotiations”, the Guardian noted.
DeSmog said that 52 delegates from the meat and dairy sector attended the talks, with 20 travelling alongside Brazil’s government. The delegates came from major organisations including JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, and Nestle, the largest food company in the world, the outlet found.
However, the number of “big meat and dairy” delegates at COP29 did not reach the record-high levels identified by DeSmog and the Guardian at last year’s summit.
Ahead of the Baku talks, Greenpeace Aotearoa (New Zealand) called for world leaders to “hold agri-business to account for its climate pollution”. Spokesperson Amanda Larsson said in a statement:
“The livestock industry is a major driver of climate pollution, but has largely flown under the radar at previous UN climate conferences.”
Elsewhere, almost 500 “carbon capture advocates” registered to attend COP29, according to analysis from non-profit organisation the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
These include lobbyists from companies and groups advocating for carbon capture and storage, a method of removing CO2 from the atmosphere using technology. Almost half of the attendees were on national delegation badges, CIEL found, and the COP29 presidency invited 55 as guests.
The overall numbers are a slight increase compared to last year’s summit.
Ecosystem restoration
Overall, nature – and ecosystems and restoration, in particular – featured “pretty weakly” in the final COP29 texts, Metivier, from WWF-UK, told Carbon Brief.
According to a recent report published by WWF and other conservation organisations, 52% of forest countries have a quantified restoration target in their NDCs and 28% have a quantified deforestation target. (See: Nature in new NDCs.)
For William Baldwin-Cantello, director for nature-based solutions at WWF-UK, these differences could be explained by the greater ease of setting a restoration target in terms of hectares. However, he added:
“What’s more important than restoring ecosystems is preventing their loss.”
He noted that there was “no significant improvement in NDCs at COP with respect to existing restoration”, but said he hopes that this will change before the February 2025 deadline for the delivery of new NDCs and in the run-up to COP30 in Brazil.
The Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC) noted in a statement that the text of the new collective quantifiable climate finance goal (NCQG) does not include a specific adaptation finance target. (See: Carbon Brief’s main summary of COP29 for more on the NCQG.)
In the closing days of COP29, the NGO Nature4Climate urged that the collective finance goal include funding specifically for the restoration and sustainable use of nature.
Baldwin-Cantello said that the absence of funding for adaptation and restoration could be due to donor governments’ fear of double counting biodiversity funding under the CBD and climate finance under the UNFCCC.
Some countries did announce new investments for restoring forests and ecosystems during COP29. El Salvador, for example, said it will invest $350m in the conservation and restoration of its largest river and watershed, while Canada announced that it will join the Freshwater Challenge to restore its freshwater ecosystems.
The post COP29: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Baku appeared first on Carbon Brief.
COP29: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Baku
Climate Change
China Briefing 11 December 2025: Winter record looms; Joint climate statement with France; How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ help shape policy
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Record power and gas demand
DOMESTIC TURBINES: China’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), expects both electricity demand and gas demand to hit the “highest level yet recorded in winter”, reported Reuters. Data from a sample of coal plants nevertheless showed a recent drop in output year-on-year. Meanwhile, China has developed a “high-efficiency” gas turbine which will “strengthen[ China’s] power grid with low-carbon electricity”, said state news agency Xinhua. According to Bloomberg, the turbine is the first to have been fully produced in China, helping the country to “reduce reliance on imported technology amid a global shortage of equipment”.
‘SUBDUED’ OIL GROWTH: Chinese oil demand is likely to “remain subdued” until at least the middle of 2026, reported Bloomberg. Next year will see “one of the lowest growth rates in China in quite some time”, said commodities trader Trafigura’s chief economist Saad Rahim, reported the Financial Times. Demand is set to plateau until 2030, according to research linked to “state oil major” CNPC, said Reuters. In the building materials industry, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are “projected to fall by 25%” in 2025 relative to pre-2021 levels, China Building Materials Federation president Yan Xiaofeng told state broadcaster CCTV.
FLAT EMISSIONS GROWTH: China’s CO2 emissions in 2024 grew by 0.6% year-on-year, reported Xinhua, citing the newly released China Greenhouse Gas Bulletin (2024). This represented a “significant narrowing from the 2023 increase and remains below the global average growth rate of 0.8%”, it added. (The bulletin confirms analysis for Carbon Brief published in January, which put China’s 2024 emissions growth at 0.8%.)
China-France climate statements
CLIMATE BONHOMIE: During a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron to China, the two countries signed a joint statement on climate change, reported Xinhua. It published the full text of the statement, which pledged more cooperation on “accelerating” renewables globally, as well as “enhancing communication” in carbon pricing, methane, adaptation and other areas. It also said China and France would support developing countries’ access to climate finance, adding that developed nations will “take the lead in providing and mobilising” this “before 2035”, while encouraging developing countries to “voluntarily contribute”.
MORE COOPERATION: China and France issued separate statements on “nuclear energy” cooperation, Xinhua reported, as well as on expanding cooperation on the “green economy”, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
EU’s new ‘economic security’ package
NEW PLANS, SAME TOOLS: Meanwhile, the EU has issued new plans to “boost EU resilience to threats like rare-earth shortages”, said Reuters, including an “economic security doctrine” that would encourage “new measures…designed to counter unfair trade and market distortions, including overcapacity”. A second plan on critical minerals will “restrict exports of [recyclable] rare-earth waste and battery scrap” to shore up supplies for “electric cars, wind turbines and semiconductors”, according to another Reuters article. Euractiv characterised the policy package as a “reframing of existing tools and plans”.
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‘NOT VERY CREDIBLE’: EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the Financial Times that the latest push against the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which the outlet said is “led by China, India and Saudi Arabia”, was “not very credible”. A “GT Voice” comment in the state-supporting Global Times said the CBAM exposed a dilemma around the “absence of a globally accepted, transparent and equitable standard for measuring carbon footprints”. It called CBAM a “pioneering step”, but said climate efforts needed “greater international coordination, not unilateral enforcement”.
FIRST REVIEW: The EU has undertaken its first “formal review” of the tariffs placed on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), assessing a price undertaking offer submitted by Volkswagen’s Chinese joint venture, reported SCMP. Chinese EVs – including both hybrid and pure EVs – saw their “second-best month on record” in October, with sales coming down slightly from September’s peak, said Bloomberg.
More China news
- ECONOMIC SIGNALS: At the central economic work conference, held in Beijing on 10-11 December, President Xi Jinping said China would adhere to the “dual-carbon” goals and promote a “comprehensive green transition”, reported Xinhua.
- EFFORTS ‘INTENSIFIED’: Ahead of the meeting, premier Li Qiang also noted earlier that energy conservation and carbon reduction efforts must be “intensified”, according to the People’s Daily.
- JET FUEL: A major jet fuel distributor is being acquired by oil giant Sinopec, which could “risk slowing [China’s] push to decarbonise air travel”, reported Caixin.
- SLOW AND STEADY: An article in the People’s Daily said China’s energy transition is “not something that can be achieved overnight”.
- ‘ECO-POLICE’: China’s environment ministry published a draft grading system for “atmospheric environmental performance in key industries”, including assessment of “significant…carbon emission reduction effects”, noted International Energy Net. China will also set up an “eco-police” mechanism in 2027, China Daily said.
- INNOVATION INITIATIVE: The National Energy Administration issued a call for the “preliminary establishment of a new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” in the next five years, reported BJX News. The plan also noted: “Those who take the lead in [energy technology] innovation will gain the initiative.”
Spotlight
Interview: How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ are helping to shape Chinese climate policy
Local officials are viewed as relatively weak actors in China’s governance structure.
However, a new book – “Implementing a low-carbon future: climate leadership in Chinese cities” – argues that these officials play an important role in designing innovative and enduring climate policy.
Carbon Brief interviews author Weila Gong, non-resident scholar at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s 21st Century China Center and visiting scholar at UC Davis, on her research.
Below are highlights from the conversation. The full interview is published on the Carbon Brief website.
Carbon Brief: You’ve just written a book about climate policy in Chinese cities. Could you explain why subnational governments are important for China’s climate policy in general?
Weila Gong: China is the world’s largest carbon emitter [and] over 85% of China’s carbon emissions come from cities.
We tend to think that officials at the provincial, city and township levels are barriers for environmental protection, because they are focused on promoting economic growth.
But I observed these actors participating in China’s low-carbon city pilot. I was surprised to see so many cities wanted to participate, even though there was no specific evaluation system that would reward their efforts.
CB: Could you help us understand the mindset of these bureaucrats? How do local-level officials design policies in China?
WG: We tend to focus on top political figures, such as mayors or [municipal] party secretaries. But mid-level bureaucrats [are usually the] ones implementing low-carbon policies.
Mid-level local officials saw [the low-carbon city pilot] as a way to help their bosses get promoted, which in turn would help them advance their own career. As such, they [aimed to] create unique, innovative and visible policy actions to help draw the attention [of their superiors].
They are also often more interested in climate issues if it is in the interest of their agency or local government.
Another motivation is accessing finance [by using] pilot programmes, if their ideas impress the central-level government.
CB: Could you give an example of what drives innovative local climate policies?
WG: National-level policies and pilot programme schemes provide openings for local governments to think about how and whether they should engage more in addressing climate change.
By experiment[ing] with policy at a local level, local governments help national-level officials develop responses to emerging policy challenges.
Local carbon emission trading systems (ETSs) are an example.
One element that made the Shenzhen ETS successful is “entrepreneurial bureaucrats” [who have the ability to design, push through and maintain new local-level climate policies].
Even though we might think local officials are constrained in terms of policy or financial resources, they often have the leverage and space to build coalitions…and know how to mobilise political support.
CB: What needs to be done to strengthen sub-national climate policy making?
WG: It’s very important to have groups of personnel trained on climate policy…[Often] climate change is only one of local officials’ day-to-day responsibilities. We need full-time staff to follow through on policies from the beginning right up to implementation.
Secondly, while almost all cities have made carbon-peaking plans, one area in which the government can make further progress is data.
Most Chinese cities haven’t yet established regular carbon accounting systems, [and only have access to] inadequate statistics. Local agencies can’t always access detailed data [held at the central level]…[while] much of the company-level data is self-reported.
Finally, China will always need local officials willing to try new policy instruments. Ensuring they have the conditions to do this is very important.
Watch, read, listen
BREAKNECK SPEED: In a conversation with the Zero podcast, tech analyst Dan Wang outlined how an “engineering mindset” may have given China the edge in developing clean-energy systems in comparison to the US.
QUESTION OF CURRENCY: Institute of Finance and Sustainability president Ma Jun and Climate Bonds Initiative CEO Sean Kidney examined how China’s yuan-denominated loans can “ease the climate financing crunch” in the South China Morning Post.
DRIVING CHANGE: Deutsche Welle broadcast a report on how affordable cleantech from China is accelerating the energy transition in global south countries.
EXPOSING LOOPHOLES: Economic news outlet Jiemian investigated how a scandal involving the main developer of pumped storage capacity in China revealed “regulatory loopholes” in constructing such projects.
$180 billion
The amount of outward direct investment Chinese companies have committed to cleantech projects overseas since 2023, according to a new report by thinktank Climate Energy Finance.
New science
- A new study looking at battery electric trucks across China, Europe and the US showed they “can reach 27-58% reductions in lifecycle CO2 emissions compared with diesel trucks” | Nature Reviews Clean Technology
- “Shortcomings remain” in China’s legal approach to offshore carbon capture, utilisation and storage, such as a lack of “specialised” legal frameworks | Climate Policy
China Briefing is written by Anika Patel and edited by Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 11 December 2025: Winter record looms; Joint climate statement with France; How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ help shape policy appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s central and local governments, as well as state-owned enterprises, are busy preparing for the next five-year planning period, spanning 2026-30.
The top-level 15th five-year plan, due to be published in March 2026, will shape greenhouse gas emissions in China – and globally – for the rest of this decade and beyond.
The targets set under the plan will determine whether China is able to get back on track for its 2030 climate commitments, which were made personally by President Xi Jinping in 2021.
This would require energy sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall by 2-6% by 2030, much more than implied by the 2035 target of a 7-10% cut from “peak levels”.
The next five-year plan will set the timing and the level of this emissions peak, as well as whether emissions will be allowed to rebound in the short term.
The plan will also affect the pace of clean-energy growth, which has repeatedly beaten previous targets and has become a key driver of the nation’s economy.
Some 250-350 gigawatts (GW) of new wind and solar would be needed each year to meet China’s 2030 commitments, far above the 200GW being targeted.
Finally, the plans will shape China’s transition away from fossil fuels, with key sectors now openly discussing peak years for coal and oil demand, but with 330GW of new coal capacity in the works and more than 500 new chemical industry projects due in the next five years.
These issues come together in five key questions for climate and energy that Chinese policymakers will need to answer in the final five-year plan documents next year.
Five-year plans and their role in China
1. Will the plan put China back on track for its 2030 Paris pledge?
2. Will the plan upgrade clean-energy targets or pave the way to exceed them?
3. Will the plan set an absolute cap on coal consumption?
4. Will ‘dual control’ of carbon prevent an emission rebound?
5. Will it limit coal-power and chemical-industry growth?
Five-year plans and their role in China
Five-year plans are an essential part of China’s policymaking, guiding decision-making at government bodies, enterprises and banks. The upcoming 15th five-year plan will cover the years 2026-30, set targets for 2030 and use 2025 as its base year.
The top-level five-year plan will be published in March 2026 and is known as the five-year plan on economic and social development. This overarching document will be followed by dozens of sectoral plans, as well as province- and company-level plans.
The sectoral plans are usually published in the second year of the five-year period, meaning they would be expected in 2027.
There will be five-year plans for the energy sector, the electricity sector, for renewable energy, nuclear, coal and many other sub-sectors, as well as plans for major industrial sectors such as steel, construction materials and chemicals.
It is likely that there will also be a plan for carbon emissions or carbon peaking and a five-year plan for the environment.
During the previous five-year period, the plans of provinces and state-owned enterprises for very large-scale solar and wind projects were particularly important, far exceeding the central government’s targets.
The five-year plans create incentives for provincial governments and ministries by setting quantified targets that they are responsible for meeting. These targets influence the performance evaluations of governors, CEOs and party secretaries.
The plans also designate favoured sectors and projects, directing bank lending, easing permitting and providing an implicit government guarantee for the project developers.
Each plan lists numerous things that should be “promoted”, banned or controlled, leaving the precise implementation to different state organs and state-owned enterprises.
Five-year plans can introduce and coordinate national mega-projects, such as the gigantic clean-energy “bases” and associated electricity transmission infrastructure, which were outlined in the previous five-year plan in 2021.
The plans also function as a policy roadmap, assigning the tasks to develop new policies and providing stakeholders with visibility to expected policy developments.
1. Will the plan put China back on track for its 2030 Paris pledge?
Reducing carbon intensity – the energy-sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP – has been the cornerstone of China’s climate commitments since the 2020 target announced at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference.
Consequently, the last three five-year plans have included a carbon-intensity target. The next 15th one is highly likely to set a carbon-intensity target too, given that this is the centerpiece of China’s 2030 climate targets.
Moreover, it was president Xi himself who pledged in 2021 that China would reduce its carbon intensity to 65% below 2005 levels by 2030. This was later formalised in China’s 2030 “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.
Xi also pledged that China would gradually reduce coal consumption during the five-year period up to 2030. However, China is significantly off track to these targets.
China’s CO2 emissions grew more quickly in the early 2020s than they had been before the Coronavirus pandemic, as shown in the figure below. This stems from a surge in energy consumption during and after the “zero-Covid” period, together with a rapid expansion of coal-fired power and the fossil-fuel based chemical industry. as shown in the figure below.
As a result, meeting the 2030 intensity target would require a reduction in CO2 emissions from current levels, with the level of the drop depending on the rate of economic growth.
Xi’s personal imprimatur would make missing these 2030 targets awkward for China, particularly given the country’s carefully cultivated reputation for delivery. On the other hand, meeting them would require much stronger action than initially anticipated.
Recent policy documents and statements, in particular the recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the next five-year plan, and the government’s work report for 2025, have put the emphasis on China’s target to peak emissions before 2030 and the new 2035 emission target, which would still allow emissions to increase over the next five-year period. The earlier 2030 commitments risk being buried as inconvenient.
Still, the State Council’s plan for controlling carbon emissions, published in 2024, says that carbon intensity will be a “binding indicator” for the next five-year period, meaning that a target will be included in the top-level plan published in March 2026.
China is only set to achieve a reduction of about 12% in carbon intensity from 2020 to 2025 – a marked slowdown relative to previous periods, as shown in the figure below.
(This is based on reductions reported annually by the National Bureau of Statistics until 2024 and a projected small increase in energy-sector CO2 emissions in 2025. Total CO2 emissions could still fall this year, when the fall in process emissions from cement production is factored in.)
A 12% fall would be far less than the 18% reduction targeted under the 14th five-year plan, as well as falling short of what would be needed to stay on track to the 2030 target.
To make up the shortfall and meet the 2030 intensity target, China would need to set a goal of around 23% in the next five-year plan. As such, this target will be a key test of China’s determination to honour its climate commitments.
A carbon-intensity target of 23% is likely to receive pushback from some policymakers, as it is much higher than achieved in previous periods. No government or thinktank documents have yet been published with estimates of what the 2030 intensity target would need to be.
In practice, meeting the 2030 carbon intensity target would require reducing CO2 emissions by 2-6% in absolute terms from 2025, assuming a GDP growth rate of 4.2-5.0%.
China needs 4.2% GDP growth over the next decade to achieve Xi’s target of doubling the country’s GDP per capita from 2020 to 2035, a key part of his vision of achieving “socialist modernisation” by 2035, with the target for the next five years likely to be set higher.
Recent high-level policy documents have avoided even mentioning the 2030 intensity target. It is omitted in recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the next five-year plan, the foundation on which the plan will be formulated.
Instead, the recommendations emphasised “achieving the carbon peak as scheduled” and “promoting the peaking of coal and oil consumption”, which are less demanding.
The environment ministry, in contrast, continues to pledge efforts to meet the carbon intensity target. However, they are not the ones writing the top-level five-year plan.
The failure to meet the 2025 intensity target has been scarcely mentioned in top-level policy discussions. There was no discernible effort to close the gap to the target, even after the midway review of the five-year plan recognised the shortfall.
The State Council published an action plan to get back on track, including a target for reducing carbon intensity in 2024 – albeit one not sufficient to close the shortfall. Yet this plan, in turn, was not followed up with an annual target for 2025.
The government could also devise ways to narrow the gap to the target on paper, through statistical revisions or tweaks to the definition of carbon intensity, as the term has not been defined in China’s NDCs.
Notably, unlike China’s previous NDC, its latest pledge did not include a progress update for carbon intensity. The latest official update sent to the UN only covers the years to 2020.
This leaves some more leeway for revisions, even though China’s domestic “statistical communiques”, published every year, have included official numbers up to 2024.
Coal consumption growth around 2022 was likely over-reported, so statistical revisions could reduce reported emissions and narrow the gap to the target. Including process emissions from cement, which have been falling rapidly in recent years, and changing how emissions from fossil fuels used as raw materials in the chemicals industry are accounted for, so-called non-energy use, which has been growing rapidly, could make the target easier to meet.
2. Will the plan upgrade clean-energy targets or pave the way to exceed them?
The need to accelerate carbon-intensity reductions also has implications for clean-energy targets.
The current goal is for non-fossil fuels to make up 25% of energy supplies in 2030, up from the 21% expected to be reached this year.
This expansion would be sufficient to achieve the reduction in carbon intensity needed in the next five years, but only if energy consumption growth slows down very sharply. Growth would need to slow to around 1% per year, from 4.1% in the past five years 2019-2024 and from 3.7% in the first three quarters of 2025.
The emphasis on manufacturing in the Central Committee’s recommendations for the next five-year plan is hard to reconcile with such a sharp slowdown, even if electrification will help reduce primary energy demand. During the current five-year period, China abolished the system of controlling total energy consumption and energy intensity, removing the incentive for local governments to curtail energy-intensive projects and industries.
Even if the ratio of total energy demand growth to GDP growth returned to pre-Covid levels, implying total energy demand growth of 2.5% per year, then the share of non-fossil energy would need to reach 31% by 2030 to deliver the required reduction in carbon intensity.
However, China recently set the target for non-fossil energy in 2035 at just 30%. This risks cementing a level of ambition that is likely too low to enable the 2030 carbon-intensity target to be met, whereas meeting it would require non-fossil energy to reach 30% by 2030.
There is ample scope for China to beat its targets for non-fossil energy.
However, given that the construction of new nuclear and hydropower plants generally takes five years or more in China, only those that are already underway have the chance to be completed by 2030. This leaves wind and solar as the quick-to-deploy power generation options that can deliver more non-fossil energy during this five-year period.
Reaching a much higher share of non-fossil energy in 2030, in turn, would therefore require much faster growth in solar and wind than currently targeted. Both the NDRC power-sector plan for 2025-27 and China’s new NDC aim for the addition of about 200 gigawatts (GW) per year of solar and wind capacity, much lower than the 360GW achieved in 2024.
If China continued to add capacity at similar rates, going beyond the government’s targets and instead installing 250-350GW of new solar and wind in each of the next five years, then this would be sufficient to meet the 2030 intensity target, assuming energy demand rising by 2.5-3.0% per year.
All previous wind and solar targets have been exceeded by a wide margin, as shown in the figure below, so there is a good chance that the current one will be, too.
While the new pricing policy for wind and solar has created a much more uncertain and less supportive policy environment for the development of clean energy, provinces have substantial power to create a more supportive environment.
For example, they can include clean-energy projects and downstream projects using clean electricity and green hydrogen in their five-year plans, as well as developing their local electricity markets in a direction that enables new solar and wind projects.
3. Will the plan set an absolute cap on coal consumption?
In 2020, Xi pledged that China would “gradually reduce coal consumption” during the 2026-30 period. The commitment is somewhat ambiguous.
It could be interpreted as requiring a reduction starting in 2026, or a reduction below 2025 levels by 2030, which in practice would mean coal consumption peaking around the midway point of the five-year period, in other words 2027-28.
In either case, if Xi’s pledge were to be cemented in the 15th five-year plan then it would need to include an absolute reduction in coal consumption during 2026-30. An illustration of what this might look like is shown in the figure below.
However, the commitment to reduce coal consumption was missing from China’s new NDC for 2035 and from the Central Committee’s recommendations for the next five-year plan.
The Central Committee called for “promoting a peak in coal and oil consumption”, which is a looser goal as it could still allow an increase in consumption during the period, if the growth in the first years towards 2030 exceeds the reduction after the peak.
The difference between “peaking” and “reducing” is even larger because China has not defined what “peaking” means, even though peaking carbon emissions is the central goal of China’s climate policy for this decade.
Peaking could be defined as achieving a certain reduction from peak before the deadline, or having policies in place that constrain emissions or coal use. It could be seen as reaching a plateau or as an absolute reduction.
While the commitment to “gradually reduce” coal consumption has seemed to fade from discussion, there have been several publications discussing the peak years for different fossil fuels, which could pave the way for more specific peaking targets.
State news agency Xinhua published an article – only in English – saying that coal consumption would peak around 2027 and oil consumption around 2026, while also mentioning the pledge to reduce coal consumption.
The energy research arm of the National Development and Reform Council had said earlier that coal and oil consumption would peak halfway through the next five-year period, in other words 2027-28, while the China Coal Association advocated a slightly later target of 2028.
Setting a targeted peak year for coal consumption before the half-way point of the five-year period could be a way to implement the coal reduction commitment.
With the fall in oil use in transportation driven by EVs, railways and other low-carbon transportation, oil consumption is expected to peak soon or to have peaked already.
State-owned oil firm CNPC projects that China’s oil consumption will peak in 2025 at 770m tonnes, while Sinopec thinks that continued demand for petrochemical feedstocks will keep oil consumption growing until 2027 and it will then peak at 790-800m tonnes.
4. Will ‘dual control’ of carbon prevent an emission rebound?
With the focus on realising a peak in emissions before 2030, there could be a strong incentive for provincial governments and industries to increase emissions in the early years of the five-year period to lock in a higher level of baseline emissions.
This approach is known as “storming the peak” (碳冲锋) in Chinese and there have been warnings about it ever since Xi announced the current CO2 peaking target in 2020.
Yet, the emphasis on peaking has only increased, with the recent announcement on promoting peaks in coal consumption and oil consumption, as well as the 2035 emission-reduction target being based on “peak levels”.
The policy answer to this is creating a system to control carbon intensity and total CO2 emissions – known as “dual control of carbon” – building on the earlier system for the “dual control of energy” consumption.
Both the State Council and the Central Committee have set the aim of operationalising the “dual control of carbon” system in the 15th five-year plan period.
However, policy documents speak of building the carbon dual-control system during the five-year period rather than it becoming operational at the start of the period.
For example, an authoritative analysis of the Central Committee’s recommendations by China Daily says that “solid progress” is needed in five areas to actually establish the system, including assessment of carbon targets for local governments as well as carbon management for industries and enterprises.
The government set an annual target for reducing carbon intensity for the first time in 2024, but did not set one for 2025, also signaling that there was no preparedness to begin controlling carbon intensity, let alone total carbon emissions, yet.
If the system is not in place at the start of the five-year period, with firm targets, there could be an opportunity for local governments to push for early increases in emissions – and potentially even an incentive for such emission increases, if they expect strict control later.
Another question is how the “dual” element of controlling both carbon intensity and absolute CO2 emissions is realised. While carbon intensity is meant to be the main focus during the next five years, with the priority shifting to reducing absolute emissions after the peak, having the “dual control” in place requires some kind of absolute cap on CO2 emissions.
The State Council has said that China will begin introducing “absolute emissions caps in some industries for the first time” from 2027 under its national carbon market. It is possible that the control of absolute carbon emissions will only apply to these sectors.
The State Council also said that the market would cover all “major emitting sectors” by 2027, but absolute caps would only apply to sectors where emissions have “stabilised”.
5. Will it limit coal-power and chemical-industry growth?
During the current five-year period, China’s leadership went from pledging to “strictly control” new coal-fired power projects to actively promoting them.
If clean-energy growth continues at the rates achieved in recent years, there will be no more space for coal- and gas-fired power generation to expand, even if new capacity is built. Stable or falling demand for power generation from fossil fuels would mean a sharp decline in the number of hours each plant is able to run, eroding its economic viability.
Showing the scale of the planned expansion, researchers from China Energy Investment Corporation, the second-largest coal-power plant operator in China, project that China’s coal-fired power capacity could expand by 300GW from the end of 2024 to 2030 and then plateau at that level for a decade. The projection relies on continued growth of power generation from coal until 2030 and a very slow decline thereafter.
The completion of the 325GW projects already under construction and permitted at the end of 2024, as well as an additional 42GW permitted in the first three quarters of 2025, could in fact lead to a significantly larger increase, if the retirement of existing capacity remains slow.
In effect, China’s policymakers face a choice between slowing down the clean-energy boom, which has been a major driver of economic growth in recent years, upsetting coal project developers, who expect to operate their coal-fired power plants at a high utilisation, or retiring older coal-power plants en masse.
Their response to these choices may not become clear for some time. The top-level five-year plan that will be published in March 2026 will likely provide general guidelines, but the details of capacity development will be relegated to the sectoral plans for energy.
The other sector where fossil fuel-based capacity is rapidly increasing is the chemical industry, both oil and coal-based. In this sector, capacity growth has led directly to increases in output, making the sector the only major driver of emissions increases after early 2024.
The expansion is bound to continue. There are more than 500 petrochemical projects planned by 2030 in China, of which three quarters are already under construction, according to data provider GlobalData.
As such, the emissions growth in the chemical sector is poised to continue in the next few years, whereas meeting China’s 2030 targets and commitments would require either reining it in and bringing emissions back down before 2030, or achieving emission reductions in other sectors that offset the increases.
The expansion of the coal-to-chemicals industry is largely driven by projects producing gas and liquid fuels from coal, which make up 70% of the capacity under construction and in planning, according to a mapping by Anychem Coalchem.
These projects are a way of reducing reliance on imported oil and gas. In these areas, electrification and clean energy offer another solution that can replace imports.
Conclusions
The five-year plans being prepared now will largely determine the peak year and level of China’s emissions, with a major impact on China’s subsequent emission trajectory and on the global climate effort.
The targets in the plan will also be a key test of the determination of China’s leadership to respect previous commitments, despite setbacks.
The country has cultivated a reputation for reliably implementing its commitments. For example, senior officials have said that China’s policy targets represent a “bottom line”, which the policymakers are “definitely certain” about meeting, while contrasting this with other countries’ loftier approach to target-setting.
Depending on how the key questions outlined in this article are answered in the plans for the next five years, however, there is the possibility of a rebound in emissions.
There are several factors contributing to such a possibility: solar- and wind-power deployment could slow down under the new pricing policy, weak targets and a deluge of new coal- and gas-power capacity coming onto the market.
In addition, unfettered expansion of the chemical industry could drive up emissions. And climate targets that limit emissions only after a peak is reached could create an incentive to increase emissions in the short term, unless counteracted by effective policies.
On the other hand, there is also the possibility of the clean-energy boom continuing so that the sector beats the targets it has been set. Policymakers could also prioritise carbon-intensity reductions early in the period to meet China’s 2030 commitments.
Given the major role that clean-energy industries have played in driving China’s economic growth and meeting GDP targets, local governments have a strong incentive to keep the expansion going, even if the central government plans for a slowdown.
During the current five-year period, provinces and state-owned enterprises have been more ambitious than the central government. Provinces can and already have found ways to support clean-energy development beyond central government targets.
Such an outcome would continue a well-established pattern, given all previous wind and solar targets have been exceeded by a wide margin.
The difference now is that a significant exceedance of clean-energy targets would make a much bigger difference, due to the much larger absolute size of the industry.
To date, China’s approach to peaking emissions and pursuing carbon neutrality has focused on expanding the supply and driving down the cost of clean technology, emphasising economic expansion rather than restrictions on fossil-fuel use and emissions, with curbing overcapacity an afterthought.
This suggests that if China’s 2030 targets are to be met, it is more likely to be through the over-delivery of clean energy than as a result of determined regulatory effort.
The post Q&A: Five key climate questions for China’s next ‘five-year plan’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Five key climate questions for China’s next ‘five-year plan’
Governments sent fewer people to the COP30 summit in Belém than they did to any COP talks since 2014, newly-released UN data reveals, as they faced a shortage of officially-sanctioned and affordable accommodation.
While 42,618 people – including security and volunteers working at COP30 – attended the conference in the Amazon, just 7,527 of them were there with official government lanyards, known as “party badges”.
That’s the smallest number of government delegates than for any COP since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 and around half as many as attended last year’s COP in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
While government attendance was well down in Brazil, other delegates from non-governmental organisations, the media and those given “party overflow” badges by governments were present in good numbers.
Many government departments have strict rules about which types of accommodation can be booked. This prevented many officials from finding rooms on websites like Booking.com or Airbnb and restricted them to the official COP30 accommodation platform, which was sanctioned by the Brazilian government.
Accommodation providers in Belém told Climate Home News that the Brazilian government’s bureaucratic restrictions prevented them from listing their properties on this platform. With the supply of rooms limited, prices on the platform were high, starting at around $240 a night.
Flights to Belém were also expensive. With the city’s airport only having a handful of international flights, many delegates had to transit through bigger Brazilian cities thousands of kilometres away like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
To combat the shortage of reasonably priced accommodation, the Brazilian government offered countries 10-15 price-capped rooms each on two cruise ships near Belém.
The government also moved the leaders’ segment of the COP to just before the start of the negotiations to ease the peak in demand for accommodation. The UN, meanwhile, increased the daily allowance it gives to negotiators from most developing countries.
The drop in attendance was most pronounced among government negotiators from Central Asia and Eastern Europe, who went to COP29 in nearby Baku in large numbers. This was only partly balanced out by an increased number of Brazilians and neighbouring Latin Americans at COP30.
The UAE and Azerbaijan, the outgoing and incoming presidencies at COP29, also sent far fewer people to COP30 than they did to COP29. The official US delegation fell from 234 at COP29 to zero at COP30, as the Trump administration dismissed the importance of the talks and decided not to send a team.
But other declines in the numbers appeared to have no particular political or geographic pattern. The delegation of the Pacific island of Nauru dropped from 17 at COP29 to one at COP30 while Zimbabwe’s fell from 181 to just 44.
Despite fears they would be worst hit by a shortage of accommodation, small island and least-developed nations did not reduce their delegation sizes more than governments did on average.
Some large wealthier countries also pared back their delegations, with Germany and China both cutting their head count by around half.
The total attendance of 42,618 people was the fourth-highest of any COP, behind the last three conferences – but less than the over 50,000 people Brazilian officials said had been expected and the 56,118 who registered to participate.
Around 11,000 were working at the conference as support staff including security guards and volunteers. The number of people at the COP taking part in the talks – comprising government officials, observers and media – was just under 32,000.
COP31 will take place in November 2026 in the Turkish tourist-resort city of Antalya, where hotel rooms and international flights are expected to be more abundant than in Belém.
The post Government attendance at COP30 was lowest in 10 years appeared first on Climate Home News.
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