As part of the UN climate process, developed countries have been encouraged to donate “international climate finance” to help developing countries cut emissions and prepare for climate disasters.
There has been a significant debate around whether China, as an increasingly wealthy developing country, should also contribute.
China’s stance remains controversial. The country did not make a pledge to the “loss-and-damage fund” established at COP28, but has provided alternative climate funding through its South-South Climate Cooperation Fund and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Ahead of next week’s Bonn conference – where delegates are expected to negotiate climate finance – Carbon Brief has interviewed Li Shuo, head of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), on the prospects for China’s climate contribution.
Through talking to various climate experts, including Chinese government officials and consultants, Li examines the motives behind China’s current policy and strategy.
He tells Carbon Brief that focusing on China’s ability to encourage investment that increases use of affordable low-carbon energy solutions worldwide could be one way to encourage the nation to play a greater role in international climate finance.
The wide-ranging discussion with Li covered possible outcomes from this year’s COP29, prospects for US-China alignment, barriers and incentives for China to increase its financial contribution, and more:
- On the climate finance debate: “This is indeed one of the most controversial issues…that sees very strong division between the global south and the global north.”
- On China’s dominance of low carbon technology: “I actually hope this could be one solution to the…NCQG [new collective quantified goal] question…It could be a solution based on which we can find a path forward.”
- On EU and US concerns: “I doubt the NCQG will ever be as explicit as China committing to support developing countries to buy China-made products…The decision will be made in more general terms; general enough to not agitate the US and the EU.”
- On improving the BRI as a climate finance mechanism: “The question is what role can China play to facilitate a better environment for its own engagement… That role will increasingly require China to engage…with the policy framework of those recipient countries.”
- On ‘inviting’ negotiation strategies: “Messages that are crafted in a more inviting way will probably work better…If your framing is ‘China needs to pay’, or ‘we believe China is ready’ or ‘China is responsible’, then I think politically this will become very difficult.”
- On multilateral cooperation: “[Our research has looked at] whether trilateral cooperation would be possible – if not solving all the problems, at least a few demonstration projects that will convey a political signal that we’re all in…There could be areas where China and other traditional donor countries can complement each other.”
- On US-China tensions: “[COP29] is probably the best recipe for huge tension between the US and China. Given the agenda set for this COP: it is finance, right? …This one is particularly controversial. If one side or both sides want to weaponise this issue, they can find all the ways to weaponise it and blow up the COP.”
- On the new US and Chinese climate envoys’ relationship: “The two envoys are, I think, also committed to learn from what has served this relationship in the past, including by building a personal relationship.”
- On future US-China climate cooperation: “This dynamic…also puts the bilateral climate relationship firmly into the pattern of the rest of the bilateral relationship…when they meet, there is normally a set of standard talking points without too many substantive agreements, let alone progress.”
- On the need for political courage: “[Climate change] is a time-bound, global, environmental crisis that requires real solutions…We still haven’t seen the political courage to set this issue aside.”
The interview is reproduced in full, below, with some editing for clarification. An abridged version of the transcript has been published in China Briefing, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly email newsletter focusing on climate and energy developments relating to China. (Sign up for free.)
Carbon Brief: At the upcoming COP29 climate talks [in Baku in November], countries will be negotiating a new climate finance target to replace the current $100bn goal for developed countries. As the world’s biggest emitter, China is facing growing calls to start contributing. How is China responding to these calls?
Li Shuo: I think we are expecting a pretty heated debate at COP29. This is indeed one of the most controversial issues…that sees very strong division between the global south and the global north. And, of course, China is in this unique position: it is still firmly in the developing country camp, but, at the same time, it has become one of the largest economies and the largest emitters in the world. So with that, you know, there’s this argument that China should shoulder more responsibility internationally, including by providing future climate finance.
The geopolitical environment is definitely not helping that transition: the tension between China and the west, and also this long-standing deficit on the part of the developed countries to deliver what they have promised. In addition to that, China’s domestic political and economic situation – let’s just say, it’s not at a particularly helpful moment for that transition to happen, [with] the domestic economic slowdown and so on. So we see a lot of risk factors. There is a critical need for other countries and China to work out, to align, ahead of COP29 on this issue. I think the next few months will be very important.
CB: We have seen the US president Joe Biden ramp up tariffs across China’s “new three” types – electric vehicles, solar products and lithium-ion batteries. Some in China might argue that they are contributing to the energy transition by providing affordable, clean energy technology and, therefore, they shouldn’t be pressured to scale up climate finance. Do you think that this could be one of the arguments made by the Chinese negotiators against greater ambition at COP29?
LS: Well, I actually hope this could be one solution to the $100bn – or $1tn – NCQG [new collective quantified goal] question. I actually genuinely see that it could be a solution based on which we can find a path forward for China, but also the rest of the world.
The reason I say this is, indeed, as you outlined, in addition to China’s emission portfolio, the country also happens to be the biggest solution provider when it comes to low-carbon products. Of course, there are increasing political controversies around China’s position in this regard, in particular between the US and China. But, I think, if you were China, what you want to achieve is, of course, to make sure that you can continue to sell those low-carbon solutions to the rest of the world.
So I would argue it actually works in China’s self-interest to make sure that they can facilitate the deployment of renewable energy in the global south. And, that way, I think it helps address the geopolitical problem, the so-called overcapacity [problem]. I mean, they realise that overcapacity always has two sides: oversupply and under-deployment. If you can tackle the same problem from the under-deployment side, that’s helping you geopolitically, but that’s also helping your businesses, that’s helping your companies in real ways. How do you do that? I think a role to provide finance or facilitate investment in developing countries is the way to achieve that. And if China can play a role in this regard, at the bare minimum, it is helping its own companies.
CB: Do you think that that would be politically viable? It would require the EU and the US signing off on saying: “Even though we’re launching investigations and tariffs into Chinese companies domestically, we support China’s global deployment of the ‘new three’ types.”
LS: I doubt it will be. I mean, if you’re talking about the NCQG package, I doubt the NCQG will ever be as explicit as China committing to support developing countries to buy China-made products…The decision will be made in more general terms; general enough to not agitate the US and the EU. In my mind, of course the NCQG discussion is still an ongoing one, but you might be familiar with this “onion” [structure] approach, a kind of multi-layer package. You have a core: public international finance. The controversial issue there is you will have a number, but who will be accountable for that number? That’s one thing. Then the second [layer] might be some sort of investment facilitation, if you will, and that’s where I think China can play a role.
I think it is in that layer that I feel like this is actually the interesting ongoing geopolitical development. You can actually make a stronger argument [now] than before to convince China that they should really play a role in that second layer, because it is helping its trade and investment facilitation, in essence. It is helping them to sell to the rest of the world. So they should be willing to play a role there. As long as that provision is not framed as sensitive to the West, I think there is an area where the two sides can converge. Because at the end of the day, developed countries are also trying to gain more money, so that they can be a little bit less liable on the public international finance side. So there might be a point of convergence.
CB: While often not widely recognised, China has contributed climate funding via both its “South-South Climate Cooperation Fund” and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). How significant is this funding?
LS: I think here, the number is even secondary – to both China and its international counterparts. I think the most important point here is to realise that China can actually contribute internationally to the decarbonisation agenda, and China is already doing so. So the political question then is not whether China will do it or not, but how can we make sure [it plays] a larger role? I think that is the key political point…You have a base to build on, we’re not talking about ‘ground zero’.
But when you look at the details of what China has been doing, I think, number one, there has been real investment and financial support to the global south, primarily through the BRI. The BRI now is going into a second phase which will [have more emphasis on] quality and sustainability. I hope that actually will help China to do more to help developing countries to scale up their renewable energy development. I think the second part that China has been doing is more kind of public finance – south-south cooperation and so on. There, we didn’t do the number crunching, but if you look at [climate thinktank] E3G‘s report, their argument is that there has been a gap – a huge gap – between what China has committed to in the past and what it has actually delivered.
In addition to that, we understand that the existing support and projects are done on a rather ad-hoc basis, lack a coherent strategy and are also constrained by various domestic policies. One example that I can give you – and this is well known as part of China’s south-south climate support – [is the] domestic procurement policies dictate that [what are] essentially development aid projects can only rely on Chinese-made products, which is fine, but a lot of times not services. So it has to be hardware – it has to be hardware – [which is donated] a lot of the time, not know-how. So that’s a problem. You would think that’s a problem that China can easily solve. And that’s also our argument. When we draw attention to the non-monetary actions needed, this is one of them – to reform domestic policies, so that it better facilitates effective action. I can also say, as a result of the domestic procurement policy, you see mostly solar water heaters, roadside solar-powered lights and quite a few satellites – literally satellites – being donated to the global south. These are the result of the rather outdated domestic procurement policies. So that needs to be reformed as well.
CB: Over the course of your research at ASPI on climate finance, you’ve spoken to various Chinese stakeholders – government officials, non-government organisations and industry participants. Do you see an increasing internal alignment to try and unify this kind of domestic policy-making process, in procurement or in other climate financing issues, or is there still a lot of fragmentation?
LS: The answer is no, there’s still a lot of fragmentation. I think the tricky situation that we have now is, if you go back to the early 2010s, the country was on the rise and there was a “go out” spirit, very much accelerated by the BRI. And, as a result of that, you have the “hundred flowers blooming” [bǎi huā qí fàng 百花齐放, which here means various industries growing successfully], right? Different agencies are all handling some sort of overseas project, be they aid-, investment- or trade-related. So you end up with an unavoidable fragmentation. What has happened since a few years ago is that, all of a sudden, there is a declining political appetite – or ability – to go as much out as [there was] a decade ago. But you still have the various channels. So that’s where we are: a shrinking political will or economic ability, but still a very fragmented bureaucratic picture.
So how do we go from here? I think the country – and this is a bit of a side-note – I think the country is in a bit of a “soul-searching” mode. On one hand, dealing with lack of political will or economic capacity. On the other hand, there is still a deeply fragmented bureaucratic landscape. It’s a bit hard to see how the situation will improve in the very near term. Ideally, there needs to be a high-level signal to call for a coherent strategy, but I don’t think that signal will happen anytime soon. I also think – and this is also just a side-note – bureaucratic fragmentation is a long-standing consistent theme in Chinese political culture. It even goes beyond the specific issue that we’re talking about in this area of development aid. If you look at other areas, it’s a similar situation. Fragmentation is the rule, not the exception.
CB: What do you think could be some practical short-term changes to improve the BRI as a vehicle for climate finance?
LS: I think this is increasingly something many organisations are looking at: namely, the Chinese role in helping developing countries. I think primarily – let’s just use southeast Asian countries as an example, looking at how to help southeast Asian countries to scale up their renewable energy deployment. The complicating factor there is it is not a one-party exercise. It’s not as easy as saying China has the equipment, it has the political will to sell the equipment, and the equipment will somehow be installed in the Philippines or Indonesia. The recipient country also plays a very important role providing the policy framework, the political economic environment in which those projects will be developed. There are still many gaps in those environments. It takes two to tango.
The question is what role can China play to facilitate a better environment for its own engagement with those countries. And that role will increasingly require China to engage, not only on the commercial level – providing the hardware, investment or construction – but also engage with the policy framework of those recipient countries. That’s going to take some time, but I think that’s increasingly where China needs to go. The good news is, at a very high level, all these countries have committed to various decarbonisation courses, and we have committed too, also, at COP last year, to the tripling of renewable energy. So how do we operationalise those very high-level visions at the ground level in a country like Indonesia, and what’s China’s role in it?
CB: This question might lean towards over-generalisation, but wouldn’t a counter-argument be that China is an attractive investment partner precisely because it doesn’t [engage with the policy framework of] recipient countries? Is there an incentive from the investment recipient’s side to make China have these higher standards?
LS: Again, it’s a two-way tango. But I think the good news is, number one, on the Chinese side – at least when it comes to the energy sector – China has already committed to not support coal-fired power plants. So, in a way China is going there without principles, without any kind of pre-judgments, but, in a way, China has already made a very strong rule for itself with “no coal”. And this has been largely implemented – with a few exceptions here and there, but we’re certainly not talking about what happened in the 2010s: 10 coal-fired power plants here in Indonesia, [and] on another island in Indonesia five more. That’s not where we are.
So, in a way, that question has really been partly solved, by a self-imposed rule from China and we should give them credit for that. They’re trying to move to the “greener” side. But, indeed, how do we also accelerate the necessary policy framework on the part of developing countries? This is a critical area.
I would just say we’re still quite new in this exercise. China only announced not to support coal [three] years ago. We’ve only made big strides when it comes to the global energy transition and the big visions at COP28 half a year ago. It takes a long time for domestic policy reforms in countries, such as the Philippines and Indonesia. There are also physical infrastructure constraints in those countries. So it takes time for the two sides to work things out. But I think the general mission, or the general direction, is there. It’s not a “whether” question, but a “how” question: how can China accelerate its cooperation with Indonesia, and vice versa.
CB: How do you think that requests for China to contribute to climate finance, be they made by Western countries or by potential [recipient] countries, could be more successful? And, then, which countries do you think could be the most effective and the most amenable partners?
LS: When you talk about UNFCCC climate finance, it is an intrinsically more political debate. The core of the question is: how does China see itself in relation to the rest of the world, and in relation to other traditional donor developed countries, right? Does it see itself graduating to shoulder the same, or similar, responsibilities? Or does it see itself as still not there yet? And how will China think about the lack of delivery of the traditional donor countries [of the $100bn climate finance goal]. This is the core of the question.
I think, going forward, messages that are crafted in a more inviting way will probably work better with China. But that’s precisely the challenge. The political environment that we have will almost prevent that conversation from happening. That’s why the NCQG donor base question will be such a difficult one. I think, in an ideal world, a facilitating, inviting political environment, is what you want to create to facilitate higher aspiration on the Chinese part over time.
CB: Could you explain what you mean by “inviting”?
LS: I think there are two examples. One is simply how we talk about this issue, right?…If your framing is ‘China needs to pay’, or ‘we believe China is ready’ or ‘China is responsible’, then I think politically this will become very difficult for China. Because a lot of the framing – even just enlarging the donor base, that phrase – if you think about it, it assumes kind of a moral high ground. Somebody is saying we need to enlarge the donor base: who is that somebody? That is somebody who thinks they occupy a moral high ground. That framing also implies a legal argument – there’s a legal argument to actually formally enlarge the donor base, which I think China will not agree with.
Enlarging the donor base also carries this undertone that “we want more people to pay so that we can pay less”, if you think about it. It’s very – given the current geopolitical environment – it’s very easily perceived as just an extension of the political tension between China and the west, an extension to the climate finance field. So, given all these reasons, we just need to find a different way, a better way, to talk about this issue. We’re not trying to shy away from this issue, but [we need] a better way to talk about it.
The other example that I can give you is not narrative or framing, but concrete project-level action. [Our research has looked at] whether trilateral cooperation would be possible – if not solving all the problems, at least a few demonstration projects that will convey a political signal that we’re all in. This is not about shying away from our responsibility, but it’s all hands on deck: everybody trying to play to their strengths and play a role. What we mean by trilateral cooperation is one side, of course, is the recipient country – climate-vulnerable countries – and China and traditional donor countries. We do believe there could be areas where China and other traditional donor countries can complement each other. They need to work out the specific areas where they share synergy.
From our conversation with practitioners, I think they all realise that this is a very good idea, there is a political will to embrace that model. But when it comes to the practical details, I can give you one example: if you want to play into the strengths of China’s ability to deliver low-carbon products, and it strengths to be able to get those projects deployed very fast, and you want to tap into the financial resources that developed countries have – you could easily imagine that this will not work for developed countries, because they are essentially channelling their taxpayer money to buy China-made products. That’s a political no-go. [Despite] the desire [for cooperation] and everybody seeing the benefit of trilateral cooperation, I also wouldn’t want to underestimate the practical challenges – there are a lot of constraints, a lot of them imposed by the current geopolitical environment.
CB: Something that struck me, whilst I was looking more into US-China moves on climate finance, is that the South-South Climate Cooperation Fund was actually announced by Xi during a press conference at the White House in 2015. How would you say that conditions in the US-China dynamic have changed since then? And is there a possibility we could ever get back to that 2015 cooperation?
LS: I had the same lightbulb moment when I reviewed what happened in 2015. The two countries actually came together on finance and they actually announced [funds worth] the same amount of money to developing countries. What signal does that send? That signal says: “Hey, China believes it is shouldering the same responsibility as the US when it comes to supporting the global south”. That was what happened nearly 10 years ago. That’s striking if you think about it now. We’re in a very different time now.
I think the G2 (the US and China) angle is critical because, if you think about it, for the last couple of COPs, I think this one [COP29] is probably the best recipe for huge tension between the US and China. Given the agenda set for this COP: it is finance, right? I’m not saying for the last couple of COPs there were no controversial issues between the G2, but this one is particularly controversial. If one side or both sides want to weaponise this issue, they can find all the ways to weaponise it and blow up the COP.
This year we are also facing a unique challenge, which is we’re in a US election year, and we also have two [new] climate envoys on both sides. So [this is] different from the last couple of years, when at this point in the year you probably already knew that [former climate envoys] John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua are working on something, trying to resolve their differences before the COP. We don’t have clarity on that at this point in time.
In our view, the two sides will definitely need to find a minimum level of alignment on the NCQG question, on the donor-base question. That’s a necessary condition for the COP to be a smooth-sailing one. Will they be able to do that? I think that’s the real question. I can’t imagine a COP which features the US sitting on one side of the table and the Chinese sitting on the far other side. That will make for a very contentious COP. I hope that they get this message that it’s actually also in their interest to find alignment in advance. We’re also – to add one more thing – dealing with a rather inexperienced COP president. So if you want to make the job easier for them, you’d want some big power alignment ahead of time.
CB: We’ve talked about big changes regarding the negotiation teams, the changes due to the fact the US election is coming up. But we’ve also seen significant changes in China’s economic situation, especially compared to 10 years ago. You interviewed various people on this impact, in particular. What are the barriers in their view to China scaling up current climate financing and future pledges?
LS: I think the economic challenges are high on people’s mind and, politically, it imposes a very strong mental barrier – I think we felt this very strongly in our conversations – mental barriers with our Chinese interlocutors, for an idea that would push them to do more internationally. It’s just very difficult to achieve that now.
That’s the reality that we need to deal with. That is also why our sense is that there are indeed very real and challenging barriers for China to scale up its international climate finance in the near term. I don’t think we can be naive about it. But, that said, we also tried to find ways to ensure that [China] will actually be able to do more and achieve more in practice. That’s why [ASPI] also made the suggestion that we can drive an even stronger emphasis on sustainability in China’s existing international infrastructure initiatives – such as the BRI. I think that’s a pragmatic way to actually ensure more finances go into the low-carbon dimension.
And I also think – one more piece of advice here – is that people who are working at the international level when it comes to climate finance tend to be COP-oriented. People’s timeframes when thinking about their strategy is on a yearly basis. But I think we also need to realise that this is a multi-year exercise. There are certain political conditions that you will need to build over time to convince China or facilitate China to do more.
So what are the multi-year investments? What are the seeds that you can plant now to cultivate over time? That’s the background against which we make recommendations such as…more sharing of knowledge and experience from traditional donor countries to China, on how they have managed their climate aid – what’s the right institutional setup; how they developed their strategy; how were projects selected and developed; and their experience working with recipient countries…You guys are familiar with, for example, the ETS [China’s emissions trading system], right? It’s a huge undertaking to build up the technical capacity in China – there has been a decade of capacity-building support, from the European side primarily. I would say China’s development of international aid is an exercise on a similar scale, if not even larger.
CB: Recently, the two new climate envoys, Liu and Podesta, met in the US. Can you share any signals from their meeting about how US-China interactions might look – not just on climate finance, but across the board?
LS: I think I’ll just say three things. Number one: I think this visit proves that there is still willingness between the two countries to engage with each other, there is still a strong commitment to implement what they agreed last year in the Sunnylands agreement. Liu’s visit in DC, we should note, is the meeting of the bilateral working group that the Sunnylands agreement re-established. So this is a continuation and the implementation section. As you saw in the readout, there was also progress made during his visit in DC. So that’s message number one. I should also add that the two envoys are, I think, also committed to learn from what has served this relationship in the past, including by building a personal relationship with each other. They had a working lunch and then reportedly John Podesta also hosted Liu and part of his team at his house for dinner.
The second message is that, despite all of the shared commitment to implement and to continue their engagement, there are many differences and contentious points. Many of those disagreements are structural – disagreements for which it is very difficult to see any near-term solutions or breakthroughs. The US concerns over China’s energy sector and the continued investment in coal, for example. The gap between the US’s expectations on China’s NDC [nationally determined contributions] and what China is willing to commit to. And, on the Chinese side, their scepticism about the US’s ability to deliver what it has promised, both when it comes to climate emission reduction targets, and also climate finance. And, added on top of that, of course, is the trade issue. So there are still many disagreements.
I think this dynamic, this disagreement, also puts the bilateral climate relationship firmly into the pattern of the rest of the bilateral relationship. What I mean by this is: if you look at ongoing bilateral dialogues on finance, trade and many other issues, the pattern is very clear: the two sides are committed to engage with each other; keep communication channels open; they will meet, either in China, or in the US, or in third countries; and, when they meet, there is normally a set of standard talking points without too many substantive agreements, let alone progress.
I think this is a dangerous pattern, if not for other issues, at least for climate change – because this issue is a time-bound, global, environmental crisis that requires real solutions and real progress between the two countries. And we still haven’t seen the political courage to set this issue aside so that, in an overall competitive relationship, progress can be made on certain issues: issues that are in the shared interests of both countries, but also of the rest of the world. We haven’t seen the political courage to allow that to happen and allow progress in a small number of issues. So that, I think, is very concerning. But, to be honest with you, I think this will be the pattern for the rest of the year, in the run-up to the [US] election.
That brings me to my third point, which is looking ahead. If some of the structural disagreements cannot be addressed between the two countries, there are at least a few issues on the multilateral agenda – in particular, climate finance – that would require the two countries to work together to bridge their differences and to find minimum levels of alignment ahead of the COP. The question is will they be able to do that? I am not entirely sure what signals this trip has sent – this is something that I think will require all of our attention. I think, fundamentally, on climate finance, it works in both countries’ interest if they can find alignment before the COP.
CB: Great, thank you.
LS: No worries, anytime.
The post Interview: China’s position on ‘international climate finance’ ahead of COP29 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interview: China’s position on ‘international climate finance’ ahead of COP29
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 gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
98
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally binding climate goals, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Over the same period, data from the World Bank shows that the UK’s economy has expanded by 95%, meaning that emissions have been decoupling from growth.
Spotlight
Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ community wind turbine
Following the recent launch of the UK government’s local power plan, Carbon Brief visits one of the country’s community-energy success stories.
The Lawrence Weston housing estate is set apart from the main city of Bristol, wedged between the tree-lined grounds of a stately home and a sprawl of warehouses and waste incinerators. It is one of the most deprived areas in the city.
Yet, just across the M5 motorway stands a structure that has brought the spoils of the energy transition directly to this historically forgotten estate – a 4.2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.
The turbine is owned by local charity Ambition Lawrence Weston and all the profits from its electricity sales – around £100,000 a year – go to the community. In the UK’s local power plan, it was singled out by energy secretary Ed Miliband as a “pioneering” project.
‘Sustainable income’
On a recent visit to the estate by Carbon Brief, Ambition Lawrence Weston’s development manager, Mark Pepper, rattled off the story behind the wind turbine.
In 2012, Pepper and his team were approached by the Bristol Energy Cooperative with a chance to get a slice of the income from a new solar farm. They jumped at the opportunity.
“Austerity measures were kicking in at the time,” Pepper told Carbon Brief. “We needed to generate an income. Our own, sustainable income.”
With the solar farm proving to be a success, the team started to explore other opportunities. This began a decade-long process that saw them navigate the Conservative government’s “ban” on onshore wind, raise £5.5m in funding and, ultimately, erect the turbine in 2023.
Today, the turbine generates electricity equivalent to Lawrence Weston’s 3,000 households and will save 87,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime.
‘Climate by stealth’
Ambition Lawrence Weston’s hub is at the heart of the estate and the list of activities on offer is seemingly endless: birthday parties, kickboxing, a library, woodworking, help with employment and even a pop-up veterinary clinic. All supported, Pepper said, with the help of a steady income from community-owned energy.
The centre itself is kitted out with solar panels, heat pumps and electric-vehicle charging points, making it a living advertisement for the net-zero transition. Pepper noted that the organisation has also helped people with energy costs amid surging global gas prices.
Gesturing to the England flags dangling limply on lamp posts visible from the kitchen window, he said:
“There’s a bit of resentment around immigration and scarcity of materials and provision, so we’re trying to do our bit around community cohesion.”
This includes supper clubs and an interfaith grand iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Anti-immigration sentiment in the UK has often gone hand-in-hand with opposition to climate action. Right-wing politicians and media outlets promote the idea that net-zero policies will cost people a lot of money – and these ideas have cut through with the public.
Pepper told Carbon Brief he is sympathetic to people’s worries about costs and stressed that community energy is the perfect way to win people over:
“I think the only way you can change that is if, instead of being passive consumers…communities are like us and they’re generating an income to offset that.”
From the outset, Pepper stressed that “we weren’t that concerned about climate because we had other, bigger pressures”, adding:
“But, in time, we’ve delivered climate by stealth.”
Watch, read, listen
OIL WATCH: The Guardian has published a “visual guide” with charts and videos showing how the “escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices”.
MURDER IN HONDURAS: Ten years on from the murder of Indigenous environmental justice advocate Berta Cáceres, Drilled asked why Honduras is still so dangerous for environmental activists.
TALKING WEATHER: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.
Coming up
- 8 March: Colombia parliamentary election
- 9-19 March: 31st Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 11 March: UN Environment Programme state of finance for nature 2026 report launch
Pick of the jobs
- London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow in the social science of sustainability | Salary: £43,277-£51,714. Location: London
- NORCAP, innovative climate finance expert | Salary: Unknown. Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
- WBHM, environmental reporter | Salary: $50,050-$81,330. Location: Birmingham, Alabama, US
- Climate Cabinet, data engineer | Salary: hourly rate of $60-$120 per hour. Location: Remote anywhere in the US
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China’s leadership has published a draft of its 15th five-year plan setting the strategic direction for the nation out to 2030, including support for clean energy and energy security.
The plan sets a target to cut China’s “carbon intensity” by 17% over the five years from 2026-30, but also changes the basis for calculating this key climate metric.
The plan continues to signal support for China’s clean-energy buildout and, in general, contains no major departures from the country’s current approach to the energy transition.
The government reaffirms support for several clean-energy industries, ranging from solar and electric vehicles (EVs) through to hydrogen and “new-energy” storage.
The plan also emphasises China’s willingness to steer climate governance and be seen as a provider of “global public goods”, in the form of affordable clean-energy technologies.
However, while the document says it will “promote the peaking” of coal and oil use, it does not set out a timeline and continues to call for the “clean and efficient” use of coal.
This shows that tensions remain between China’s climate goals and its focus on energy security, leading some analysts to raise concerns about its carbon-cutting ambition.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the key climate change and energy aspects of the plan, including targets for carbon intensity, non-fossil energy and forestry.
Note: this article is based on a draft published on 5 March and will be updated if any significant changes are made in the final version of the plan, due to be released at the close next week of the “two sessions” meeting taking place in Beijing.
- What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
- What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
- What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
- Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
- What does the plan signal about coal?
- How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
- What else does the plan cover?
What is China’s 15th five-year plan?
Five-year plans are one of the most important documents in China’s political system.
Addressing everything from economic strategy to climate policy, they outline the planned direction for China’s socio-economic development in a five-year period. The 15th five-year plan covers 2026-30.
These plans include several “main goals”. These are largely quantitative indicators that are seen as particularly important to achieve and which provide a foundation for subsequent policies during the five-year period.
The table below outlines some of the key “main goals” from the draft 15th five-year plan.
| Category | Indicator | Indicator in 2025 | Target by 2030 | Cumulative target over 2026-2030 | Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economic development | Gross domestic product (GDP) growth (%) | 5 | Maintained within a reasonable range and proposed annually as appropriate. | Anticipatory | |
| ‘Green and low-carbon | Reduction in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (%) | 17.7 | 17 | Binding | |
| Share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption (%) | 21.7 | 25 | Binding | ||
| Security guarantee | Comprehensive energy production capacity (100m tonnes of standard coal equivalent) |
51.3 | 58 | Binding |
Select list of targets highlighted in the “main goals” section of the draft 15th five-year plan. Source: Draft 15th five-year plan.
Since the 12th five-year plan, covering 2011-2015, these “main goals” have included energy intensity and carbon intensity as two of five key indicators for “green ecology”.
The previous five-year plan, which ran from 2021-2025, introduced the idea of an absolute “cap” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although it did not provide an explicit figure in the document. This has been subsequently addressed by a policy on the “dual-control of carbon” issued in 2024.
The latest plan removes the energy-intensity goal and elevates the carbon-intensity goal, but does not set an absolute cap on emissions (see below).
It covers the years until 2030, before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. (Analysis for Carbon Brief found that emissions have been “flat or falling” since March 2024.)
The plans are released at the two sessions, an annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4-12 March.
The plans are often relatively high-level, with subsequent topic-specific five-year plans providing more concrete policy guidance.
Policymakers at the National Energy Agency (NEA) have indicated that in the coming years they will release five sector-specific plans for 2026-2030, covering topics such as the “new energy system”, electricity and renewable energy.
There may also be specific five-year plans covering carbon emissions and environmental protection, as well as the coal and nuclear sectors, according to analysts.
Other documents published during the two sessions include an annual government work report, which outlines key targets and policies for the year ahead.
The gathering is attended by thousands of deputies – delegates from across central and local governments, as well as Chinese Communist party members, members of other political parties, academics, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
What does the plan say about China’s climate action?
Achieving China’s climate targets will remain a key driver of the country’s policies in the next five years, according to the draft 15th five-year plan.
It lists the “acceleration” of China’s energy transition as a “major achievement” in the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025), noting especially how clean-power capacity had overtaken fossil fuels.
The draft says China will “actively and steadily advance and achieve carbon peaking”, with policymakers continuing to strike a balance between building a “green economy” and ensuring stability.
Climate and environment continues to receive its own chapter in the plan. However, the framing and content of this chapter has shifted subtly compared with previous editions, as shown in the table below. For example, unlike previous plans, the first section of this chapter focuses on China’s goal to peak emissions.
| 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) | 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) | 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) | 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) | 15th five-year plan (2026-2030) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter title | Part 6: Build a resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly society | Part 6: Green development, building a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly society | Part 10: Ecosystems and the environment | Part 11: Promote green development and facilitate the harmonious coexistence of people and nature | Part 13: Accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development to build a beautiful China |
| Sections | Developing a circular economy | Actively respond to global climate change | Accelerate the development of functional zones | Improve the quality and stability of ecosystems | Actively and steadily advancing and achieving carbon peaking |
| Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems | Strengthen resource conservation and management | Promote economical and intensive resource use | Continue to improve environmental quality | Continuously improving environmental quality | |
| Strengthening environmental protection | Vigorously develop the circular economy | Step up comprehensive environmental governance | Accelerate the green transformation of the development model | Enhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems | |
| Enhancing resource management | Strengthen environmental protection efforts | Intensify ecological conservation and restoration | Accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyles | ||
| Rational utilisation of marine and climate resources | Promoting ecological conservation and restoration | Respond to global climate change | |||
| Strengthen the development of water conservancy and disaster prevention and mitigation systems | Improve mechanisms for ensuring ecological security | ||||
| Develop green and environmentally-friendly industries |
Title and main sections of the climate and environment-focused chapters in the last five five-year plans. Source: China’s 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year plans.
The climate and environment chapter in the latest plan calls for China to “balance [economic] development and emission reduction” and “ensure the timely achievement of carbon peak targets”.
Under the plan, China will “continue to pursue” its established direction and objectives on climate, Prof Li Zheng, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development (ICCSD), tells Carbon Brief.
What is China’s new CO2 intensity target?
In the lead-up to the release of the plan, analysts were keenly watching for signals around China’s adoption of a system for the “dual-control of carbon”.
This would combine the existing targets for carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – with a new cap on China’s total carbon emissions. This would mark a dramatic step for the country, which has never before set itself a binding cap on total emissions.
Policymakers had said last year that this framework would come into effect during the 15th five-year plan period, replacing the previous system for the “dual-control of energy”.
However, the draft 15th five-year plan does not offer further details on when or how both parts of the dual-control of carbon system will be implemented. Instead, it continues to focus on carbon intensity targets alone.
Looking back at the previous five-year plan period, the latest document says China had achieved a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7%, just shy of its 18% goal.
This is in contrast with calculations by Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which had suggested that China had only cut its carbon intensity by 12% over the past five years.
At the time it was set in 2021, the 18% target had been seen as achievable, with analysts telling Carbon Brief that they expected China to realise reductions of 20% or more.
However, the government had fallen behind on meeting the target.
Last year, ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather and trade tensions. He said that China, nevertheless, remained “broadly” on track to meet its 2030 international climate pledge of reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that the newly reported figure showing a carbon-intensity reduction of 17.7% is likely due to an “opportunistic” methodological revision. The new methodology now includes industrial process emissions – such as cement and chemicals – as well as the energy sector.
(This is not the first time China has redefined a target, with regulators changing the methodology for energy intensity in 2023.)
For the next five years, the plan sets a target to reduce carbon intensity by 17%, slightly below the previous goal.
However, the change in methodology means that this leaves space for China’s overall emissions to rise by “3-6% over the next five years”, says Myllyvirta. In contrast, he adds that the original methodology would have required a 2% fall in absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
The dashed lines in the chart below show China’s targets for reducing carbon intensity during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th five-year periods, while the bars show what was achieved under the old (dark blue) and new (light blue) methodology.
The carbon-intensity target is the “clearest signal of Beijing’s climate ambition”, says Li Shuo, director at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) China climate hub.
It also links directly to China’s international pledge – made in 2021 – to cut its carbon intensity to more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
To meet this pledge under the original carbon-intensity methodology, China would have needed to set a target of a 23% reduction within the 15th five-year plan period. However, the country’s more recent 2035 international climate pledge, released last year, did not include a carbon-intensity target.
As such, ASPI’s Li interprets the carbon-intensity target in the draft 15th five-year plan as a “quiet recalibration” that signals “how difficult the original 2030 goal has become”.
Furthermore, the 15th five-year plan does not set an absolute emissions cap.
This leaves “significant ambiguity” over China’s climate plans, says campaign group 350 in a press statement reacting to the draft plan. It explains:
“The plan was widely expected to mark a clearer transition from carbon-intensity targets toward absolute emissions reductions…[but instead] leaves significant ambiguity about how China will translate record renewable deployment into sustained emissions cuts.”
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that this represents a “continuation” of the government’s focus on scaling up clean-energy supply while avoiding setting “strong measurable emission targets”.
He says that he would still expect to see absolute caps being set for power and industrial sectors covered by China’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). In addition, he thinks that an overall absolute emissions cap may still be published later in the five-year period.
Despite the fact that it has yet to be fully implemented, the switch from dual-control of energy to dual-control of carbon represents a “major policy evolution”, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), tells Carbon Brief. He says that it will allow China to “provide more flexibility for renewable energy expansion while tightening the net on fossil-fuel reliance”.
Does the plan encourage further clean-energy additions?
“How quickly carbon intensity is reduced largely depends on how much renewable energy can be supplied,” says Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement.
The five-year plan continues to call for China’s development of a “new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient” by 2030, with continued additions of “wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power”.
In line with China’s international pledge, it sets a target for raising the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25% by 2030, up from just under 21.7% in 2025.
The development of “green factories” and “zero-carbon [industrial] parks” has been central to many local governments’ strategies for meeting the non-fossil energy target, according to industry news outlet BJX News. A call to build more of these zero-carbon industrial parks is listed in the five-year plan.
Prof Pan Jiahua, dean of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Ecological Civilization, tells Carbon Brief that expanding demand for clean energy through mechanisms such as “green factories” represents an increasingly “bottom-up” and “market-oriented” approach to the energy transition, which will leave “no place for fossil fuels”.
He adds that he is “very much sure that China’s zero-carbon process is being accelerated and fossil fuels are being driven out of the market”, pointing to the rapid adoption of EVs.
The plan says that China will aim to double “non-fossil energy” in 10 years – although it does not clarify whether this means their installed capacity or electricity generation, or what the exact starting year would be.
Research has shown that doubling wind and solar capacity in China between 2025-2035 would be “consistent” with aims to limit global warming to 2C.
While the language “certainly” pushes for greater additions of renewable energy, Yao tells Carbon Brief, it is too “opaque” to be a “direct indication” of the government’s plans for renewable additions.
She adds that “grid stability and healthy, orderly competition” is a higher priority for policymakers than guaranteeing a certain level of capacity additions.
China continues to place emphasis on the need for large-scale clean-energy “bases” and cross-regional power transmission.
The plan says China must develop “clean-energy bases…in the three northern regions” and “integrated hydro-wind-solar complexes” in south-west China.
It specifically encourages construction of “large-scale wind and solar” power bases in desert regions “primarily” for cross-regional power transmission, as well as “major hydropower” projects, including the Yarlung Tsangpo dam in Tibet.
As such, the country should construct “power-transmission corridors” with the capacity to send 420 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from clean-energy bases in western provinces to energy-hungry eastern provinces by 2030, the plan says.
State Grid, China’s largest grid operator, plans to install “another 15 ultra-high voltage [UHV] transmission lines” by 2030, reports Reuters, up from the 45 UHV lines built by last year.
Below are two maps illustrating the interlinkages between clean-energy bases in China in the 15th (top) and 14th (bottom) five-year plan periods.
The yellow dotted areas represent clean energy bases, while the arrows represent cross-regional power transmission. The blue wind-turbine icons represent offshore windfarms and the red cooling tower icons represent coastal nuclear plants.
The 15th five-year plan map shows a consistent approach to the 2021-2025 period. As well as power being transmitted from west to east, China plans for more power to be sent to southern provinces from clean-energy bases in the north-west, while clean-energy bases in the north-east supply China’s eastern coast.
It also maps out “mutual assistance” schemes for power grids in neighbouring provinces.
Offshore wind power should reach 100GW by 2030, while nuclear power should rise to 110GW, according to the plan.
What does the plan signal about coal?
The increased emphasis on grid infrastructure in the draft 15th five-year plan reflects growing concerns from energy planning officials around ensuring China’s energy supply.
Ren Yuzhi, director of the NEA’s development and planning department, wrote ahead of the plan’s release that the “continuous expansion” of China’s energy system has “dramatically increased its complexity”.
He said the NEA felt there was an “urgent need” to enhance the “secure and reliable” replacement of fossil-fuel power with new energy sources, as well as to ensure the system’s “ability to absorb them”.
Meanwhile, broader concerns around energy security have heightened calls for coal capacity to remain in the system as a “ballast stone”.
The plan continues to support the “clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels” and does not mention either a cap or peaking timeline for coal consumption.
Xi had previously told fellow world leaders that China would “strictly control” coal-fired power and phase down coal consumption in the 15th five-year plan period.
The “geopolitical situation is increasing energy security concerns” at all levels of government, said the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress in a note responding to the draft plan, adding that this was creating “uncertainty over coal reduction”.
Ahead of its publication, there were questions around whether the plan would set a peaking deadline for oil and coal. An article posted by state news agency Xinhua last month, examining recommendations for the plan from top policymakers, stated that coal consumption would plateau from “around 2027”, while oil would peak “around 2026”.
However, the plan does not lay out exact years by which the two fossil fuels should peak, only saying that China will “promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
There are similarly no mentions of phasing out coal in general, in line with existing policy.
Nevertheless, there is a heavy emphasis on retrofitting coal-fired power plants. The plan calls for the establishment of “demonstration projects” for coal-plant retrofitting, such as through co-firing with biomass or “green ammonia”.
Such retrofitting could incentivise lower utilisation of coal plants – and thus lower emissions – if they are used to flexibly meet peaks in demand and to cover gaps in clean-energy output, instead of providing a steady and significant share of generation.
The plan also calls for officials to “fully implement low-carbon retrofitting projects for coal-chemical industries”, which have been a notable source of emissions growth in the past year.
However, the coal-chemicals sector will likely remain a key source of demand for China’s coal mining industry, with coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases listed as a “key area” for enhancing the country’s “security capabilities”.
Meanwhile, coal-fired boilers and industrial kilns in the paper industry, food processing and textiles should be replaced with “clean” alternatives to the equivalent of 30m tonnes of coal consumption per year, it says.
“China continues to scale up clean energy at an extraordinary pace, but the plan still avoids committing to strong measurable constraints on emissions or fossil fuel use”, says Joseph Dellatte, head of energy and climate studies at the Institut Montaigne. He adds:
“The logic remains supply-driven: deploy massive amounts of clean energy and assume emissions will eventually decline.”
How will China approach global climate governance in the next five years?
Meanwhile, clean-energy technologies continue to play a role in upgrading China’s economy, with several “new energy” sectors listed as key to its industrial policy.
Named sectors include smart EVs, “new solar cells”, new-energy storage, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy.
“China’s clean-technology development – rather than traditional administrative climate controls – is increasingly becoming the primary driver of emissions reduction,” says ASPI’s Li. He adds that strengthening China’s clean-energy sectors means “more closely aligning Beijing’s economic ambitions with its climate objectives”.
Analysis for Carbon Brief shows that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025, representing around 11% of China’s whole economy.
The continued support for these sectors in the draft five-year plan comes as the EU outlined its own measures intended to limit China’s hold on clean-energy industries, driven by accusations of “unfair competition” from Chinese firms.
China is unlikely to crack down on clean-tech production capacity, Dr Rebecca Nadin, director of the Centre for Geopolitics of Change at ODI Global, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“Beijing is treating overcapacity in solar and smart EVs as a strategic choice, not a policy error…and is prepared to pour investment into these sectors to cement global market share, jobs and technological leverage.”
Dellatte echoes these comments, noting that it is “striking” that the plan “barely addresses the issue of industrial overcapacity in clean technologies”, with the focus firmly on “scaling production and deployment”.
At the same time, China is actively positioning itself to be a prominent voice in climate diplomacy and a champion of proactive climate action.
This is clear from the first line in a section on providing “global public goods”. It says:
“As a responsible major country, China will play a more active role in addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
The plan notes that China will “actively participate in and steer [引领] global climate governance”, in line with the principle of “common,but differentiated responsibilities”.
This echoes similar language from last year’s government work report, Yao tells Carbon Brief, demonstrating a “clear willingness” to guide global negotiations. But she notes that this “remains an aspiration that’s yet to be made concrete”. She adds:
“China has always favored collective leadership, so its vision of leadership is never a lone one.”
The country will “deepen south-south cooperation on climate change”, the plan says. In an earlier section on “opening up”, it also notes that China will explore “new avenues for collaboration in green development” with global partners as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative”.
China is “doubling down” on a narrative that it is a “responsible major power” and “champion of south-south climate cooperation”, Nadin says, such as by “presenting its clean‑tech exports and finance as global public goods”. She says:
“China will arrive at future COPs casting itself as the indispensable climate leader for the global south…even though its new five‑year plan still puts growth, energy security and coal ahead of faster emissions cuts at home.”
What else does the plan cover?
The impact of extreme weather – particularly floods – remains a key concern in the plan.
China must “refine” its climate adaptation framework and “enhance its resilience to climate change, particularly extreme-weather events”, it says.
China also aims to “strengthen construction of a national water network” over the next five years in order to help prevent floods and droughts.
An article published a few days before the plan in the state-run newspaper China Daily noted that, “as global warming intensifies, extreme weather events – including torrential rains, severe convective storms, and typhoons – have become more frequent, widespread and severe”.
The plan also touches on critical minerals used for low-carbon technologies. These will likely remain a geopolitical flashpoint, with China saying it will focus during the next five years on “intensifying” exploration and “establishing” a reserve for critical minerals. This reserve will focus on “scarce” energy minerals and critical minerals, as well as other “advantageous mineral resources”.
Dellatte says that this could mean the “competition in the energy transition will increasingly be about control over mineral supply chains”.
Other low-carbon policies listed in the five-year plan include expanding coverage of China’s mandatory carbon market and further developing its voluntary carbon market.
China will “strengthen monitoring and control” of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, the plan says, as well as implementing projects “targeting methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons” in sectors such as coal mining, agriculture and chemicals.
This will create “capacity” for reducing emissions by 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, it adds.
Meanwhile, China will develop rules for carbon footprint accounting and push for internationally recognised accounting standards.
It will enhance reform of power markets over the next five years and improve the trading mechanism for green electricity certificates.
It will also “promote” adoption of low-carbon lifestyles and decarbonisation of transport, as well as working to advance electrification of freight and shipping.
The post Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?
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