President Xi Jinping has personally pledged to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
This is China’s third pledge under the Paris Agreement, but is the first to put firm constraints on the country’s emissions by setting an “absolute” target to reduce them.
China’s leader spoke via video to a UN climate summit in New York organised by secretary general António Guterres, making comments seen as a “veiled swipe” at US president Donald Trump.
The headline target, with its undefined peak-year baseline, falls “far short” of what would have been needed to help limit warming to well-below 2C or 1.5C, according to experts.
Moreover, Xi’s pledge for non-fossil fuels to make up 30% of China’s energy is far below the latest forecasts, while his goal for wind and solar capacity to reach 3,600 gigawatts (GW) implies a significant slowdown, relative to recent growth.
Overall, the targets for China’s new 2035 “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) under the Paris Agreement have received a lukewarm response, described as “conservative”, “too weak” and as not reflecting the pace of clean-energy expansion on the ground.
Nevertheless, Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), tells Carbon Brief that the pledge marks a “big psychological jump for the Chinese”, shifting from targets that constrained emissions growth to a requirement to cut them.
Below, Carbon Brief unpacks what China’s new targets mean for its emissions and energy use, pending further details once its full NDC is formally published in full.
Carbon Brief is hosting a webinar about China’s new climate goals on Monday. Register here.
- What is in China’s new climate pledge?
- What is China’s first ‘absolute’ emissions reduction target?
- What has China pledged on non-fossil energy, coal and renewables?
- What does China say about non-CO2 emissions?
What is in China’s new climate pledge?
For now, the only available information on China’s 2035 NDC is the short series of pledges in Xi’s speech to the UN.
(This article will be updated once the NDC itself is published on the UN’s website.)
Xi’s speech is the first time his country has promised to place an absolute limit on its greenhouse gas emissions, marking a significant shift in approach.
Xi had previously pledged that China would peak its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions “before 2030”, without defining at what level, reaching “carbon neutrality” by 2060.
He also outlined a handful of other key targets for 2035, shown in the table below against the goals set in previous NDCs.
| Indicators | Targets for 2035 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| First NDC (2016) | NDC 2.0 (2021) | NDC 3.0 (2025) | |
| Emissions target | Peak CO2 “around 2030”, “making best efforts to peak early” | Peak CO2 “before 2030” and “achieve carbon neutrality before 2060” | Cut GHGs to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035 |
| CO2 intensity reduction (compared to 2005) | 60-65% | >65% | – |
| Non-fossil share in primary energy mix | Around 20% | Around 25% | 30% |
| Forest stock volume increase (compared to 2005) | Around 4.5bn cubic metres | 6bn cubic metres | 11bn cubic metres |
| Installed capacity of wind and solar power | – | >1,200GW | >3,600GW |
In his speech, Xi also said that, by 2035, “new energy vehicles” would be the “mainstream” for new vehicle sales, China’s national carbon market would cover all “major high-emission industries” and that a “climate-adaptive society” would be “basically established”.
This is the first time that China’s targets will cover the entire economy and all greenhouse gases (GHGs), a move that has been long signalled by Chinese policymakers.
In 2023, the joint China-US Sunnylands statement, released during the Biden administration, had said that both countries’ 2035 NDCs “will be economy-wide, include all GHGs and reflect…[the goal of] holding the increase in global average temperature to well-below 2C”.
Subsequently, the world’s first global stocktake, issued at COP28 in Dubai, “encourage[d]” all countries to submit “ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all GHGs, sectors and categories…aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5C”.
Responding to this the following year, executive vice-premier and climate lead Ding Xuexiang stated at COP29 in Baku that China’s 2035 climate pledge would be economy-wide and cover all GHGs. (His remarks did not mention alignment with 1.5C.)
This was reiterated by Xi at a climate meeting between world leaders in April 2025.
The absolute target for all greenhouse gases marks a turning point in China’s emissions strategy. Until now, China’s emissions targets have largely focused on carbon intensity, the emissions per unit of GDP, a metric that does not directly constrain emissions as a whole.
The change aligns with China’s broader shift from “dual control of energy” towards “dual control of carbon”, a policy that replaces China’s current tradition of setting targets for energy intensity and total energy consumption, with carbon intensity and carbon emissions.
Under the policy, in the 15th five-year plan period (2026-2030), China will continue to centre carbon intensity as its main metric for emissions reduction. After 2030, an absolute cap on carbon emissions will become the predominant target.
What is China’s first ‘absolute’ emissions reduction target?
In his UN address, Xi pledged to cut China’s “economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions” to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
This means the target includes not just CO2, but also methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) and F-gases, all of which make significant contributions to global warming. (See: What does China say about non-CO2 emissions?)
The reference to “economy-wide net” emissions means that the target refers to the total of China’s emissions, from all sources, minus removals, which could come from natural sources, such as afforestation, or via “carbon dioxide removal” technologies.
Outlining the targets, Xi told the UN summit that they represented China’s “best efforts, based on the requirements of the Paris Agreement”. He added:
“Meeting these targets requires both painstaking efforts by China itself and a supportive and open international environment. We have the resolve and confidence to deliver on our commitments.”
China has a reputation for under-promising and over-delivering.
Prof Wang Zhongying, director-general of the Energy Research Institute, a Chinese government-affilitated thinktank, told Carbon Brief in an interview at COP26 that China’s policy targets represent a “bottom line”, which the policymakers are “definitely certain” about meeting. He views this as a “cultural difference”, relative to other countries.
The headline target announced by Xi this week has, nevertheless, been seen as falling far short of what was needed.
A series of experts had previously told Carbon Brief that a 30% reduction from 2023 levels was the absolute minimum contribution towards a 1.5C global limit, with many pointing to much larger reductions in order to be fully aligned with the 1.5C target.
The figure below illustrates how China’s 2035 target stacks up against these levels.
(Note that the timing and level of peak emissions is not defined by China’s targets. The pledge trajectory is constrained by China’s previous targets for carbon intensity and expected GDP growth, as well as the newly announced 7-10% range. It is based on total emissions, excluding removals, which are more uncertain.)
Analysis by the Asia Society Policy Institute also found that China’s GHG emissions “must be reduced by at least 30% from the peak through 2035” in order to align with 1.5C warming.
It said that this level of ambition was achievable, due to China’s rapid clean-energy buildout and signs that the nation’s emissions may have already reached a peak.
Similarly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last October that implementing the collective goals of the first stocktake – such as tripling renewables by 2030 – as well as aligning near-term efforts with long-term net-zero targets, implied emissions cuts of 35-60% by 2035 for emerging market economies, a grouping that includes China.
In response to these sorts of numbers, Teng Fei, deputy director of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, previously described a 30% by 2035 target as “extreme”, telling Agence France-Presse that this would be “too ambitious to be achievable”, given uncertainties around China’s current development trajectory.
In contrast, a January 2025 academic study, co-authored by researchers from Chinese government institutions and top universities and understood to have been influential in Beijing’s thinking, argued for a pledge to cut energy-related CO2 emissions “by about 10% compared with 2030”, estimating that emissions would peak “between 2028 and 2029”.
(Other assessments have pegged relevant indicators, such as emissions and coal consumption, as peaking in 2028 at the earliest.)
The relatively modest emissions reduction range pledged by Xi, as well as the uncertainty introduced by avoiding a definitive baseline year, has disappointed analysts.
In a note responding to Xi’s pledges, Li Shuo and his ASPI colleague Kate Logan write that he has “misse[d] a chance at leadership”.
Li tells Carbon Brief that factors behind the modest target include the “domestic economic slowdown and uncertain economic prospects, the weakening global climate momentum and the turbulent geopolitical environment”. He adds:
“I also think it is a big psychological jump for the Chinese, shifting for the first time after decades of rapid growth, from essentially climate targets that meant to contain further increase to all of a sudden a target that forces emissions to go down.”
Instead of a target consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C, China’s 2035 pledge is more closely aligned with 3C of warming, according to analysis by CREA’s Lauri Myllyirta.
Climate Action Tracker says that China’s target is “unlikely to drive down emissions”, because it was already set to achieve similar reductions under current policies.
What has China pledged on non-fossil energy, coal and renewables?
In addition to a headline emissions reduction target, Xi also pledged to expand non-fossil fuels as a share of China’s energy mix and to continue the rollout of wind and solar power.
This continues the trend in China’s previous NDC.
Notably, however, Xi made no mention of efforts to control coal in his speech.
In its second NDC, focused on 2030, China had pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects”, as well as “strictly limit” coal consumption between 2021-2025 and “phase it down” between 2026-2030. It also said China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad”.
It remains to be seen if coal is addressed in China’s full NDC for 2035.
The 2030 NDC also stated that China would “increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25%” – and Xi has updated this to 30% by 2035.
These targets are shown in the figure below, alongside recent forecasts from the Sinopec Economics and Development Research Institute, which estimated that non-fossil fuel energy could account for 27% of primary energy consumption in 2030 and 36% in 2035.
As such, China’s targets for non-fossil energy are less ambitious than the levels implied by current expectations for growth in low-carbon sources.
In a recent meeting with the National People’s Congress Standing Committee – the highest body of China’s state legislature – environment minister Huang Runqiu said that progress on China’s earlier target for increasing non-fossil energy’s share of energy consumption was “broadly in line” with the “expected pace” of the 2030 NDC.
On wind and solar, China’s 2030 NDC had pledged to raise installed capacity to more than 1,200GW – a target that analysts at the time told Carbon Brief was likely to be beaten. It was duly met six years early, with capacity standing at 1,680GW as of the end of July 2025.
Xi has set a 2035 target of reaching 3,600GW of wind and solar capacity.
This looks ambitious, relative to other countries and global capacity of around 3,000GW in total as of 2024, but represents a significant slowdown from the recent pace of growth.
Given its current capacity, China would need to install around 200GW of new wind and solar per year and 2,000GW in total to reach the 2035 target. Yet it installed 360GW in 2024 and 212GW of solar alone in the first half of this year.
Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief this pace of additions is “not enough to even peak emissions [in the power sector] unless energy demand growth slows significantly”.
While the pace of demand growth is a key uncertainty, a recent study by Michael R Davidson, associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, with colleagues at Tsinghua University, suggested that deploying 2,910-3,800GW of wind and solar by 2035 would be consistent with a 2C warming pathway.
Davidson tells Carbon Brief that “most experts within China do not see the [recent] 300+GW per year growth as sustainable”. Still, he adds that the lower levels outlined in his study could be consistent with cutting power-sector emissions 40% by 2035, subject to caveats around whether new capacity is well-sited and appropriately integrated:
“We found that 40% emissions reductions in the power sector can be supported by 3,000-3,800GW wind and solar capacity [by 2035]. Most of the capacity modeling really depends on integration and quality of resources.”
Renewable energy’s share of consumption in China has lagged behind its record capacity installations, largely due to challenges with updating grid infrastructure and economic incentives that lock in coal-fired power.
In Davidson’s study, capacity growth of up to 3,800GW would see wind and solar reaching around 40% of total power generation by 2030 and 50% by 2035.
Meanwhile, China will need to install around 10,000GW of wind and solar capacity to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, according to a separate report by the Energy Research Institute, a Chinese government-affilitated thinktank.
What does China say about non-CO2 emissions?
This is the first time that one of China’s NDC pledges has explicitly covered the emissions from non-CO2 GHGs.
However, while Xi’s speech made clear that China’s headline emissions goal for 2035 will cover non-CO2 gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and F-gases, he did not give further details on whether the NDC would set specific targets for these emissions.
In China’s 2030 NDC, the country stated it would “step up the control of key non-CO2 GHG emissions”, including through new control policies, but did not include a quantitative emissions reduction target.
In preparation for a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions target, China has issued action plans for methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs, one type of F-gas) and nitrous oxide.
The nitrous oxide action plan, published earlier this month, called for emissions per unit of production for specific chemicals to decrease to a “world-leading level” by 2030, but did not set overarching limits.
Similarly, the overarching methane action plan, issued in late 2023, listed several key tasks for reducing emissions in the energy, agriculture and waste sectors, but lacked numerical targets for emissions reduction.
A subsequent rule change in December 2024 tightened waste gas requirements for coal mines. Under the new rules, Reuters reports, any coal mine that releases “emissions with methane content of 8% or higher” must capture the gas, and either use or destroy it – down from a previous threshold of 30%.
But analysts believe that the true challenge of coal-mine methane emissions may come from abandoned mines, which, one study found, have surged in the past 10 years and will likely overtake emissions from active coal mines to become the prime source of methane emissions in the coal sector.
As the demand for coal could be facing a “structural decline”, the number of abandoned mines is expected to grow significantly.
Meanwhile, the HFC plan did set quantitative targets. The country aims to lower HFC production by 2029 by 10% from a 2024 baseline of 2GtCO2e, while consumption would also be reduced 10% from a baseline of 0.9gtCO2e in this timeframe – in line with China’s obligations under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on ozone protection.
From 2026, China will “prohibit” the production of fridges and freezers using HFC refrigerants.
However, the action plan does not govern China’s exports of products that use HFCs – a significant source of emissions.
The post Q&A: What does China’s new Paris Agreement pledge mean for climate action? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does China’s new Paris Agreement pledge mean for climate action?
Greenhouse Gases
Ricky Bradley named Citizens’ Climate Executive Director after strategic and legislative progress during interim leadership role
Ricky Bradley named Citizens’ Climate Executive Director after strategic and legislative progress during interim leadership role
Dec. 22, 2025 – After a six month interim period, Ricky Bradley has been appointed Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Citizens’ Climate Education. The decision was made by the CCL and CCE boards of directors in a unanimous vote during their final joint board meeting of 2025.
“Citizens’ Climate Lobby is fortunate to have someone with Ricky Bradley’s experience, commitment, and demeanor to lead the organization,” said CCL board chair Bill Blancato. “I can’t think of anyone with as much knowledge about CCL and its mission who is held in such high regard by CCL’s staff and volunteers.”
Bradley has been active with Citizens’ Climate for more than 13 years. Prior to his former roles as Interim Executive Director and Vice President of Field Operations, he has also served as a volunteer Group Leader and volunteer Regional Coordinator, all of which ground him in Citizens’ Climate’s grassroots model. Bradley has also led strategic planning and implementation efforts at HSBC, helping a large team adopt new approaches and deliver on big organizational goals.
“We are confident that Ricky has the skills to guide CCL during a challenging time for organizations trying to make a difference on climate change,” Blancato added.
Since stepping into the Interim Executive Director role in July 2025, Bradley has led Citizens’ Climate through a season of high volunteer engagement and effective advocacy on Capitol Hill. Under his leadership, CCL staff and volunteers organized a robust virtual lobby week with 300+ constituent meetings, despite an extended government shutdown, and executed a targeted mobilization to support the bipartisan passage of climate-friendly forestry legislation through the Senate Agriculture Committee.
“We have heard nothing but glowing descriptions of Ricky’s ability as a leader, as a manager, and as a team player,” said CCE board chair Dr. Sandra Kirtland Turner. “We’ve been absolutely thrilled with how Ricky’s brought the team together over the last six months to deliver on a new strategic plan for the organization.”
The strategic plan, which launched during CCL’s Fall Conference in November, details Citizens’ Climate’s unique role in the climate advocacy space, its theory of change for effectively moving federal climate legislation forward, and its strategic goals for 2026.
“Ricky has the heart of a CCLer and the strategic chops to take us into the next chapter as an organization,” Dr. Kirtland Turner said.
Bradley shared his vision for that next chapter in his conference opening remarks last month and, most recently, during the organization’s December monthly meeting.
“There’s a lot that we don’t control in today’s politics, but we do know who we are. The power of our persistent, nonpartisan advocacy is unmistakable,” Bradley said. “If we stay true to that, deepen our skills, and walk forward together, I know we’re going to meet this moment and deliver real results for the climate.”
CONTACT: Flannery Winchester, CCL Vice President of Marketing and Communications, 615-337-3642, flannery@citizensclimate.org
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Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. Learn more at citizensclimatelobby.org.
The post Ricky Bradley named Citizens’ Climate Executive Director after strategic and legislative progress during interim leadership role appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 19 December 2025: EU’s petrol car U-turn; Trump to axe ‘leading’ research lab; What climate scientists are reading
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
EU easing up
HITTING THE BREAKS: The EU “walked back” its target to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2035, “permitting some new combustion engine cars”, reported Agence-France Presse. Under the original plan, the bloc would have had to cut emissions entirely by 2035 on new vehicles, but will now only have to cut emissions by 90% by that date, compared to 2021 levels. However, according to the Financial Times, some car manufacturers have “soured” on the reversal.
ADJUSTING CBAM: Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the EU is making plans to “close loopholes” in the bloc’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) before it goes into effect in January. CBAM is set to be the world’s first carbon border tax and has drawn ire from key trading partners. The EU has also finalised a plan to delay its anti-deforestation legislation for another year, according to Carbon Pulse.
Around the world
- NCAR NO MORE: The Trump administration is moving to “dismantle” the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said USA Today, describing it as “one of the world’s leading climate research labs”.
- DEADLY FLOODS: The deadliest flash flooding in Morocco in a decade killed “at least” 37 people, while residents accused the government of “ignoring known flood risks and failing to maintain basic infrastructure”, reported Radio France Internationale.
- FAILING GRADE: The past year was the “warmest and wettest” ever recorded in the Arctic, with implications for “global sea level rise, weather patterns and commercial fisheries”, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2025 Arctic report card, covered by NPR.
- POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Reuters reported that Kenya signed a $311m agreement with an African infrastructure fund and India’s Power Grid Corporation for the “construction of two high-voltage electricity transmission lines” that could provide power for millions of people.
- BP’S NEW EXEC: BP has appointed Woodside Energy Group’s Meg O’Neill as its new chief executive amid a “renewed push to…double down on oil and gas after retreating from an ambitious renewables strategy”, said Reuters.
29
The number of consecutive years in which the Greenland ice sheet has experienced “continuous annual ice loss”, according to a Carbon Brief guest post.
Latest climate research
- Up to 4,000 glaciers could “disappear” per year during “peak glacier extinction”, projected to occur sometime between 2041 and 2055 | Nature Climate Change
- The rate of sea level rise across the coastal US doubled over the past century | AGU Advances
- Repression and criminalisation of climate and environmentally focused protests are a “global phenomena”, according to an analysis of 14 countries | Environmental Politics
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The latest coal market report from the International Energy Agency said that global coal use will reach record levels in 2025, but will decline by the end of the decade. Carbon Brief analysis of the report found that projected coal use in China for 2027 has been revised downwards by 127m tonnes, compared to the projection from the 2024 report – “more than cancelling out the effects of the Trump administration’s coal-friendly policies in the US”.
Spotlight
What climate scientists are curious about
This week, Carbon Brief spoke to climate scientists attending the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, Louisiana, about the most interesting research papers they read this year.
Their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Dr Christopher Callahan, assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington
The most interesting research paper I read was a simple thought experiment asking when we would have known humans were changing the climate if we had always had perfect observations. The authors show that we could have detected a human influence on the climate as early as the 1880s, since we have a strong physical understanding of how those changes should look. This paper both highlights that we have been discernibly changing the climate for centuries and emphasises the importance of the modern climate observing network – a network that is currently threatened by budget cuts and staff shortages.
Prof Lucy Hutyra, distinguished professor at Boston University
The most interesting paper I read was in Nature Climate Change, where the researchers looked at how much mortality was associated with cold weather versus hot weather events and found that many more people died during cold weather events. Then, they estimated how much of a protective factor in the urban heat island is on those winter deaths and suggested that the winter benefits exceed the summer risks of mitigating extreme heat, so perhaps we shouldn’t mitigate extreme heat in cities.
This paper got me in a tizzy…It spurred an exciting new line of research. We’ll be publishing a response to this paper in 2026. I’m not sure their conclusion was correct, but it raised really excellent questions.
Dr Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central
This year was when we saw source attribution studies, such as Chris Callahan‘s, really start to break through and be able to connect the emissions of specific emitters…to the impact of those emissions through heat or some other sort of damage function. [This] is really game-changing.
What [Callahan’s] paper showed is that the emissions of individual companies have an impact on extreme heat, which then has an impact on the GDP of the countries experiencing that extreme heat. And so, for the first time, you can really say: “Company X caused this condition which then led to this economic damage.”
Dr Antonia Hadjimichael, assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University
It was about interdisciplinary work – not that anything in it is ground-shakingly new, but it was a good conversation around interdisciplinary teams and what makes them work and what doesn’t make them work. And what I really liked about it is that they really emphasise the role of a connector – the scientist that navigates this space in between and makes sure that the things kind of glue together…The reason I really like this paper is that we don’t value those scientists in academia, in traditional metrics that we have.
Dr Santiago Botía, researcher at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
The most interesting paper I’ve read this year was about how soil fertility and water table depth control the response to drought in the Amazon. They found very nicely how the proximity to soil water controls the anomalies in gross primary productivity in the Amazon. And, with that methodology, they could explain the response of recent droughts and the “greening” of the forest during drought, which is kind of a counterintuitive [phenomenon], but it was very interesting.
Dr Gregory Johnson, affiliate professor at the University of Washington
This article explores the response of a fairly coarse spatial resolution climate model…to a scenario in which atmospheric CO2 is increased at 1% a year to doubling and then CO2 is more gradually removed from the atmosphere…[It finds] a large release of heat from the Southern Ocean, with substantial regional – and even global – climate impacts. I find this work interesting because it reminds us of the important – and potentially nonlinear – roles that changing ocean circulation and water properties play in modulating our climate.
Cecilia Keating also contributed to this spotlight.
Watch, read, listen
METHANE MATTERS: In the Guardian, Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley wrote that the world must “urgently target methane” to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
CLIMATE WRAPPED: Grist summarised the major stories for Earth’s climate in 2025 – “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
COASTING: On the Coastal Call podcast, a biogeochemist spoke about “coastal change and community resilience” in the eastern US’s Long Island Sound.
Coming up
- 27 December: Cote D’Ivoire parliamentary elections
- 28 December: Central African Republic presidential and parliamentary elections
- 28 December: Guinean presidential election
Pick of the jobs
- BirdLife International, forest programme administrator | Salary: £28,000-£30,000. Location: Cambridge, UK
- World Resources Institute, power-sector transition senior manager | Salary: $116,000-$139,000. Location: Washington DC
- Fauna & Flora, operations lead for Liberia | Salary: $61,910. Location: Monrovia, Liberia
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 19 December 2025: EU’s petrol car U-turn; Trump to axe ‘leading’ research lab; What climate scientists are reading appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Electric vehicles (EVs) now account for more than one-in-four car sales around the world, but the next phase is likely to depend on government action – not just technological change.
That is the conclusion of a new report from the Centre for Net Zero, the Rocky Mountain Institute and the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.
Our report shows that falling battery costs, expanding supply chains and targeted policy will continue to play important roles in shifting EVs into the mass market.
However, these are incremental changes and EV adoption could stall without efforts to ensure they are affordable to buy, to boost charging infrastructure and to integrate them into power grids.
Moreover, emerging tax and regulatory changes could actively discourage the shift to EVs, despite their benefits for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, air quality and running costs.
This article sets out the key findings of the new report, including a proposed policy framework that could keep the EV transition on track.
A global tipping point
Technology transformations are rarely linear, as small changes in cost, infrastructure or policy can lead to outsized progress – or equally large reversals.
The adoption of new technologies tends to follow a similar pathway, often described by an “S-curve”. This is divided into distinct phases, from early uptake, with rapid growth from very low levels, through to mass adoption and, ultimately, market saturation.
However, technologies that depend on infrastructure display powerful “path-dependency”, meaning decisions and processes made early within the rollout can lock in rapid growth, but equally, stagnation can also become entrenched, too.
EVs are now moving beyond the early-adopter phase and beginning to enter mass diffusion. There are nearly 60m on the road today, according to the International Energy Agency, up from just 1.2m a decade ago.
Technological shifts of this scale can unfold faster than expected. Early in the last century in the US, for example, millions of horses and mules virtually disappeared from roads in under three decades, as shown in the chart below left.
Yet the pace of these shifts is not fixed and depends on the underlying technology, economics, societal norms and the extent of government support for change. Faster or slower pathways for EV adoption are illustrated in the chart below right.
Internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles did not prevail in becoming the dominant mode of transport through technical superiority alone. They were backed by massive public investment in roads, city planning, zoning and highway expansion funded by fuel taxes.
Meanwhile, they faced few penalties for pollution and externalities, benefitting from implicit subsidies over cleaner alternatives. Standardisation, industrial policy and wartime procurement further entrenched the ICE.
EVs are well-positioned to follow a faster trajectory, as they directly substitute ICE vehicles while being cleaner, cheaper and quieter to run.
Past transitions show that like-for-like replacements – such as black-and-white to colour TVs – tend to diffuse faster than entirely novel products.
Late adopters also benefit from cost reductions and established norms. For example, car ownership took 60 years to diffuse across the US, but just 20 years in parts of Latin America and Japan.
In today’s globalised economy, knowledge, capital and supply chains travel faster still. Our research suggests that the global EV shift could be achieved within decades, not half a century.
Yet without decisive policy, investment and coordination, feedback loops could slow, locking in fossil-fuel dependence.
Our research suggests that further supporting the widespread deployment of EVs hangs on three interlinked actions: supporting adoption; integrating with clean electricity systems; and ensuring sustainability across supply chains and new mobility systems.
Closing the cost gap
EVs have long offered lower running costs than ICE vehicles, but upfront costs – while now cost-competitive in China, parts of Europe and in growing second-hand markets – remain a major barrier to adoption in most regions.
While battery costs have fallen sharply – lithium-ion battery packs fell by 20% in 2024 alone – this has not fully translated into lower retail vehicle prices for consumers.
In China, a 30% fall in battery prices in 2024 translated into a 10% decline in electric SUV prices. However, in Germany, EV retail prices rose slightly in 2024 despite a 20% drop in battery costs.
These discrepancies reflect market structures rather than cost fundamentals. Our report suggests that a competitive EV market, supported by transparent pricing and a strong second-hand sector, can help unlock cost parity in more markets.
Beyond the sale of EVs, government policy around running costs, such as fuel duty, has the potential to disincentivse EV adoption.
For example, New Zealand’s introduction of road-pricing for EVs contributed to a collapse in registrations from nearly 19% of sales in December 2023 to around 4% in January 2024.
EV-specific fees have also been introduced in a number of US states. Last month, the UK also announced a per-mile charge for EVs – but not ICEs – from 2028.
Addressing the loss of fuel-duty revenue as EVs replace ICE vehicles is a headache for any government seeking to electrify mobility.
However, to avoid slowing diffusion, new revenues could be used to build out new charging infrastructure, just as road-building was funded as the ICE vehicle was scaling up.
While subsidies to support upfront costs can help enable EV adoption, the best approach to encouraging uptake is likely to shift once the sector moves into a phase of mass diffusion.
Targeted support, alongside innovative financing models to broaden access, from blended finance to pay-as-you-drive schemes, could play a greater role in ensuring lower-income drivers and second-hand buyers are not left behind.
Mandates as engines of scale
Zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandates and ICE phase-out deadlines can reduce costs more effectively than alternatives by guaranteeing market scale, our research finds, reducing uncertainty for automakers and pushing learning rates forward through faster production.
California’s ZEV mandate was one of the first in the 1990s, a policy that has since been adopted by ten other US states and the UK.
China’s NEV quota system has produced the world’s fastest-growing EV market, while, in Norway, clear targets and consistent incentives mean EVs now account for nearly all of new car sales. These “technology-forcing” policies have proved highly effective.
Analyses consistently show that the long-run societal benefits of sales mandates for EVs far outweigh their compliance costs.
For example, the UK’s ZEV mandate has an estimated social net present value of £39bn, according to the government, driven largely by emissions reductions and lower running costs for consumers.
Benefits can also extend beyond national borders. For example, California’s “advanced clean cars II” regulations – adopted by a number of US states and an influence on other countries – have been instrumental in compelling US automakers to develop and commercialise EVs, which can, in turn, trigger innovation and scale to reduce costs worldwide.
Research suggests that, where possible, combining mandates and incentives creates further synergies: mandates alleviate supply-side constraints, making subsidies more effective on the demand side.
Public charging: a critical bottleneck
Public charging is one of the most significant impediments to EV adoption today.
Whereas EVs charged at home are substantially cheaper to run than ICE vehicles, higher public charging costs can erase this benefit – in the UK, this can be up to times the home equivalent.
While most homes in the UK, for example, do have access to off-street parking, there are large swathes of low-income and urban households without access to private driveways. For these households, a lack of cheap public charging has been described as a de facto “pavement tax”, which is disincentivising EV adoption and resulting in an inequitable transition.
Our research shows that a dual-track charging strategy could help resolve the situation. Expanding access to private charging – through cross-pavement cabling, “right-to-charge” legislation for renters and planning mandates for new developments could be combined with strategic investment in public charging, to overcome the “chicken-and-egg” problem for investors uncertain about future EV demand.
Meanwhile, “smart charging” in public settings – where EV demand is matched with cheaper electricity supply – can also help close the affordability gap, by delivering cheap off-peak charging that is already available to those charging at home.
The Centre for Net Zero’s research shows that drivers respond to dynamic pricing outside of the convenience of their homes, which reduces EV running costs below those of petrol cars.
The figure below shows that, while the level of discount being offered had the strongest impact, lower-income areas showed the largest behavioural response, indicating that they may stand to gain the most from a rollout of such incentives.
Our research suggests that policymakers could encourage this type of commercial offering by creating electricity markets with strong price signals and mandating that these prices are transparent to consumers.
Integrating with clean electricity grids
Electrification is central to decarbonising the world’s economies, meaning that sufficient capacity on electricity networks is becoming a key focus.
For the rollout of EVs, pressure will be felt most on low-voltage “distribution” networks, where charging is dispersed and tends to follow existing peaks and troughs in domestic demand.
Rather than responding to this challenge by just building out the grid – with the corresponding economic and political implications – making smart charging the norm could help mitigate pressure on the network.
Evidence from the Centre for Net Zero’s trials shows that AI-managed charging can shift EV demand off-peak, reducing residential peak load by 42%, as shown in the chart below.
Additionally, the amount of time when EVs are plugged in but not moving is often substantial, giving networks hours each day in which they can shift charging, targeting periods of low demand or high renewable output.
The system value of this flexible charging is significant. In the UK, managed charging could absorb 15 terrawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity that would otherwise be curtailed by 2030 – equivalent to Slovenia’s entire annual consumption.
For these benefits to be realised, our research suggests that global policymakers may need to mandate interoperability across vehicles, chargers and platforms, introduce dynamic network charges that reflect local grid stress and support AI-enabled automation.
Bi-directional charging – which allows EVs to export electricity to the grid, becoming decentralised, mobile storage units – remains underexploited. This could allow EVs to contribute to the capacity of the grid, helping with frequency and providing voltage support at both local and system levels.
The nascency of such vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology means that penetration is currently limited, but there are some markets that are further ahead.
For example, Utrecht is an early leader in real-world V2G deployment in a context of significant grid congestion, while Japan is exploring the use of V2G for system resilience, providing backup power during outages. China is also exploring V2G systems.
Our research shows that if just 25% of vehicles across six major European nations had V2G functionality, then the theoretical total capacity of the connected vehicles would exceed each of those country’s fossil-fuel power fleet.
Mandating V2G readiness at new chargepoints, aligning the value of exports with the value to the system and allowing aggregators to pool capacity from multiple EVs, could all help take V2G from theory to reality.
A sustainable EV system
It is important to note that electrification alone does not guarantee sustainability.
According to Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) analysis, the total weight of ore needed to electrify the world’s road transport system is around 1,410mtonnes (Mt). This is 40% less than the 2,150Mt of oil extracted every year to fuel a combustion-based system. EVs concentrate resource use upfront, rather than locking in fossil-fuel extraction.
Moreover, several strategies can reduce reliance on virgin minerals, including recycling, new chemistries and improved efficiency.
Recycling, in particular, is progressing rapidly. Some 90% of lithium-ion batteries could now be recycled in some regions, according to RMI research. Under an accelerated scenario, nearly all demand could be met through recycling before 2050.
Finally, while our report focuses largely on EVs, it is important to highlight that they are not a “silver bullet” for decarbonising mobility.
Cities such as Seoul and New York have demonstrated that micromobility, public transport and street redesign can cut congestion, improve health and reduce the number of overall vehicles required.
Better system design reduces mineral demand, lowers network strain and broadens access.
The ‘decision decade’ ahead
Policy decisions made today will determine whether EVs accelerate into exponential growth or stall.
Our research suggests that governments intent on capturing the economic and environmental dividends of electrified mobility are likely to need coherent, cross-cutting policy frameworks that push the market up the steep climb of the EV S-curve.
The post Guest post: How to steer EVs towards the road of ‘mass adoption’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: How to steer EVs towards the road of ‘mass adoption’
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