“China as a clean tech powerhouse chose to downplay its potential,” said Kaysie Brown, an associate director at climate change think-tank E3G.
Yao Zhe, the Beijing-based global policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia, said that “China is still well-positioned to lift global climate action. But this target falls short of many people’s expectations.”
An analysis from the Asia Society had said China would need a 30% emissions reduction by 2035 in order to make its 2060 carbon neutrality goal “achievable”.
Even with the new announcement, China’s climate policies remain contradictory - and the narrative about its role is still contested.
China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. Over the past decade, it has been responsible for 90% of the growth in global emissions, largely as a result of mass-scale industry and construction.
Yet at the same time, China is electrifying and building clean energy capacity at a breakneck pace.
Its dominance of the solar and electric vehicle industries is driving the energy transition worldwide.
“Is China the bad boy or the climate hero? We are exactly at that point where this very question is indeed a genuine one,” said Li Shuo, director of the China climate programme at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “We don’t have the answer yet.”
China’s new goals are part of a national-level climate plan that countries must submit every five years under the Paris Agreement.
These plans, known as nationally determined contributions, are the building blocks of the global plan to curb emissions, with ambition meant to increase with every iteration.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres had urged countries to craft plans that “go all-out on the energy transition”.
Few countries have responded decisively. The vast majority missed a February deadline to submit their plans.
The United States was among the few to meet the deadline - but the plan, released in the final weeks of the Biden Administration, has virtually no viability.
US President Donald Trump has since pulled the US from the Paris Agreement and rejected international co-operation on climate change.
Trump yesterday called global warming a “con job” in a United Nations address and described some European countries as being “on the brink of destruction” because of their “green agenda”.
China’s new commitment comes in response to a deadline extension by the UN, which urged countries to submit their plans before a September 24 climate event at the UN in New York.
Some experts and climate negotiators hope China can seize the leadership vacuum and present itself as a superpower that wants to capitalise on the green transition. China has also ramped up its spending for climate-related projects in developing countries.
Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the US retreat makes it easier for China to look good by comparison - even if it’s not doing enough to help the world meet its climate goals.
“The US going AWOL has lowered the bar for what will count as ambitious enough to qualify as sufficient,” said Myllyvirta, who closely tracks China’s emissions.
“If the US was at the top of its game, that would put more pressure on China to come up with something more impressive.”
Prior to today, China had committed to reach peak emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
It is almost certain to meet the first target; emissions are already plateauing. It also met - six years ahead of schedule - a target for ramping up renewable energy capacity.
China is badly off track on a target, set in a previous national climate plan, to reduce its carbon intensity by 65%, compared to 2005 levels. Carbon intensity measures emissions by unit of gross domestic product - and China’s economy hasn’t grown as much as anticipated.
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