China’s climate commitments at COP26: A half-empty, half-full glass

As home to almost one third (31.8%) of the global greenhouse gas emission in 2020, China is of utmost importance in the global fight against climate change. That is why China’ updated climate pledges?have attracted wide attention as they can?largely decide?the success of COP26. In this note, we summarize the major announcements made by China during COP26 to shed some light on its pathway towards decarbonization in the near to medium term

In the run-up to COP26, China finally released its?Action Plan for Carbon Dioxide Peaking Before 2030, detailing the specific targets to reach carbon peak. The plan also forms part of China’s updated National Determined Contribution (NDC). However, the plan still falls short of offering enough details on how it plans to achieve such targets, not even in the short-term. Also, it delays most of the efforts to the 15th Five-Year Plan timeframe, which means China will maintain its plan to reduce coal use only from 2026.

In terms of coal consumption, China, together with other G20 economies, announced to stop financing new coal-fired power projects abroad by the end of this year. However, China can still seek flexibilities through many other ways: First, investment in coal-fired plants can still grow domestically. In fact, coal production has been ramped up again in China as a response to the energy crunch that China is currently undergoing. Second, China, together with the US, decided not to sign the?Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement?that commits to phasing out coal power by 2040s. Most importantly, China endorsed India’s last-minute defense of coal in the final text of the?Glasgow Climate Pact, which watered down the wording on ending coal power from “phase out” to “phase down” and significantly weakened the pledge.

As for international cooperation, China surprisingly released a?Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s?with the US. The cooperation between the world’s two biggest emitters, together accounting for over 40% of global emission, signaled strong hopes for more climate agreements out of COP26. Most notably, the agreement mentions seven times the urgency of taking enhanced climate actions within 2020s - the critical decade thought to keep global average temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees within reach. This is important since longer-term goals would lose their credibility if short-term actions stated in the 2030 NDCs are not effectively implemented. However, the areas of cooperation remain vague, and China have not yet joined the global methane pledge initiated by the US.

In short, China has clearly increased its commitment, but it fell short of committing with more specific targets and still left some room to “fine-tune” its efforts, especially on coal consumption. Moving forward, the key is still on implementation, but the process of energy transition is bound to be bumpy for coal-reliant economies like China as showcased by the recent energy?crunch.