The 30th UN Climate Change Conference takes place in Belém, Brazil, from November 10 to 21. This year is the 10th anniversary of the milestone Paris Agreement, as well as the deadline for all countries to submit their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), making the conference a crucial juncture in addressing global climate change. The Paris Agreement, a pact reached by nearly 200 nations in 2015, aims to keep the rise in global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In a video address to the UN Climate Summit on September 24, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China's new round of NDCs: China will, by 2035, reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10 percent from peak levels, striving to do better; increase the share of non-fossil fuels in total energy consumption to over 30 percent; expand the installed capacity of wind and solar power to over six times the 2020 levels, bringing the total to 3,600 gigawatts; scale up the total forest stock volume to over 24 billion cubic meters; make new-energy vehicles the mainstream in the sales of new vehicles; expand the National Carbon Emissions Trading Market to cover major high-emission sectors; and largely establish a climate adaptive society. 

Compared with past targets China submitted in 2015 and 2020, this new round of NDCs include for the first time greenhouse gases across all economic sectors, indicating that China's climate governance has moved beyond carbon emission control and shifted to the broader field of sustainable development.

Climate change is one of the most severe challenges facing humanity today, and actively responding to it is a global consensus. China has made significant contributions to addressing climate change. In 2005, Xi proposed the idea that "green is gold." Over the past 20 years, it has become a consensus of the entire Chinese society. China's energy consumption per unit of GDP dropped 11.6 percent between 2020 and 2024, equivalent to a reduction of 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, making it one of the countries with the fastest decline in energy intensity in the world.

Increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in total energy consumption to over 30 percent by 2035 is a key goal in China's new round of NDCs. In 2024, the share of non-fossil fuels in the country's total energy consumption was 19.8 percent, and this figure needs to increase by at least 10 percentage points in the next 10 years. This commitment indicates that China will make significant progress in the installed capacity of clean energy in the future. A total forest stock volume of over 24 billion cubic meters by 2035 may be the most achievable of the targets. In 2024, China's forest coverage rate exceeded 25 percent, and the forest stock volume was over 20 billion cubic meters. The country's National Carbon Emissions Trading Market, launched in 2021, aims to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through market mechanisms and is already the world's largest. In 2025, China officially extended the market for the first time to include the cement, steel and aluminum industries instead of merely covering the coal-fired power generation industry. In the future, the carbon trading market will be further expanded to cover other major high-emission industries.

While independently addressing global climate change, China has intensified cooperation with the international community, actively participating in global climate governance and promoting the signing and implementation of the Paris Agreement. Through South-South cooperation on climate change, China has provided financial, technological and capacity-building support to other developing countries.

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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