China’s first road map to achieving net zero emissions by 2060 may be too slow to stop the world’s biggest polluter from hastening global warming.
Thousands of Chinese delegates applauded when Premier Li Keqiang stood in the Great Hall in Beijing at the start of the National Party Congress on Friday and said the country will act strongly on climate change. The country’s 14th five-year plan, released later that morning, was awash with ways to increase the use of renewable energy by 2025.
But when it came to greenhouse-gas emissions — the key metric that will determine whether the world reins in a global temperature increase — Friday’s announcements were disappointing. Beijing didn’t set a hard target for the emissions, nor did it bring forward from 2030 the date it expects them to peak. The only carbon goal announced — reducing emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 18% over five years — was the same as in 2016.