China commits to cutting up to 10% of its climate pollution, short of the goal other countries sought of it

By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN

(CNN) — In a consequential move for the global climate, China committed Wednesday to reduce its planet-warming pollution by 7% to 10% from peak levels over the next decade. China’s new economy-wide goal takes on outsized importance given the country is both the biggest emitter of global warming pollutants and by far the dominant player in renewable energy around the world.

The goal, announced in a pre-recorded video by Chinese President Xi Jinping at a UN General Assembly climate meeting, falls far short of the 30% cuts the Biden administration had been pressing for. But China’s growth in renewable energy manufacturing and domestic deployment mean that it may overachieve — which it has done on previous goals.

Most recently, China gave itself until “around” 2030 to peak its climate pollution. Independent analysis shows it is likely this peak has already happened, five years ahead of schedule, and pollution is now starting to decline.

The international climate goals, while non-binding, provide a road map for climate action between now and 2035 — a critical decade for the world to get global warming under control or risk escalating consequences. China’s is arguably the most important; whatever the world’s most-polluting country does will determine the planet’s climate trajectory.

With the United States exiting the Paris Climate agreement a second time under President Donald Trump, many experts are expecting China to take on more of a leadership role at the annual climate summit, to be held this November in Brazil. The US is the world’s second-largest emitter.

Instead, the two countries are on sharply divergent paths with the Trump administration extolling the benefits of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Trump denied the reality of climate change in a speech at the UN on Tuesday, calling it a “con job,” and warned other nations against expanding the use of renewable energy.

In his message, Xi portrayed doubling down on renewables as the best path forward, while seemingly calling out the fossil-fuel path Trump has put the US on.

“Green and low carbon transition is the trend of our time, while some country is acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction,” Xi said, according to a UN translator.

The US absence from Paris also means China doesn’t have a bilateral partner pushing it to set more ambitious climate goals, a role the US played in the Obama and Biden administrations. Climate talks were a rare bright spot in an otherwise difficult US-China relationship under Biden. The two nations struck a significant deal nearly two years ago, pledging to ramp up renewables and curb planet-warming gases.

Even though its latest climate pledge lacks ambition, China is still leagues ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy.

It is currently building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor. This will add to the eye-popping 1,400 gigawatts already online, five times what is operating in the US. Part of its new goals would be to increase deployed wind and solar to 3,600 gigawatts — an astonishing amount of clean energy, and six times as much as it had in 2020.

“Beijing’s commitment represents a cautious move that extends a long-standing political tradition of prioritizing steady, predictable decision making, but it also hides a much more significant economic reality,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, in a statement.

“The headline target disappoints environmentalists, and it falls short of the climate leadership the world desperately needs. Yet, the good news is that in a world increasingly driven by self-interest, China is in a stronger position than most to drive climate action forward.”

This is a developing story and has been updated.

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