China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, analysis reveals, adding evidence to the hope that the world’s biggest polluter has managed to hit its target of peak CO2 emissions well ahead of schedule.
Rapid increases in the deployment of solar and wind power generation – which grew by 46% and 11% respectively in the third quarter of this year – meant the country’s energy sector emissions remained flat, even as the demand for electricity increased.
China added 240GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of this year, and 61GW of wind, putting it on track for another renewable record in 2025. Last year, the country installed 333GW of solar power, more than the rest of the world combined.
The analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), for the science and climate policy website Carbon Brief, found China’s CO2 emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, thanks in part to declining emissions in the travel, cement and steel industries.
The findings come as global leaders gather in Brazil for Cop30, which is taking place against a backdrop of increasing urgency in the fight against the climate crisis. China’s president, Xi Jinping, did not attend the leaders summit at the UN climate conference, but the Chinese delegation are present for the talks. Xi’s US counterpart, Donald Trump, also did not attend and has not sent a negotiation team either.
Last week, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the world was facing a “moral failure and deadly negligence” if governments failed to limit global heating to 1.5C.
On Monday, André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat and president of Cop30, praised Chinese progress on green technologies. “China is coming up with solutions that are for everyone, not just China,” he said, adding that rich countries had lost their enthusiasm for tackling the climate crisis.
“Solar panels are cheaper, they’re so competitive [compared with fossil fuel energy] that they are everywhere now. If you’re thinking of climate change, this is good.”
Lauri Myllyvirta, the lead analyst at Crea, noted that China’s overall emissions trend for 2025 could still record a small rise, depending on what happened in the last quarter of the year. But assuming that 2025 follows the trend of previous years of Chinese electricity demand and associated emissions growing fastest in the summer months, then its CO2 emissions could record a fall for the full year.
China’s dual carbon goals are peak emissions by 2030 and net neutrality by 2060. In September, the country released its latest climate targets, to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by between 7% and 10% of their peak by 2035. Experts say those targets are too modest to stave off global catastrophe and a long way from the 30% cut that is feasible and necessary.
But China has a record of underpromising and overdelivering on climate targets. Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a US-based thinktank, said in a recent note that the latest Chinese climate targets should be seen as a baseline and not a ceiling.
Although China is probably on track to reach its peak emissions target ahead of schedule, Myllyvirta said some areas of the economy were bucking the decarbonisation trend. Oil demand and emissions in the transport sector fell by 5% in the third quarter, but grew elsewhere by 10%, as the production of plastics and other chemicals surged.
China is also on track to miss its target for cutting carbon intensity – the CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product – between 2020 and 2025. This means steeper reductions will be necessary if the country is to hit its 2030 goal of reducing carbon intensity by 65%, compared with 2005.
In China, all eyes are now on the 15th five-year plan, which lays out the government’s priority and policies for the 2026-2030 period. The full text will not be published until next year but Chinese officials have hinted that low-carbon energy systems will be a focus of the plan.
