Signal China releases 15th Five-Year Plan national climate action plan with first-ever non-CO2 GHG target

Summary

China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment, working with seventeen other government agencies, released a national climate action plan covering the 2026 to 2030 period of the fifteenth Five-Year Plan. The plan sets a goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 2030. Specifically, it calls for a reduction of 17 percent compared with 2025 levels. For the first time, the plan also sets a target for cutting non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases, by 30 million tonnes. That addition signals that China's emissions-reduction approach is expanding beyond carbon dioxide alone. The plan's numerical targets thus rest on two pillars, GDP-normalized carbon intensity and non-CO2 greenhouse gas cuts.