China says trade tensions, pandemic made emissions cuts tough

China faced challenges despite a massive clean-energy surge over recent years that allowed the nation to reach its 2030 target for wind and solar additions by mid-2024

China has experienced challenges in reducing carbon emissions intensity, one of the key climate goals set out in the 14th five-year plan, citing factors including trade tensions, weather and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Controlling emissions intensity has been “more challenging,” China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu said in a speech this week, according to a transcript published on Friday. He delivered the remarks to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

China faced challenges despite a massive clean-energy surge over recent years that allowed the nation to reach its 2030 target for wind and solar additions by mid-2024. In the first half of this year, the country reduced overall emissions by 1%, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

In 2021, China set a target to cut carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 18% by the end of this year from 2020 levels. But factors including rising energy use meant the intensity factor had dropped only 7.9% by the end of 2024, according to a report from CREA in April.

While China’s biggest climate goals are its long-term targets to peak emissions before 2030 and achieve net zero by 2060, it has used energy and emissions intensity as the key metrics for its short- and mid-term goals.

China has set a goal with the United Nations to reduce its emissions intensity by 65% by 2030 from 2005 levels. Even if the country reduces overall emissions by 1% this year, meeting that goal would require a more ambitious target of cutting intensity by 22% in its next five-year plan due in March, according to CREA.