Assisting China in reaching its national climate goals (NDC) faster

Context

China emits the most greenhouse gases of any country in the world. As such, the success or failure of its climate protection measures will have enormous consequences worldwide.

The Chinese government has set itself far-reaching climate protection goals, which want to see China reach peak emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.

Implementing these goals poses enormous challenges, however, such as an uneven geographical distribution of resources and economic power, differences in the degree of economic development between urban and rural areas and a lack of financial and technical capacities. In addition, China still needs stronger institutions and laws to successfully combat climate change.

Objective

In the interest of people and planet, China is reaching its national climate goals earlier.

Approach

The project is implemented with technical partners from Germany and China, including the NewClimate Institute, Climate Analytics, as well as China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation. To jointly improve climate mitigation and adaptation in China, the project’s work centres on three areas:

• Support for provincial and sectoral partners in formulating GHG mitigation policies and carrying out scientific modelling by sharing international GHG mitigation experiences.
• Facilitating exchanges on decarbonisation pathways between experts from Germany and the European Union (EU) on the one hand and China on the other.
• Providing assistance in the implementation of best practices on climate adaptation in Chinese provinces that are highly exposed to climate change.

The project also supports measures such as climate finance and legislation so that China can move more efficiently towards its climate targets.

It also organises annual International Climate Initiative (IKI) network meetings that bring together ongoing IKI-projects in the field of climate action within China and the institutions involved.

Last update: November 2023