An assessment of China's 2020 carbon intensity target - Grantham Report 1

Authors: Neil Hirst, Alex Dunnett, Mark Faist, Sam Foster, Mark Jennings, Luis Munuera, and Danlu Tong
Published: August 2011

Overview

China is a signatory of the Copenhagen Accord, developed at the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009, which recognised that deep cuts in global emissions were required “with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius”.

As part of international mitigation efforts, China said it would endeavour to reduce its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per unit of GDP by 40 - 45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 percent .

This Report assesses the feasibility and ambition of these targets, given the scale of global emissions reductions required to hold the rise in global mean temperatures to 2°C, and identifies some of the key domestic and international policy issues and challenges.