Nature, 19 September 2024

What does peak emissions mean for China — and the world?

The milestone is essential for slowing global warming, but the hard work is still to come.

The world might be witnessing the bending of a key climate curve. Various projections have suggested that carbon emissions from China, the world’s largest emitter, will probably peak soon — if they haven’t already — well ahead of Beijing’s pledge that they would peak before 2030.

“What happens with China’s emissions in the next year and next decade is absolutely decisive for the success of the global climate effort,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who has tracked China’s emissions trends for more than a decade and is a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a think-tank based in Washington DC.