China's 2035 Pledge: A Modest Headline Built on an Ambitious Capacity Number

On 24 September 2025, speaking by video to the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, President Xi Jinping announced China's nationally determined contribution for 2035. It was the first time China had set an absolute emissions reduction target. By 2035 China will reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 per cent from peak levels, while striving to do better. Those who expected a reduction of 30 per cent or more saw a disappointment.

The emissions target is expressed relative to a peak, not to a fixed base year. China has pledged to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and analysis for Carbon Brief in 2024 suggested that emissions may have peaked in 2023. That brings methane and other non-CO2 gases into China's international commitments for the first time in absolute terms, and allows forest sinks to count. The most recent full-year figures are for the end of 2024, when the NEA counted about 887 GW of solar and 521 GW of wind, roughly 1,410 GW combined.

Second, energy security has become more prominent in Chinese policy since the power shortages of 2021 and 2022. For global commodity markets, the pledge confirms that Chinese coal demand for power is capped and likely to decline in the 2030s, as clean capacity grows faster than demand. For clean technology markets, the 3,600 GW figure is a guarantee of minimum domestic demand. The less publicised commitment to extend the national emissions trading system to cover major high-emission sectors is significant.

China's 2035 pledge is cautious in its headline and ambitious in its detail. For governments and investors, the practical reading is that China will continue to build clean energy at a pace of at least 200 GW a year, will keep coal as a security reserve while its utilisation declines, and will prefer to surprise on the upside rather than commit to targets it might miss.