Analysis: China’s new carbon metric leaves Germany-sized gap in its emissions
China has revised its carbon intensity metric, significantly reducing the reported growth of its CO2 emissions. This change suggests that emissions have only increased by 7% from 2020 to 2025, rather than the previously reported 14%. The revision creates a substantial gap in emissions data, equivalent to the total emissions of Germany or South Korea, raising questions about the transparency of China's climate commitments.
- ▪China's new carbon intensity measure indicates a 7% increase in CO2 emissions from 2020-2025, halving the previous estimate of 14%.
- ▪The revision creates a gap of 700 million tonnes of CO2 per year, comparable to the emissions of Germany or South Korea.
- ▪China's revised metric allows it to appear closer to meeting its carbon-intensity targets, despite the lack of a clear definition for how carbon intensity is calculated.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
A major change in the way that China measures its core climate goal has effectively halved the growth in the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past five years. The revised measure of “carbon intensity”, the amount of CO2 per unit of economic output, implies that China’s emissions have only gone up by 7% from 2020-2025. This is just half of the 14% rise indicated by previous official statistics. On paper, the revision creates a gap of 700m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) per year, equivalent to the total emissions of Germany or South Korea. While China has never officially defined how it measures carbon intensity, it has now made what appears to be a retrospective change, with the effect of making targets easier to meet.
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