By Taylah Bland and Betty Wang
From March 4-12, China convened its largest annual political gathering—the “Two Sessions”, or Lianghui—bringing together the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature.
On March 12, these two bodies adopted the 15th Five-Year Plan, which will serve as the blueprint for China’s economic and social development through 2030. While economic growth, technological self-sufficiency, and military strength usually dominate discussion during the Two Sessions, the 15th FYP includes important indicators on climate, energy, and the environment.
China’s climate policy is guided by its “dual carbon” goals to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Beijing has also pledged to reduce its carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels by the end of the decade, its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. In the 15th FYP, clean energy technologies continued to receive support, adaptation gained elevated importance, and Beijing announced an ambition to double non-fossil fuel energy. However, the new 17% carbon intensity target for 2030 fell short of expectations and will leave China short of its NDC commitments. At the same time, concerns over domestic competition in the clean energy sector persist.
These developments reflect a broader shift in Beijing’s climate strategy: away from top-down targets and towards using industrial policy and clean energy investment as primary levers for cutting emissions.
Why It Matters: Looser Targets, Bigger Bets, and an Urgency to Adapt
The most anticipated climate metric released with the 15th FYP was Beijing’s new goal to reduce carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP) by 17% between 2026 and 2030. While this might sound like a persistent commitment to decarbonization, it represents a step back from the 2021 FYP’s 18% planned reduction. Over the past five years, Beijing fell significantly short of that target, achieving only a 12.4% reduction in carbon emissions, though officials claimed a 17.7% drop by revising how the figure is calculated. This lack of progress combined with the 15th FYP’s even lower target, reflects China’s weakening commitement to one of its core Paris Agreement pledges due by 2030.
While the 15th FYP signals a shift toward capping China's total carbon emissions, it stops short of setting any binding targets. Without hard numbers, emissions could climb back up ahead of China's 2030 peak deadline, even after two years of flattening or modest declines. Instead of imposing the stringent, legally enforceable limits on coal and fossil fuels needed to cap emissions, China is choosing to prioritize immediate economic stability and energy security. The underlying strategy is clear: Beijing is betting that its rapidly expanding clean energy and cleantech industries will outpace fossil fuels over time.
Rather than adopting aggressive emissions reduction goals, the 15th FYP introduces an action plan to “double non-fossil energy” over the next decade—though it fails to specify a baseline year for this. Depending on how it is interpreted, this new plan could far exceed China’s current commitment to achieve a 25% non-fossil energy share by 2030, but its success hinges on Beijing’s ability to scale up massive “clean energy bases” to integrate solar, wind, and hydropower throughout the country. China’s existing Paris Agreement target calls for 3,600 GW of combined solar and wind capacity by 2035, which would mean adding approximately 200GW of capacity each year. But with energy demand rising rapidly, staying on track with the broader energy transition may require an even more ambitious pace of around 300GW annually.
Climate change mitigation aside, the 15th FYP also contains increased emphasis on adaptation. The plan states that China will “persist in attaching equal importance to mitigation and adaptation,” while also calling for improvements to the national climate adaptation system, stronger risk assessments for vulnerable sectors and regions, and greater capacity to respond to extreme weather.
While adaptation has appeared in earlier Five-Year Plans, the 15th FYP marks a notable shift by explicitly placing adaptation on equal footing with mitigation and enshrines language from the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2035, adopted in 2022. The plan’s focus on risk assessments, vulnerable sectors, and extreme weather preparedness suggests adaptation is increasingly being integrated into mainstream policy planning rather than treated as a narrow environmental issue. The inclusion of adaptation in the 15th FYP builds on earlier signals in China’s latest NDC, announced by President Xi Jinping via video at the United Nations Climate Summit last September, where he emphasized China’s ambition to “establish a climate adaptive society.”
What to Watch: Policy vs. Progress
While the 15th FYP outlines the overall strategic direction for China’s climate and clean energy goals, real operational details will emerge from sectoral plans released by National Energy Administration and other ministries later in 2026 and into 2027. These documents will cover electricity, renewable energy, and the coal industry, and are expected to spell out how China implements its long-awaited shift from capping total energy consumption to a “dual control” system focused strictly on carbon emissions and intensity. In addition to explaining how emissions caps will be introduced, these next set of documents will outline concrete policy support technologies like smart microgrids and vehicle-to-grid technologies, which are crucial for managing the intermittency of wind and solar power. Perhaps most consequentially, the sectoral plans will also provide a more definitive answer on the fate of fossil fuels in the near-term and how long it will remain an anchor for China’s energy security.
After a punishing 2025 marked by droughts, extreme heat, and floods, China can expect more significant human and economic losses from climate disasters in the year ahead. This reality makes the urgency of strengthening adaptation measures increasingly difficult to ignore, and it’s worth paying attention to see if further measures scale up existing efforts. China’s National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2035 outlined a comprehensive and proactive approach to building resilience amid enduring climate impacts in 2022. Now, how Beijing implements these ideas and integrates them into policy documents—particularly in protecting critical infrastructure, agriculture, and water resources—will signal whether adaptation has become a higher policy priority.
While the headline figures are important, paying attention to how climate translates into other sectors like trade is equally significant. China retains global dominance across clean energy technologies, accounting for roughly 80% of global solar PV production and more than 70% of wind turbine and electric vehicle battery manufacturing. That said, the industry is not immune to shocks. The 15th FYP emphasizes the need to manage the downsides of hyper competition, including relentless price wars and over-investment in certain segments. It also de-emphasizes saturated clean tech sectors like solar and EVs while highlighting new, frontier ones like batteries and green fuels. Still, while tracking new sectors that China is investing in, the rest of the world should expect to see continued waves of cost-competitive Chinese solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.
Dive Deeper with ASPI:
Watch ASPI’s Kate Logan chat with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air about China’s 15th Five-Year Plan.
Read our Center for China Analysis’ analysis of the Two Sessions, in which five experts cover political signals, personnel changes, defense posture, economic targets, five-year planning priorities, and climate commitments.
Read Neil Thomas and Guoguang Wu’s recent report, The Evolving Politics of Climate Change in China.