This week’s UN summit in New York is particularly important since nations are running out of time to submit their new climate plans, even though the year’s major gathering of world leaders will take place at COP30 in Brazil in November.

These commitments, which are made every five years, are an essential component of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, wherein almost 200 nations promised to take action to try to slow down global warming. Countries are now rushing to present these fresh promises by the end of September.

BBC: China, the world’s biggest source of planet-warming gases, has for the first time committed to an absolute target to cut its emissions.

In a video statement to the UN in New York, President Xi Jinping said that China would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by 7-10% by 2035, while “striving to do better”.

The Guardian: The US president, Donald Trump, who made a sometimes rambling speech on Tuesday in which he dismissed the climate crisis as a “con job”, was not present.

Xi made an oblique reference to the US, saying “some countries” were not rising to the climate challenge. “The international community should stay focused on the right direction,” he added. “[Countries] must live up to their responsibilities. The rights of developing countries must be fully respected.”

However, analysts claimed that China was not living up to its climate pledges. The E3G thinktank’s associate director for climate diplomacy and governance, Kaysie Brown, stated: “China’s 2035 target falls critically short of what is needed.

It’s neither aligned with China’s economic decarbonisation, nor its own 2060 carbon neutrality goal. Without stronger near-term ambition, China risks undermining its claim to upholding multilateralism and its clean economy leadership, and sending mixed signals to global markets.”

The Guardian: However, others noted privately that China had a longstanding habit of setting unambitious targets but then substantially exceeding them. “Underpromising and overdelivering is what we expect from China,” said one person involved with climate diplomacy.

Bernice Lee, distinguished fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, said the business world and other governments would take their cue from China’s clear direction of travel, rather than the finer points of its plans.“There are UN targets, and then there’s reality,” she said.

“The reality is the country invested $625bn in clean energy last year – 31% of the global total. Its clean energy surge is reshaping the global economy and displacing coal at home. My bet is that other countries will read the writing on the wall and recognise that China is fully committed, and be reassured as they seek to shift off fossil fuels.”

China will also increase the proportion of non-fossil fuels to over 30% of its energy consumption and increase its wind and solar capacity to 3,600GW, more than six times 2020 levels, as part of its national plan, which is known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris accord.

In addition to accounting for over 10% of China’s GDP and over 25% of its economic development, the country’s sales of solar panels and other components have reduced the cost of renewable energy by 90% globally over the past ten years. The nation has accelerated the global use of electric vehicles and batteries by revolutionizing these technologies.

However, China continues to rely heavily on coal power, which has significant political support inside Xi’s administration, even though its emissions may be peaking. The 2021 pledge to “phase down” coal has not stopped the building of new coal-fired power facilities.

The Guardian: Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser now with American University in Washington, told the Guardian: “China’s new commitment is a good sign that their clean energy economy is beginning to help them lower emissions, but it’s not [moving] quickly enough. China could reach these goals much sooner, by the end of this decade.“

In particular, China must also commit to shutting down many of its antiquated coalmines, which are responsible not only for the largest single source of CO2 emissions globally, but also 20% of the global methane emissions from fossil fuels.”

Full text: Xi Jinping’s video speech at the UN Climate Summit 2025

Honoring Commitments with Concrete Actions and Jointly Writing a New Chapter in Global Climate Governance

Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping

President of the People’s Republic of China

At the United Nations Climate Summit

September 24, 2025

Your Excellency, Secretary-General António Guterres,

Your Excellency, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,

Colleagues,

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a pivotal year for countries to submit their new nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Global climate governance is entering a key stage.

I wish to share with you three points.

First, we must firm up confidence. Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time. While some country is acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction, remain unwavering in confidence, unremitting in actions, and unrelenting in intensity, and push for formulation and delivery on NDCs, with a view to providing more positive energy to the cooperation on global climate governance.

Second, we must live up to responsibilities. In the course of the global green transition, fairness and equity should be upheld and the right to development of developing countries fully respected. The transition should serve to narrow rather than widen the North-South gap. Countries need to honor the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, whereby developed countries should take the lead in fulfilling emission reduction obligations and provide more financial and technological support to developing countries.

Third, we must deepen cooperation. The world now faces a huge demand for green development. It is important that countries strengthen international coordination in green technologies and industries to address the shortfall in green production capacity and ensure the free flow of quality green products globally so that the benefits of green development can reach all corners of the world.

Colleagues,

Let me take this opportunity to announce China’s new NDCs as follows: China will, by 2035, reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent to 10 percent from peak levels, striving to do better; increase the share of non-fossil fuels in total energy consumption to over 30 percent; expand the installed capacity of wind and solar power to over six times the 2020 levels, striving to bring the total to 3,600 gigawatts; scale up the total forest stock volume to over 24 billion cubic meters; make new energy vehicles the mainstream in the sales of new vehicles; expand the National Carbon Emissions Trading Market to cover major high-emission sectors; and basically establish a climate-adaptive society.

These targets represent China’s best efforts based on the requirements of the Paris Agreement. Meeting these targets requires both painstaking efforts by China itself and a supportive and open international environment. We have the resolve and confidence to deliver on our commitments.

Colleagues,

Great visions require concrete actions. Climate response is an urgent yet long-term task. Let’s all step up our actions to realize the beautiful vision of harmony between man and nature, and preserve planet Earth – the place we call home.

Thank you.

The Cop30 UN climate meeting in Brazil in November will be influenced by China’s pledges.

The UN climate director has already acknowledged to the Guardian that the pledge made in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C over preindustrial levels would not be met by the carbon reductions to be undertaken in Belem.

The UN, Brazil, and other nations wanting to escape the worst effects of the climate disaster will have to demonstrate how to improve on those insufficient national targets and lay out a global strategy that enables the Paris Agreement to be implemented.