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Global warming

China’s contribution to climate change

Nature volume 531, pages 310–311 (2016)Cite this article

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Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel use in China have grown dramatically in the past few decades, yet it emerges that the country's relative contribution to global climate change has remained surprisingly constant. See Letter p.357

In December 2015, world leaders agreed to limit the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures (see Nature 528, 315–316; 2015). Meeting this aspiration will require large and rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, making it imperative to understand and account for the emissions from different countries. China has undergone rapid economic development over the past few decades and now has one of the world's largest economies — and greenhouse-gas emissions to match. On page 357 of this issue, Li et al.1 comprehensively assess China's contribution to climate change and explore how this has altered as the Chinese economy has grown.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dominick V. Spracklen is in the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.,

    Dominick V. Spracklen

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  1. Dominick V. Spracklen
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Correspondence to Dominick V. Spracklen.

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Spracklen, D. China’s contribution to climate change. Nature 531, 310–311 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/531310a

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