London, 26 November 2009 

China’s State Council issued a press release on Thursday making the pledge, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. 

The reduction will be measured against 2005 levels. 

The statement said the target is voluntary and that it is “a major contribution to the global effort in tackling climate change.”

The goal will most likely form part of China's next five-year plan, which would make it legally binding domestically.
China has been tipped by experts to set a carbon intensity target for its next five-year plan.

The current plan includes a 10% improvement in energy efficiency until 2010, which China is on track to over-comply with. The pledge comes only a day after US President Barack Obama said he would travel to climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month prepared to pledge to a 17% cut below 2005 levels in carbon emissions levels by 2020.

Progress in UN-led climate negotiations have been hampered by major developed and developing countries calling on each other to set clear and ambitious targets for future action on carbon emissions. China’s State Council today stressed the Kyoto protocol “should be carried out in a comprehensive, effective and lasting way, and emissions alleviation, adaptation, technological transfer and financial support should be coordinated in a comprehensive way to help bring out positive results for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in December in Copenhagen.” The US is calling for Kyoto to be ditched and replaced by a new international treaty.

China is the largest host country for projects under the Kyoto protocol’s clean development mechanism ( CDM), but experts say a parallel carbon-related market could evolve as part of a domestic legally binding intensity target.

“China is already comfortable with the link between domestic action and the CDM, and it wants to make sure the revenue it gets is at least as much as from the CDM, if not more,” John Romankiewicz, analyst with consultancy New Energy Finance, told Point Carbon News last month. Xie Zhenhua, the vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is expected to expand on the carbon intensity pledge at a press conference in Beijing tomorrow.

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