Summary
The sweeping new report documenting the world’s changing climate released on 9 August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has put a fresh spotlight on China, a country responsible for more than one-quarter of the world’s annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Climate advocates hope the report will encourage China, which has lagged other big emitters in pledges to reduce CO2 emissions, to take bolder action. Whether it can begin to slash its output significantly in the next 10 years will help determine the magnitude of the global crisis, they say. But although many heads of state called for enhanced climate action following the IPCC report, Chinese leaders have stayed quiet.
