4 ms·

How can China do that if they signed the Paris Accords?

• giuliomagnifico 6y ago
  I think cause the Paris deal put some targets in the future (like 2030/2060), so they can now rise the pollution without going out of the deal? Anyway China is famous for not respecting agreements after sealed them...
• yorwba 6y ago
  They're still lowering their target compared to the 2020 target, it's just that pandemic-induced lockdowns reduced the actual emissions even more than planned. They're probably not expecting large-scale lockdowns in 2021, so the new target is set under that assumption. Note also that this is about particulate emissions which I think are not subject to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Part of China's strategy to improve air quality is to phase out certain kinds of coal that produce a lot of soot when burning. That helps reduce smog, but the "clean" coal it's replaced with still releases a lot of CO2, so it doesn't really make a difference in terms of global warming.