Thornhill legal expert featured in IBA analysis of China’s Climate Pledge and global energy transition

Thornhill Legal managing partner Yuhua Yang has recently shared her insights with the International Bar Association (IBA) regarding China’s latest climate pledge and its significance for the global energy transition.

The IBA feature, China’s climate pledge, examines how China’s climate strategy is evolving in the context of economic development, technological leadership and international climate commitments. While the article hails China’s commitment to reduce its economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 per cent by 2035 as a “landmark” development, it also explores its broader implications on the global markets and how China can be held to this commitment.

Yang is among a number of experts in the climate and renewable energy sector featured in the article. She elaborated on China’s ‘dual carbon’ strategy, and explained how China’s climate targets should be interpreted in practice, as well as how these targets will translate into cross-border business opportunities and global energy systemic shifts.

China’s “Dual Carbon” Strategy and 2035 Climate Pledge

China’s climate roadmap, often referred to as the “dual carbon” (双碳) goals, was first announced in 2020 and includes two central targets:

1.    Carbon peak before 2030 – aim to peak carbon emissions before 2030; 
2.    Carbon neutrality by 2060 – achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060.

In November 2025, China formally submitted its nationally determined contribution (NDC) for 2035 under the Paris Agreement. The pledge sets out a clear target to reduce its emissions across its economy by 7 to 10 per cent by 2035. It’s the first time Beijing has committed to an absolute target.

“Beijing increasingly views clean energy, EVs, storage and grid upgrades not as costs, but as new engines of growth,” Yang told the IBA. With forecasts suggesting that China’s green, low-carbon industries could exceed CNY 30tn by 2035, she added: “In this context, accelerating decarbonisation is seen as a way to upgrade the entire economic structure and offset the decline of traditional sectors.”

A pragmatic, “parabolic” path to net zero

While some international observers argue that China’s new absolute target doesn’t go far enough to achieve the 1.5°C pathway, Yang explained that China’s strategy prioritises measurable, project-driven outcomes over top line constraints. For example, the real drivers of decarbonisation include the massive wind and solar deployment, rapid electric vehicle adoption, grid and storage upgrades, and expanding carbon-market tools. “In other words, the target sets the direction, but projects deliver the outcome,” she said.

According to Yang, China is following a ‘parabolic’ path: a phase of stable, slower reductions around the peak, followed by a sharp decline once the infrastructure for a new energy system—including massive solar, wind, and smart-grid storage—is fully established.

She noted that the real test probably won’t be ‘the absolute target itself, but whether China can deliver on its pragmatic, project-driven strategy in a way that allows its emissions curve to bend down sharply after 2035 and eventually converge with a 1.5 degrees Celsius compatible pathway’.

Global implications and overseas opportunities 

China’s climate pledge and domestic energy shift is already reshaping the global markets, particularly in developing regions. In Africa, for instance, China has become a key partner in the green transition. China increasingly invested into renewable projects in Africa in recent years. In 2024, 59 per cent of its energy investment in the continent went to wind and solar.

Yuhua emphasised that China’s 2035 emissions pledge and dual-carbon strategy require the country’s vast renewable industries to scale internationally in order to remain competitive. The country’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) identifies sectors such as renewable energy, advanced storage, hydrogen and next-generation photovoltaics as future engines of growth.

“The push is no longer simply about expanding capacity. It’s more about ensuring technological leadership, building resilient supply chains and developing a modern energy system capable of integrating massive volumes of clean power,” she concluded.

For China, as the IBA’s article highlights, decarbonisation has been reframed not as a constraint, but as a driver of international competitiveness, industrial upgrading and long-term economic resilience.

Read the full article on the IBA website: https://www.ibanet.org/China-climate-pledge