"BEIJING - China's latest carbon data suggests it has changed the way it calculates carbon emissions, reducing by half the emissions growth the country previously reported from 2020 to 2025, climate researchers argue in a new report.
The "dramatic" change by the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide has "erased half of the previously reported emissions growth from 2020 to 2025", said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
China's latest statistics on carbon intensity in its five-year plan, when extrapolated to absolute carbon emissions, imply that China's carbon emissions rose 7% from 2020 to 2025. The previous yearly figures on carbon intensity implied that emissions would have risen 14% over the five-year period, according to the analysis by CREA for Carbon Brief, which was published on Tuesday.
That implies a downward revision in carbon dioxide emissions by about 700 million metric tons per year, equivalent to Germany or South Korea's yearly emissions, CREA said."
