China’s Carbon Emissions Might Already Have Peaked Years Ahead Of Its Deadline, Study Claims

A new study claims that China's carbon emissions may have already peaked in 2014, which is years ahead of its announced deadline to do so by 2030. The Chinese government, however, rejected the study's conclusions.

According to the Washington Post, the United States President Barrack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made a historic agreement in November 2014 to manage greenhouse gas emissions in both nations. China has pledged to hit the peak on its mounting carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2030, while the United States vowed to reduce the country's emissions to at least 26 percent of its 2005 levels.

But China's target may not already be feasible. In a report of International Business Times, a new British study, which was released on Sunday and will be published in the journal Climate Policy later this month, has concluded that the efforts of the Chinese government to stay true to its vow to put a peak on its rising carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2030 would have been effective if it did not already took place in 2014. The study was conducted by the researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

"It is quite possible that emissions will fall modestly from now on, implying that 2014 was the peak," the authors of the study stated. "If emissions do grow above 2014 levels—if, say, a number of the risks identified earlier [in the paper] manifest—that growth trajectory is likely to be relatively flat, and a peak would still be highly likely by 2025."

Moreover, the Chinese government refuted the researchers' claims. In a Yahoo News article, Xie Zhenhua, China's senior climate change envoy, made it clear that the greenhouse gas emissions in the country are still increasing and have not peaked in 2014. He added the government's vow for the emissions to peak by "around 2030" is backed by national conditions and has direct relationship with the stage of economic development of the nation.