China published the final text of its 15th Five-Year Plan on 13 March 2026, after the National People's Congress session that ran from 4 to 12 March. The plan covers 2026 to 2030, the years in which China has pledged to peak its carbon dioxide emissions. Its binding green indicators are a 17 per cent cut in CO2 emissions per unit of GDP over the five years, and a rise in the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25 per cent by 2030, from 21.7 per cent in 2025. A binding target for comprehensive energy production capacity, rising from 5.13 billion to 5.8 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent, sits under the heading of security.
At first glance the climate targets look like continuity. They are not quite that. The plan removes the binding energy intensity goal that has been a fixture since the 11th plan, changes how carbon intensity is measured, and stops short of setting an absolute emissions cap. Our view is that the plan reflects a deliberate choice to keep maximum flexibility on emissions while maintaining maximum pressure on clean energy supply, and that the absence of a cap is the most important signal it sends.
A new measurement basis
The 14th plan set an 18 per cent carbon intensity reduction for 2021 to 2025. According to Carbon Brief's analysis of the new plan, the government now reports that it achieved 17.7 per cent. That contrasts with an estimate by Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air that intensity fell by only 12 per cent over the period on the original basis. The difference arises from a methodological revision that brings industrial process emissions, such as those from cement and chemicals, into the calculation alongside energy emissions.
The revision matters for the new target. Myllyvirta tells Carbon Brief that a 17 per cent cut on the new basis leaves room for total emissions to rise by 3 to 6 per cent over the five years, whereas the original methodology would have required a fall of around 2 per cent by 2030. Li Shuo of the Asia Society Policy Institute describes the target as a quiet recalibration that signals how difficult China's 2030 international goal of a more than 65 per cent intensity cut from 2005 has become. To meet that goal on the original basis, Carbon Brief notes, China would have needed a 23 per cent reduction in this plan period.
No cap, yet
Policymakers had said that a dual-control system for carbon, combining intensity targets with a cap on total emissions, would come into effect during the 15th plan period. The plan does not explain when or how the cap will be set. Myllyvirta expects absolute caps for sectors covered by the national emissions trading scheme, and possibly an overall cap later in the period. Campaign group 350 called the omission a source of significant ambiguity.
Our reading is that the cap has been deferred, not abandoned. China's 2035 pledge, announced in September 2025, commits to a 7 to 10 per cent cut in net greenhouse gas emissions from peak. A cap would need to be consistent with that pledge, which requires a defined peak year and level. Setting the cap before the peak is visible in the data would risk locking in a level that later proves too high or too low. Expect the first caps to appear in the carbon market, where they can be tightened annually.
Clean energy: more direction than numbers
The plan calls for a new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient by 2030, with continued additions of wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. It aims to double non-fossil energy within ten years, without specifying whether that refers to capacity or generation or the base year. National Energy Administration head Wang Hongzhi wrote that new energy capacity will need to double from the current 1,800 GW to meet China's 2035 pledge, which matches end-2025 wind and solar capacity.
There are specific numbers in places. Offshore wind should reach 100 GW and nuclear 110 GW by 2030. Transmission corridors should be able to send 420 GW from western clean-energy bases to eastern provinces. The plan names the Yarlung Tsangpo hydropower project in Tibet among major projects. It also encourages clean-energy bases in desert regions in the north, integrated hydro, wind and solar complexes in the south-west, zero-carbon industrial parks, and green ammonia and methanol.
Grid and system stability receive more emphasis than capacity growth. Yao Zhe of Greenpeace East Asia observes that orderly competition and grid stability appear to be higher priorities than a guaranteed level of additions. That fits the evidence of 2025, when record wind and solar additions coincided with rising pressure on utilisation.
Coal: retrofit, not retire
The plan promotes the peaking of coal and oil consumption without a timeline and calls for the clean and efficient use of coal. It does not mention phasing coal down, though Xi Jinping had told other leaders that coal consumption would be phased down in this period. It emphasises retrofitting coal plants, including co-firing with biomass or green ammonia, and low-carbon retrofits in the coal-chemical industry. Coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas bases appear as security capabilities. Annual crude output is to be kept at around 200 million tonnes, against 216 million tonnes produced in 2025, and gas output is to grow steadily.
The coal language confirms what the investment data have shown for three years. Coal is now treated as a reliability reserve and a strategic asset. Its future utilisation depends less on the five-year plan than on whether power market reforms pay coal plants for flexibility rather than for energy.
What it means for markets
For international commodity markets, the plan suggests that Chinese coal demand will plateau rather than fall sharply before 2030, and that domestic oil production will be defended. For clean technology, it confirms continued deployment support but at a pace governed by grid capacity. For the carbon market, it points to expanded coverage and, eventually, absolute caps.
For China's trading partners, the emphasis on clean technology as a global public good and on south-south cooperation means China will continue to export solar, batteries and electric vehicles at scale. Carbon Brief reports that the plan barely addresses overcapacity in those industries. The trade tensions of the past two years are not about to ease.
Our position
The 15th Five-Year Plan sets climate targets that China can meet with room to spare, by changing the yardstick for carbon intensity and deferring an emissions cap. That is consistent with Beijing's long practice of under-promising internationally and over-delivering on deployment. The capacity-led strategy remains in place: build clean energy at scale, and expect emissions to fall as a consequence.
The risk is that the consequence arrives later than it could. Without a cap or a binding curtailment limit, rising wind and solar capacity can coexist with stable coal generation for longer than climate goals allow. The sectoral plans for power, renewable energy and coal, due later in 2026, will show whether the operating reforms needed to turn capacity into emissions cuts are being taken seriously.