Is China doing enough to combat the climate crisis?

The Chinese government has invested heavily in electric vehicles. By June, the country had nearly 10m new-energy vehicles. Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

After decades of fossil fuel-driven economic growth and industrialisation, China is now the world’s biggest carbon emitter, contributing almost a third of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2020.

It is also the most exposed to the impact of the climate crisis, in terms of its population size and number of environmental disasters, according to UN figures. Average temperatures and sea levels have risen faster than global averages, and in just one year since Cop26, China has experienced record-breaking floods and heatwaves, bringing with them severe energy crises.