This guidebook provides comprehensive guidance for Chinese cities on developing medium- and long-term greenhouse gas emission reduction plans and action strategies. It synthesizes best practices from China's low-carbon pilot cities and international case studies, establishing principles for planning, standardizing procedures, and strengthening logical connections between planning elements. The guidebook recommends methods and tools for different purposes and stages, including greenhouse gas inventory compilation, target setting, scenario analysis, and policy identification. It serves as a practical reference for urban planners and policymakers seeking to improve the scientific rigor and implementation effectiveness of low-carbon development planning.

Expanding carbon intensity to include industrial process emissions strengthens longer-term decarbonization, argue Hu Min, Li Xindi, and Yang Li.

This report examines the low-carbon transition pathways for thermal/heating systems in China's steel industry, reviewing the policy drivers behind decarbonization and analyzing the technological trajectory across near-, medium-, and long-term horizons (2025–2060). It surveys and compares the applicability, economics, and emissions-reduction potential of key technologies—including waste heat recovery, system efficiency improvements, and hydrogen-based metallurgy—through in-depth case studies (HBIS Group's hydrogen metallurgy, Shougang Jingtang's process interface optimization, and Sinosteel/CISP's hydrogen-based smelting reduction, among others). It further identifies the practical barriers to scaling these technologies (high green hydrogen costs, renewable energy intermittency, stranded-asset risk, and weak cross-sector coordination mechanisms), and proposes policy recommendations to accelerate the sector's shift toward integration with renewable energy systems.

This paper argues that just transition (JT) frameworks built for developed economies don't fit the realities of the Global South — where the challenge isn't just managing the decline of fossil fuel industries, but industrializing, expanding energy access, and reducing poverty while also decarbonizing. The paper reviews major existing JT frameworks (UNFCCC, EU, G20, China, Brazil) and analyzes the climate plans (NDCs) and transparency reports of 66 developing countries to see how JT is actually being defined and pursued on the ground. From this, it builds a new evaluation framework organized around three pillars — Goals (where countries want to end up, climate and development-wise), Pathways (how they're getting there, e.g. green jobs, investment, industries), and Readiness and Capacity (whether they have the social safety nets, finance, and institutions to pull it off) — then tested this framework against real country data to show it can help identify gaps and guide more tailored, country-led policy.

This report tracks and quantitatively assesses the green and low-carbon transition of 30 Chinese provincial-level regions over the decade from 2013 to 2022 using the Subnational Low-Carbon and Green Index for China (Subnational LOGIC), which encompasses 26 indicators across four categories: carbon productivity; carbon emissions (covering energy, power, industry, buildings, transport, and agriculture); environmental conditions and land use; and policy systems and public participation. The analysis employs multiple classification frameworks—economic-geographic regions, economic development stages (Pioneer, Leading, Catching-Up, and Developing Economies), national major regional strategies, and energy development positioning—to identify structural divergences in transition patterns. It finds that scores improved across all provinces, with carbon productivity, energy, and power showing nationwide progress while transport, buildings, and industry remain key frontiers for deep decarbonization. The report also presents in-depth case studies of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Shanxi, and Hainan to examine differentiated transition pathways across economic development stages.

Examines the green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol industry in China, contends that the sector is shifting from a supply-side capacity-expansion phase to a "demand-constrained" phase where commercial viability depends on forming a closed-loop offtake and consumption system, identifies critical bottlenecks—including high production costs (2–3 times higher than conventional routes), insufficient port refueling infrastructure, heavy reliance on volatile international certification (e.g., ISCC) and external demand, and the failure of green premiums to translate into stable domestic willingness-to-pay—and proposes a strategic policy reorientation from merely "building production capacity" to actively "creating demand" through enforceable domestic demand-side mechanisms (e.g., non-electric consumption targets, green procurement, and carbon market integration), enhanced domestic green certification and pricing capabilities, consumption-side incentives, and stricter project screening focused on commercial closure, in order to unlock the industry's low-carbon value, reduce dependence on external rules, and support its sustainable commercial scaling and contribution to China's energy transition.