The State Council Information Office (SCIO) has recently released the white paper Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality: China’s Plans and Solutions, providing a comprehensive overview of China’s major achievements over the past five years in advancing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, and sharing China’s approaches, actions, and practical experience in this endeavor.

The white paper notes that over the five years since China made its major commitment to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, the country has firmly established and implemented the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. Through resolute actions and sustained efforts, China has achieved historic progress in its green and low-carbon transition. It has built the world’s most systematic and comprehensive carbon-reduction policy framework, established the world’s largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system, formed the world’s largest and most complete new energy industrial chain, and realized the world’s largest-scale and fastest rollout of new energy vehicles. China has contributed approximately one quarter of the world’s newly increased green coverage, become one of the countries with the fastest decline in energy intensity, and explored an effective pathway for green and low-carbon development suited to developing countries, making important contributions to addressing global climate change and advancing sustainable development for humanity.

According to the white paper, industry, transport, buildings, and residential consumption are major sources of carbon emissions and play a critical role in achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. In the building sector in particular, China has accelerated the transformation of urban and rural development models, continuously improving the level of green and low-carbon development as well as the quality of the living environment.

Accelerated Low-Carbon Transition in Urban and Rural Planning and Construction

China has actively leveraged green and low-carbon planning as a guiding force, embedding green and low-carbon concepts throughout planning, construction, and management processes. Efforts have continued to advance urban renewal initiatives and restore urban ecosystems. Green construction methods have been promoted, with the development of prefabricated buildings and the application of green building materials. In 2024, newly started prefabricated buildings reached 672 million m², accounting for more than 30% of new construction. As of the end of June 2025, the number of certified green building material products exceeded 10,000.

Urban climate resilience has been enhanced through improved urban ecosystems, with adequate space reserved for rivers, lakes, flood control, and drainage. A total of 90 sponge city pilot projects and 39 climate-adaptive city demonstration projects have been implemented. By the end of 2024, green coverage in built-up urban areas reached 43.49%, and per capita urban park green space reached 15.91 square meters.

Significant Improvement in Building Energy Efficiency

China has continuously raised building energy-efficiency standards, vigorously promoted green buildings, and carried out energy-saving retrofits of existing buildings. In 2024, green buildings accounted for 97.9% of newly constructed urban buildings. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, energy-efficiency retrofits of existing urban buildings have been advanced, with public buildings typically achieving energy-efficiency improvements of around 20% after renovation. By the end of 2024, energy-efficient buildings accounted for more than 66% of total existing urban building floor area.

Increasingly Clean and Low-Carbon Building Energy Use

China has steadily increased the level of end-use electrification in buildings, promoted photovoltaic-building integration based on local conditions, and expanded the use of clean and low-carbon heating solutions such as heat pumps, biomass energy, geothermal energy, and solar energy, effectively reducing carbon emissions in the building sector. In 2024, electricity consumption accounted for more than 55% of total building energy use nationwide. Clean heating initiatives have been actively advanced in northern regions, with over 40 million rural households having completed clean heating retrofits. By the end of 2024, the clean heating rate in northern China reached 83%, nearly 20 percentage points higher than in 2020.

In addition, the white paper highlights China’s firm efforts to curb the blind launch of high-energy-consumption, high-emission, and low-level projects; support for qualified regions to take the lead in developing zero-carbon industrial parks and advancing eco-industrial park construction; and the deepening application of artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing in transportation and building construction and operation. China is also promoting the green and low-carbon development of data centers by coordinating large-scale wind and solar power bases with national data hub nodes to increase the proportion of green electricity use. Furthermore, China is vigorously advancing the development of green highways and waterways, enhancing the green and intelligent standards of newly built stations, airports, and ports, and strengthening the construction of new energy infrastructure in the transport sector.