BEIJING • China's pledge to be carbon neutral by 2060 includes all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide, according to one of the country's top climate researchers.

Professor He Jiankun, who chairs the academic committee of Tsinghua University's Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development, made the clarification yesterday at a conference outlining China's road map to reaching its goal.

When President Xi Jinping told the United Nations about China's new target last month, he did not specify if it would target just carbon dioxide - the most prevalent greenhouse gas - or others that also contribute to global warming such as methane and ozone.

He also did not detail how China would achieve the goal, though the government is expected to lay out some measures in its upcoming five-year plan until 2025.

In line with the target, China should announce more ambitious contributions to the Paris climate accord, including reducing its carbon intensity by over 65 per cent from 2005 levels and aiming for a higher share of non-fossil fuel energy sources by 2030, Prof He said.

But researchers at the conference laid out scenarios that showed even that plan would not put China on the path to keeping global warming within 2 deg C from pre-industrial levels, so it would have to scale up targets even more after 2030.

Prof He said that to achieve the 2060 goal, China's next five-year plan should include cutting energy consumption per capita of gross domestic product by at least 14 per cent, boosting the share of energy that comes from non-fossil fuels to about 20 per cent, and reducing carbon dioxide intensity by as much as 20 per cent.

In September, Tsinghua University's Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, released its proposal for achieving the 2060 target, which entailed a more gradual transition over the next decade and a half and a rapid acceleration after 2035.

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