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Abstract
China has realized that for its own sake and from the international community’s
perspective, it cannot afford to continue along the conventional path of encouraging
economic growth at the expense of the environment. Accordingly, the country has placed
ecological goals at the same level of priority as policies on economic, political, cultural
and social development. Specifically, to meet the grand goal involves not only capping
China’s nationwide coal consumption to let it peak before 2020 and carbon emissions
peak around 2030, but also putting in place a variety of flagship programs and initiatives,
prices and policies. This paper argues that the 2030 carbon emissions peak goal is
ambitious but achievable and concludes by arguing why China’s anti-pollution outcomes
this time might be different from the previous ones.