Beijing reverts to centralised model amid unease over 'naive' climate initiatives

摘要

CHINA'S ability to rapidly deploy immense financial and human resources to tackle problems has often awed the world, but it is not clear if the Great Leap Forward approach will achieve all that has been promised in the field of carbon emissions. The path to carbon neutrality has inspired a proliferation of local initiatives, but this seems to have given China a moment of doubt. The central government recently sounded a warning to officials for setting unrealistic goals in what it calls "whirlwind campaigns" to promote their localised missions to reduce carbon footprints.The latest goals set by local governments, such as building zero emission communities and setting zero mission schedules running far ahead of central government timelines, have raised fears of economic distortions and undesired results.