SHANGHAI — China's massive auto industry is on track to see climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions peak by 2027 but under current trends it is unlikely to meet the country's 2060 "net zero" target, environment group Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
The sector's total carbon emissions are likely to plateau at 1.75 billion tons, and will steadily drop 11 percent by 2035, Greenpeace estimated in a research report.
But it will need to cut emissions by at least 20 percent by 2035 if it is to stay on track toward the net zero target by 2060, Greenpeace said.
Sales of vehicles with zero emissions need to reach 63 percent of all deliveries by 2030 and 87 percent by 2035 if it is to meet the targets, the environmental group estimated.
"The ideal response is for carmakers in China to completely phase out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030," said Bao Hang, project leader for Greenpeace Asia in Beijing.
China said in a 2021-35 development plan for the auto industry in late 2020 that pure electric vehicles should make up 20 percent of sales by 2025 and then become "mainstream" by 2035.
The country's cabinet said in an action plan on bringing emissions to a peak last year that total new and clean energy vehicle sales should reach around 40 percent of the total by 2030.
Chinese sales of battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in gasoline-electric hybrids and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles grew 158 percent to 3.52 million units in 2021, official data showed.
