Li Gao, the head of China’s climate change department (DCC) under the Ministry of Environment and Ecology (MEE), issued the first official response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5 degrees special report at a press conference. According to MEE’s Weibo account, Li Gao said that the report findings demonstrate the urgency of taking action on climate change. He said that keeping temperature to 2 or 1.5 degrees Celsius would be challenging and that more effective action is needed on mitigation, finance, technological innovation and other fronts. In particular, more research is needed on the costs and the most cost-effective actions. Meanwhile, he remarked that China will continue striving to meet its Paris Agreement goal to peak emissions at or before 2030. He added that China contributed to global climate action by lowering the cost of renewables, and the recently apparent plateauing of emissions was a major achievement. Read more
Ministry of Transport releases action plan to strengthen multimodal freight transport
On 29 September 2026, the Ministry of Transport, together with 11 other government departments and the China State Railway Group, issued the “Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Multimodal Transport and Optimizing the Transport Structure” (2026–2030). By 2030, the plan aims to improve links between railways, ports, inland terminals, logistics parks and industrial zones, strengthening multimodal freight services. Targets include an 80% railway connection rate in multimodal transport areas at coastal ports and more than 90% of freight transfers at key hubs completed within one hour. It also promotes shifts of suitable bulk freight from road to rail and water. For key industries, the plan targets an 85% share of clean transport.
