China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Beautiful China: Implications for Non-CO₂ Super Climate Pollutant Mitigation

IGSD / 13 July 2026

13 July 2026 - China released the 15^th Five-Year Plan for Building a Beautiful China (the "Beautiful China Plan") on 3 July 2026. Building upon the 15^th Five-Year Framework Plan for National Economic and Social Development (the "Framework Plan"), the Beautiful China Plan details an implementation agenda covering pollution control, climate mitigation, ecological protection, monitoring, permitting and enforcement through 2030.

Importantly, the Beautiful China Plan further entrenches the mitigation of non-CO₂ climate pollutants, including methane, nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆),tropospheric ozone, and black carbon, within China's broader environmental governance system.

Key Targets

The Beautiful China Plan reiterates several targets already established in the Framework Plan, including to:

Develop 30 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent mitigation capacity by 2030 through non-CO₂ mitigation projects in coal mining, crop cultivation and livestock production, waste treatment, and chemical manufacturing[1]. The Beautiful China Plan provides examples of non-CO₂ mitigation solutions, including oxidation of ultra-low-concentration coal-mine ventilation-air methane (VAM), enrichment and purification of low-concentration coal-mine methane, industrial nitrous oxide (N₂O) tail-gas treatment and recovery, hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) recovery and utilization, and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) recovery and substitution in power equipment;
Reduce CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP by 17% during 2026–2030 compared to the 2025 level[2]；
Increase the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption from 21.7% in 2025 to 25% by 2030^b;
Reduce average PM₂.₅ concentrations in cities at or above the prefectural level from 28 µg/m³ in 2025 to below 27 µg/m³ by 2030^b; and
Reduce national emissions of NOₓ and VOCs by more than 8% respectively during 2026–2030^b.

The Plan also establishes several additional environmental targets relevant to non-CO₂ climate-pollutant mitigation, including to:

Increase the share of good or excellent air-quality days in cities at or above the prefectural level from 83.6% in 2025 to 85% by 2030 and reduce the share of heavy-pollution days or worse from 0.9% in 2025 to below 0.9% by 2030[3];
Ensure total coal consumption continues to decline, with PM2.5 concentrations reduced by 15%, 10%, and 15%, respectively, in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Fen-Wei Plain, by 2030^a;
Raise the share of clean transportation in key industries to 75% nationwide and 85% in priority air-pollution-control regions by 2030^a;
Increase the comprehensive utilization rate of livestock and poultry manure to at least 85% by 2030 (reiterating a target provided in the 2024 Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Agricultural Development and Promoting Rural Ecological Revitalization)^a, raise the rural domestic sewage treatment rate from 55% in 2025 to 70% by 2030^c, complete remediation of more than 60% of historic solid-waste stockpiles^a, and build around 200 zero-waste cities by 2030^a; and
Reduce carbon emissions per unit of product in industries covered by the national emissions trading system by about 3% during 2026–2030 compared to the 2025 level^c.

Looking beyond 2030, the Beautiful China Plan restates the targets in China’s 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of reducing China’s economy-wide net greenhouse-gas emissions to 7%–10% below its peak levels by 2035. It also sets a separate domestic target of reducing national PM₂.₅ concentrations to below 25 µg/m³ by 2035^a.

Specific Non-CO₂ Climate Pollutant Mitigation Actions Mentioned in the Plan

Beyond the key targets mentioned above, the Plan calls for stronger control of methane, N₂O, fluorinated gases, and other non-CO₂ climate pollutants. To support implementation across these areas, it also emphasizes a set of cross-cutting institutional, technical, and market-based measures. It prioritizes stronger monitoring, accounting, reporting, and verification, as well as the routine compilation of the national greenhouse-gas inventory. It also calls for improving the national greenhouse-gas emission-factor database and developing product carbon-footprint rules that can achieve international mutual recognition. In addition, the Plan promotes recovery and utilization technologies and further advances both the national carbon emissions trading market and the national voluntary greenhouse-gas emissions reduction market.

Methane

The Plan promotes methane-mitigating projects in the coal mining, agriculture and waste sectors. In coal mining, it calls for ultra-low-concentration ventilation-air methane thermal-storage oxidation and low-concentration coal-mine methane enrichment and purification. In agriculture and waste, it promotes livestock and poultry manure collection, treatment, utilization, and waste classification and resource recovery. Notably, the Plan does not set out specific controls on methane leakage, venting, or flaring in the oil and gas sector.

Industrial N₂O

The Plan specifically promotes industrial N₂O tail-gas treatment, recovery, and utilization. More broadly, its provisions on non-CO₂ monitoring, accounting, reporting and verification, together with the emphasis on fixed-source permitting, monitoring and enforcement, could provide implementation channels for future sector-specific standards or facility-level requirements.

Fluorinated Gases (including HFCs and SF₆)

The Plan calls for strengthened control of fluorinated gases and promotion of recovery and utilization technologies. It specifically includes HFC recovery and utilization, as well as SF₆ recovery and substitution in power equipment. The Plan also calls for strict actions to prevent illegal production, sale and use of ozone-depleting substances, which aligns with China’s broader fluorinated-gas-control and ozone-layer-protection policies including the National Plan on the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (2025–2030).

Tropospheric Ozone

Tropospheric ozone forms when NOₓ and VOC emissions react in the presence of sunlight. Controlling tropospheric ozone is essential to preventing photochemical smog. To support tropospheric ozone control, the Plan combines targets to reduce NOₓ and VOC emissions by more than 8% during 2026–2030 with measures to revise mandatory national VOC-content standards for key products, strengthen full-process VOC controls, and pilot an environmental protection tax on VOC emissions. It also promotes low- or zero-VOC raw-material substitution in automobile, construction machinery, furniture, parts manufacturing, printing, and vehicle-repair industries.

Synergetic Control of PM_2.5and non-CO₂ Climate Pollutants

The Plan reinforces PM₂.₅ control while strengthening measures relevant to ozone precursors (e.g., NOₓ and VOCs), ammonia, and black carbon. It calls for comprehensive air-pollution-control upgrades for about 100 traditional industrial clusters^a. For mobile sources, it calls for accelerating the phaseout of certain diesel trucks (meeting China III or below exhaust emission standards), and non-road machinery (meeting China I or below exhaust emission standards), replacing diesel freight vehicles with electric trucks, accelerating the retirement and renewal of older operating vessels, and building a national smart mobile-source supervision platform and national atmospheric mobile-source laboratory. These measures can support reductions of PM₂.₅, ozone precursors, and black carbon emissions.

Conclusion

The Beautiful China Plan largely carries forward targets and policy directions already contained in the Framework Plan, while adding more detailed indicators, project categories, and implementation measures. However, it does not set pollutant-specific reduction targets for non-CO₂ climate pollutants. Instead, the 30 million tonnes of CO₂-eq goal is provided for mitigation capacity instead of verified emissions reductions. Therefore, key issues for future tracking include additional policy developments on how mitigation-project performance will be evaluated, whether facility-level monitoring and public disclosure will be required, and how emission standards and pollutant-discharge permits will be upgraded, expanded, and/or enforced.

Additional IGSD China Resources:

IGSD (12 July 2026) The Methane Mitigation Opportunities in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a New Energy System.
IGSD (30 June 2026) China’s July 2026 Overseas Investment Regulation: Overseas Investment Must Follow Stricter Environmental, Compliance, and Risk Management Standards.
IGSD (18 March 2026) China’s 15th Five-Year Framework Plan: Overview of Key Targets and Priorities for Mitigating Super Climate Pollutants.
IGSD (12 March 2026) China’s New Ecological and Environmental Code: A Legislative Framework for Curbing Super Climate Pollutants.

[1] All targets marked with “a” are targets that are not included in “Column 1: Key Targets for Building a Beautiful China during the 15^th Five-Year Perid.” Therefore, the Plan doesn’t specify if they are binding or non-binding targets.

[2] All targets marked with “b” are binding targets included in “Column 1: Key Targets for Building a Beautiful China during the 15^th Five-Year Perid.”

[3] All targets marked with “c” are expected (non-binding) targets included in “Column 1: Key Targets for Building a Beautiful China during the 15^th Five-Year Perid.”

IGSD