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Provincial governments, meanwhile, aren’t all following that national lead, and only a few have policies on green computation. Qinghai will require data centres built or expanded from 2025 to rely entirely on renewable energy. Inner Mongolia, one of the ten national hubs, has said its data centres get more than 80 per cent of their power from renewables. But in Guizhou, China’s largest big data province, there was no mention of green computation issues in a 2025-2027 development plan.
Trade barriers spurring carbon accounting
Provincial governments are faced with central government climate targets, as well as international systems to tax exports of carbon-intensive products, such as the EU’s carbon-border adjustment mechanism. In response, they are speeding up work on carbon-footprint standards that would allow sectors like steelmaking and EV battery manufacturing to avoid such taxes.
Ouyang Cheng, technical director with carbon consultancy Carbonstop, told Dialogue Earth that the climate targets had pushed trade-focused provinces on China’s eastern coast to start work on carbon-accounting standards.
Provincial governments and industries are hoping to see their own standards incorporated into the national system, as this will give them advantages in the future. Dialogue Earth found mention of the creation or improvement of systems for calculating product-level carbon footprints in 12 of the 31 work reports presented to provincial Two Sessions meetings this year.
The specific products covered relate to what the provinces generally produce. Jiangsu, for example, focused on steel, power transmission, electric bicycles, electric vehicle batteries, green construction materials, and solar power equipment. The Hebei city of Handan, meanwhile, is prioritising steel products.
In its report to last year’s Two Sessions, the government had said it would “improve our carbon accounting and verification capacities”, as well as “develop a carbon-footprint management system, and expand the coverage of the national carbon market to more sectors”. In May last year, the State Council issued a more detailed plan, stating that by 2030, carbon-footprint standards for around 200 key products will be in place, covering energy, steel, electricity, industry and vehicles.
Cheng explained that there are 100 carbon-footprint standards due to be ready earlier, by 2027. Some are to be produced by central government ministries and industry associations, while the others will be selected and adapted from various local trial standards. The next year or two will also see important work on a “factor database” for various products – an essential foundation for carbon-footprint calculations, he noted.
Previously, China has used the values provided for the country in international factor databases. At a January press conference held by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s Department of Climate Change, an official said those overseas databases are out-of-date and tend to overestimate carbon emissions because they don’t take into account progress on China’s electricity mix and low-carbon transition.
China’s own factor database will be based on national standards for greenhouse gas accounting and reporting, which differ from the international ISO14067 standard in terms of definitions, scope of calculations and allocation methodology.
The country is, however, working to bring its standards into line with the international equivalents. In February this year, the National Energy Administration and other bodies published average carbon-footprint factors for the electricity sector, referring both to ISO14067 and China’s own standards. According to the ecology and environment ministry, more is to be done to improve data quality and coverage in order to help Chinese exporters deal with carbon-border taxes and win international recognition for Chinese databases.
‘Swap new for old’ to promote green consumption
A consumption slump has been hampering China’s economic recovery, and a recent policy encouraging greener upgrades of certain goods is intended to change things. In 2025, almost every provincial government work report referred to “stimulating consumption” and “swapping new for old”. The latter refers to a scheme to subsidise the replacement of cars, domestic appliances and digital devices.
This approach has already been used to encourage car buying since 2024. That year, the policy spurred at least 6.8 million car purchases and 62 million domestic appliance purchases, worth nearly CNY 1.2 trillion (US$165 billion), according to Ministry of Commerce data. This year, the special treasury bonds China is issuing are worth CNY 300 billion – double the 2024 figure. The range of products is also larger, with mobile phones, tablets and smartwatches now covered.
Li Shiyang, general manager at the Rare China Centre for Behaviour, a sustainability consultancy, told Dialogue Earth that for domestic appliances, the stated aim of the policy is to encourage consumers to upgrade to more energy-efficient goods. However, goods which meet China’s highest energy-efficiency standard already account for more than 90 per cent of sales of the home appliances covered. The main underlying point of the policy is therefore to increase sales, Li said.
Speaking at the Two Sessions, Premier Li Qiang stressed the importance of establishing green and low-carbon ways of production and living. It seems, however, that extra policy support is needed if the “new for old” scheme is to effectively promote green and low-carbon production.
Last year, Chen Ying, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Research Institute for Eco-civilisation, wrote in People’s Daily that in some cases, there is a limited range of greener products, which sell at higher prices, and a lack of green certification. These put people off making purchases.
Additionally, Li Shiyang pointed out that consumers aren’t keen on paying the premiums for greener products, so companies are reluctant to produce them. “There’s a need for more subsidies and incentives for companies manufacturing green and low-carbon products, in order to increase market share,” he said.
Li added that standards and certification for green consumption should be further improved, covering energy consumption during manufacturing, recyclability, and the product’s own power use. More products should also be covered, including food, Li said.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
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