China's current focus on the development of a low-carbon and circular economy has given foreign companies guidance for development, presenting multinational corporations with numerous opportunities.

In September 2020, China announced that it will strive to bring its carbon emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon-neutral before 2060.

In a move to honor its climate commitment and further propel the building of an ecological civilization, China unveiled a master working guideline that aims to elevate energy efficiency to an advanced international level and lift non-fossil energy consumption to over 80 percent of the whole by 2060.

China intends to have fully established a green, low-carbon and circular economy and a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system by 2060. It will be carbon neutral, will have achieved significant results in ecological civilization and will have reached a new level of harmony between humanity and nature by then, according to the document.

By 2030, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product will have dropped more than 65 percent, compared with the 2005 level, and the share of non-fossil energy consumption will have reached around 25 percent, with the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power reaching over 1200 gigawatts. Carbon dioxide emissions will have peaked and stabilized and then declined, it said.

With the working guideline as an overarching guide, the country will also develop specific action plans for different industrial sectors and introduce supporting policies, including financial instruments and procedures for supervision and assessment.

The working guideline asks for the promotion of comprehensive green transformation in economic and social development, including optimizing plans for regional green and low-carbon development, and accelerating the formation of green production modes and living patterns.

It also urges in-depth industrial restructuring, for instance, "firmly curbing irrational expansion of energy-intensive and high-emission projects", and "vigorously developing green and low-carbon industries", while accelerating the development of a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system.

Other main facets include accelerating the construction of a low-carbon transportation system, improving the quality of green and low-carbon development of urban and rural areas, strengthening research on green and low-carbon technologies and promoting their application, and continuing to consolidate and improve carbon sink capacity. Carbon sinks are natural and artificial deposits that absorb and hold carbon.

High-level proportions of renewable electricity can be included in the power grid and distributed to consumers only by improving the on-grid pricing of wind, solar and other new energy sources of electricity, deepening reforms in the hydropower pricing, establishing and enhancing the pricing procedures for power storage used to balance the grid, and reforming the electricity transmission and distribution pricing regimen.

Carbon credits can offer a solution as companies move towards decarbonization. On voluntary carbon markets, for example, corporates can purchase carbon credits generated by projects that avoid or remove greenhouse gas emissions - to neutralize or compensate for their emissions. By creating a viable carbon market, carbon credits in turn help drive investment into carbon offset projects, such as in forestry, renewable energy and greenhouse gas capture activities.

China inaugurated its national carbon market on July 16, 2021, with the power generation sector as the first to be included in the market. By the end of 2022, a total of 229.68 million tons of allowances changed hands with the total trading volume reaching 10.48 billion yuan ($1.54 billion).