China's emissions may be falling - here's what you should know

"The world would have stabilised its emissions 10 years ago if it weren't for China," Lauri Myllyvirta, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, points out to the BBC. According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world cannot simply stabilise the amount of emissions pumped into the atmosphere annually, if it is to hold global warming to below 1.5C. Average emissions per person in both China and India are far lower than in the US – though China's per capita emissions now exceed those of the UK and EU and are about the same as those of Japan.