China's carbon pledge will require complete inversion of existing system

Country will need to kick addiction to coal and build eye-watering amount of wind and solar capacity

China's President Xi Jinping stunned climate action observers in a speech at the United Nations general assembly last week with a pledge to reach peak carbon" before 2030, and drive down emissions to virtually zero by 2060.

The pledge from the world's biggest climate polluter is considered by environmentalists to be the most important step in tackling the climate crisis since the Paris Climate Agreement galvanised global governments to reduce carbon emissions in an attempt to cap global heating well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrialisation levels.