With more foreign aid and investment, China can impose a stricter target to slow the growth in its greenhouse gas emissions, said Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency.
"Based on our analysis, projects currently planned in China, such as energy conservation and the introduction of more renewable energy, would slash the country's carbon intensity by 47 percent," the head of the Paris-based energy research organization said in an interview.
Beijing has pledged to cut its carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product, between 40 percent and 45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. That would mean the country's total emissions would still rise because the Chinese economy is expected to continue growing rapidly over that period.
Tanaka said that after developed and developing countries agree on specific rules concerning the flow of funds to projects in industrializing nations, China's potential to reduce emissions will increase.