This story has been updated. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent announcement that his country aims to reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060 has raised a lot of questions: Was it a serious commitment, or a geopolitical maneuver meant to outshine President Trump ? Does it exempt China’s financing of dirty energy projects in other countries? Most importantly: How will the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which is still building new coal plants, achieve such an ambitious goal? Varun Sivaram, a senior research scholar at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said he cannot begin to express how gargantuan a transformation it would be. Get Grist in your inbox Always free, always fresh Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy “It would be the most herculean thing ever accomplished in human history,” he told Grist completely earnestly. […]