.China has formulated and implemented its national climate change programme, and adopted a series of policies and measures in this regard. China addresses climate change in the context of implementing sustainable development strategy, combined with its accelerated steps to build a resource-conserving and environmental-friendly society and an innovation-oriented country.

This is one in a series of Advisory Notes that supplement the OECD/DAC Good Practice Guidance on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) (OECD/DAC 2006). The focus of this Advisory Note is to show how Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) approaches can help mainstream adaptation to climate change into strategic planning. It is used to integrate considerations related to climate change into national development or sectoral management planning or policymaking processes.

The booklet describes the mounting policy and business concerns surrounding the supply of energy and argues that the most cost-effective way to address these concerns is through improving energy productivity and adopting existing energy-efficient technologies that pay for themselves in future energy savings. The document supports the role of public policy in encouraging consumers and businesses to capture the benefits of higher energy productivity.

At least one recent report and numerous news articles suggest that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are rising more rapidly than expected. While CO2 emissions associated with human activities continue to rise -- and may be worthy of alarm because of their influence on climate change -- any short-term comparisons between actual emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios miss the mark. This report analyzes this issue and the issues associated with IPCC scenarios and trajectories. It also describes the importance of monitoring CO2 emissions and analyzing the factors and forces behind increasing CO2 emissions.