washington china the worlds top emitter of carbon dioxide that causes global warming has seen a notable dip in its emissions over the past three quarters but its not clear how long the drop will continuea new analysis of chinas economic data shows that carbon emissions dropped 14 in the first three months of the year compared to the prior year making it the third consecutive quarter to show a drop and the longest sustained dip in a decadethe downward trend began last year and accelerated over the winter the decline continued but was milder this springits not clear whether chinas emissions will continue to fall this year over the past decade five shorter dips were followed by rebounding emissionschinas recent emissions decline was driven by decreased output in cement steel and power industries as well as covid lockdown measures according to an analysis by lauri myllyvirta a finlandbased climate and energy analyst at the centre for research on energy and clean airsteel and cement are chinas second and third largest emitting sectors and the demand for both sectors is largely driven by construction activity but policy changes on real estate lending and debt have at least temporarily depressed the construction sector myllyvirta wrote in an analysis for carbon briefwhether china meets its longterm goal to become carbon neutral by 2060 depends in large part on what happens in its power sectorand that depends upon how quickly the worlds second largest economy can move away from coalchinas leaders have recently doubleddown on plans to promote coalfired power calling for coal production capacity to increase by 300 million tons this year or 7 over last yearli shuo a senior global policy adviser for greenpeace told the associated press in april that economic concerns including those related to chinas zerocovid policy meant that chinas leaders were prioritizing energy security over moving away from fossil fuels at least in the shorttermthis mentality of ensuring energy security has become dominant trumping carbon neutrality he saidchina is currently the worlds largest carbon emitter although other countries such as the united states have contributed a greater share of historic emissionschinas carbon emissions increased by 750 megatonnes over the twoyear period between 2019 and 2021 driving the global rebound in carbon emissions after the first phase of pandemic according to the nonprofit parisbased international energy agency