【正文】 ugh to have only goals regarding mitigation and adaptation. Instead, a concrete roadmap towards a LC future is needed that addresses key issues of technology transfer, institutional arrangements and sharing the costs in the context of a global climate regime. In this light, it is argued that China should adopt an approach for lowcarbon development centred on carbon intensity reduction over the next ten years. Originality/value – The paper thus provides a unique summary, in English, of the arguments supporting China’s current lowcarbon innovation policies from one of the authors of this policy. Keywords： Carbon, Sustainable development, Environmental management, Government policy, China Paper type – Research paper Climate change has bee the most signi?cant environment and development challenge to human society in the twenty?rst century. Responding to climate change is the core task to achieving global sustainable development, both for today and for a rather long period of time from today. International negotiations on prevention of global warming and related actions not only concern the human living environment, but also directly impact the modernization process of developing countries. Although the process of global climate protection depends on the consensus of our scienti?c awareness, political wills, economic interests, society’s level of 2 acceptance, as well as measures adopted, a lowcarbon (LC) development path is, undoubtedly, the critical choice of future human development. The science basis of climate change and its extended political and economic implications Global warming of the climate system has bee an unequivocal fact. According to a large amount of monitoring data, global average land surface temperature has risen over the last century (IPCC, 2020a, b, c, d). And the rate of rising has been sped up. In the meantime, global average sea level has been constantly rising too. Global warming has posed a serious challenge to China’s climate, environment and development. In the global context of climate change, China’s climate and environment are changing too. For instance, in the last century, the land surface average temperature has witnessed an obvious increase。 and what those experiences mean to developing countries still needs to be ?gured out and tested overtime. For developing countries, the dif?culties and barriers to developing a LC economy are obvious, including current stage of development, international trade structure, economic costs, inadequate market, technology diffusion system, institutional arrangement, incentive policy and management system. From the historic evolution of the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions in industrialized countries, most countries experienced successively the inverted Ushape curves of carbon intensity, per capita carbon emissions, and then total carbon emissions. But different countries or regions vary greatly in economic development level or per capita gross domestic product (GDP) relative to the carbon emissions peak. This shows that there does not exist a single, exact turning point between economic growth and carbon emissions. If you examine those countries or regions that have passed the carbon emissions pe ak, roughly 2491 years, on average 55 years, are required between the peak of carbon emissions intensity and that of per capita carbon emissions. Some driving forces to reach different peaks have been shown in Figure 1 in terms of experience in the past and scenario analysis in the future. The point is, without strong mandatory emissions reduction measures and external support, developing countries will need relatively longer time to reach the peak of carbon emissions growth and then stabilize and decrease 6 Strategic measures On the basis of the abovementioned analysis, the LC path with Chinese characteristics shall also focus on gradually setting up “resourceef?cient, environmentfriendly and LCoriented” society. Guided by LC development strategy and its targets, efforts shall be made to develop relevant institutional arrangements, improve management systems, stipulate development plans, accumulate experience from demonstrations and pilots, and push forward LC economic development in an orderly manner, so that a sustainable and LC future can be shaped for China. Four major aspects are the key starting points to structure a LC social and economy system: (1) Establish a legal and regulatory framework addressing climate change and improving the macromanagement system. The legislative feasibility and legal model of “Law to Address Climate Change” shall be debated and articulated. Also, in the legislation process of other laws and regulations, articles related to response to climate change shall be included. For instance, a technical guideline of strategic environmental assessment shall i