【正文】 f 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。 though the precipitation has not changed too much, its interdecadal variations and regional disparity have been big. In the last 50 years, there have also been major changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events (Editorial Board of China’s National Assessment Report on Climate Change, 2020). The IPCC (2020a, b, c, d) integrated assessment shows that since 1750, human activities have been a major cause of global warming, while in the last 50 years, most of the global warming is the consequence of human activities, with a probability of more than 90 per cent, in particular from the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions due to the human use of fossil fuels. It is forecast that before the end of the twenty?rst century, global warming will continue, and how much the temperature will rise depends on what actions humans will take. According the Third Working Group Report of the IPCC fourth Assessment (IPCC, 2020a, b, c, d), human actions to mitigate climate change are feasible, both economically and technologically. Actions to deploy key mitigation technologies in various sectors, adopting policy and administrative interference and shifting the development pathway could all contribute greatly to mitigation of climate change. With China being the world’s largest CO2emitter, China faces increasing pressure to reduce its emissions. Being a responsible country, China will take actions to tackle climate change. When developing its mitigation target, China will consider such factors as level of 3 development, technology knowhow, social impact, international image and a new international climate regime underpinned by fairness and effectiveness. China will move into a winwin development path to achieve climate protection, quality economic development and other related policy targets. To develop LC economy – background, opportunities and challenges As illustrated above, systematic solutions are required to tackle climate change, due to the plexity of the global climate system as well as its coverage of broad social and economic issues. After nearly two decades’ exploration, human society has realized that in order to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change, we have to fundamentally reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which means that we have to achieve the shift to a LC future from the way we produce and consume to how global assets are allocated (including industries, technology, capitals and resources) and how they are transferred. From the perspective of the limited storage capacity of GHGs in the climate system as a global public good, both a high level of human wisdom and a new international climate regime to deal with market failure are required, which also demands the participation of all stakeholders and together they shall charter a new development pathway. Human society has to pay the economic prices to solve climate warming. Thus, the three ?exible “mechanisms” in the Kyoto Protocol ( joint implementation, emissions trading and clean development mechanism) demonstrate a meaningful experiment for the Annex I countries to decrease their emissions reduction costs. What is needed is to move forward from where we are now to explore a more universally applicable mechanism that would effectively allocate the resources among the key responsible stakeholders. The LC development path embodies an integrated solution strategy. It aims to build up a LC society through LC economic development, tries to achieve the restructuring of all the key elements discussed above and offers new opportunities for human society in response to climate change through collaborations. As a fundamental venue to coordinate social and economic development, guarantee energy security and respond to climate change, development of LC economy is gradually gaining the needed consensus from more and more countries. Though without a ?xed academic de?nition, the core of developing a LC economy is to establish a development pathway that has highenergy 4 ef?ciency, lowenergy consumption and low emissions. Under a fair and effective international climate regime, the ef?ciency