According to the Manager of the Power and Environmental Department under the United Nations Development Program, China is slated to become the top nation with regards to carbon dioxide emissions.

He added that China must step up sustainability measures, and apart from streamlining the industry’s structure and increasing the country’s budget for sustainable power sources, measures to boost the development of clean power sources including nuclear power is equally significant.
 
As stated in China’s official medium to long term initiatives for nuclear power development, the country will complete construction of 40 GW nuclear power units with the annual power generating capacity of 260 to 280 billion kWh by 2020. Nuclear power capacity will account for 4 percent to 6 percent of the nation’s total installed power capacity by then.

The deputy secretary of the China Sustainable Development Industrial and Commercial Council ZHAI Qi remarked that this official direction suggests that China will have to build 30 new nuclear plants within two decades.