[ptenk]

But China is weaning itself off fossil fuels?

China has over 400,000 electric buses (99% of the world) and the longest high speed rail in the planet. High-speed rails carry twice as many passengers each month as the country’s airlines.

4.2% of new car purchases in China were electric vehicles in 2018. China has 250 million electric motorcycles/scooters (99% of the world's). These numbers are growing rapidly every year.

China is also the world's largest producer of photovoltaic power not to mention the world's leading installer of solar panels. Their literal stated goal for 2050 is to reach 1,300 GW of solar capacity, which is enormous. That would make it the source with the largest installed capacity in China.

China has a lot of problems, but fossil fuel addiction is not one of them.

[AstralStorm]

Just by virtue of them being big, it is still a problem. Also said started goal is less than used for consensus "current" climate change target by IPCC which is considered optimistic and nets some 3.5 C rise as per model.

2050 is too late as well. To make a big difference the timetable for that capacity would have to be 2030 and all the baseline would have to be hydro or nuclear. This is unlikely to happen even if they really want to do it.

Now consider that we also have USA to handle who are notorious about ignoring climate change targets...

Now, even 5 C is not a cataclysmic event but it will be very bad on a global scale - mostly water availability and farming, related price shocks and social upheaval.