China is the world’s largest single greenhouse gas emitter, spewing more than double the amount of heat-trapping chemicals as the next biggest climate polluter, the United States.

For decades, China’s emissions soared ever higher as its economy grew, burning extraordinary volumes of coal, oil, and natural gas to light up cities, power factories, and fuel cars. The trend seemed unstoppable: At one point, China was approving two new coal power plants per week.

It was an alarming prospect for the whole world. “Eighty-five percent of emissions for the remainder of the century are projected to occur outside the EU and the US,” said Michael Greenstone, an economist at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “If we’re going to make real progress on climate change, that will require reductions from that 85 percent.” And since China is the single-largest emitter, there’s no feasible way to meet international climate change targets without them on board.

But now, for the first time, there’s been a shift: China’s greenhouse gas emissions have actually fallen even as energy demand went up.

According to a new report at Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, China’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have dropped for the........

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