China's goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, as announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week, is highly achievable as the country has been ramping up green initiatives in recent years, said Asian Development Bank (ADB) Wednesday.

There was a high likelihood for China potentially achieving this target as China has been ramping up progress on sustainable initiatives, said ADB's senior energy consultant Shen Yiyang, adding that it was developing at a speed that surpasses the country's economic growth rate.

The potential for China to achieve this target is great. From China's 14th five-year-plan, Shen said, we have seen a lot of description on green protection and green consumption. 

In addition, China is now also the largest market for all kinds of green technology.

"We have seen that European Union has just set their target to be carbon neutral by 2050. China's GDP growth is now around 5 percent, but I think China's speed for this green development will be faster than its economic development," he said.

China is the world's largest contributor of planet-warming gases and uses more coal than the rest of the world combined, but the country is also a world leader in renewable energy and in recent years has taken a stronger public stance on climate action.

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Xi had said China would achieve a peak in carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, the first time the country has pledged to end its net contribution to climate change. Carbon neutrality refers to the total carbon dioxides emitted by human activity on a net basis equaling zero.

"China will scale up its intended Nationally Determined Contributions (to the Paris agreement) by adopting more vigorous policies and measures," Xi said, urging all countries to pursue a green recovery of the world economy in the post-COVID era."

Meanwhile, Shen also noted that China, which has the world's largest carbon-trading scheme, is already the world's largest market in green bonds, and is also pushing mega projects in green urbanization and building smart cities.

"In the future, I think more and more green finance schemes can be adopted in China. There's a lot of investment agencies now having their own green teams overseeing these types of investments. I think this would get better and better, especially when banks are investing in them," said Shen.