Collaboration between the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology of Tsinghua University, China, and the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change, MIT of the USA has been established in developing a multi-sector, multi-period non-linear programming model of greenhouse gas emissions in China. This model provides complete overall and intertemporal consistency. The growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions projected for China by the INET/MIT model are relatively high due to higher projected overall economic growth rates and higher emissions intensifies. These results are explained largely through the dominant role of coal. In turn, this is due to the relatively limited domestic reserves of oil and natural gas, and the difficulty of exporting enough to pay for imports of oil and refined products and/or natural gas at levels that would be necessary to significantly reduce the use of coal.