China’s negotiating strategy at Copenhagen led to two different schools of thoughts: one considers the world’s biggest emitter as the principal obstacle to progress at the talks and the second sees China as a developing country, which has done far more than its fair share. Far from establishing the truth, the aim of this seminar is to investigate the ideological as well as practical reasons underlying the county’s current move away from the previous development model, towards a low carbon economic model. As the “harmonious society” paradigm and the “scientific outlook on development” idea, remain the axes of the current Chinese leadership’s political program, their consistency with the low carbon shift will be investigated. Hence, an overview of the steps already taken and of what China is likely to do in order to establish its roadmap toward a low carbon future will be provided.