China has exhibited remarkable annual average gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 9.5 percent since 1980. This has unfortunately also been accompanied by a significant increase in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs); China is the world's second largest emitter of GHGs, accounting for 14.8 percent of global emissions. China therefore has a critical role to play in global efforts to address climate change. The Government of China (GoC) has encouraged development of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market and has put in place the required policy instruments to enable growth of the market, including the October 2005 measures for operation and management of CDM projects to regulate project development and identify national priorities such as energy efficiency improvements, development and utilization of new and renewable energy, and methane recovery and utilization. Just three years after entering the market, China accounted for 61 percent of the global CDM market (by 2006). GoC also attaches high priority to the utilization of biogas as a means of both improving the lives of rural households and addressing environmental degradation. As part of a large national rural biogas program launched in 2001, more than 750 large and medium size biogas projects have been completed; this program has achieved considerable technical success, and it is anticipated that investments of about RMB 50 billion will be made in rural biogas development during the 1 lth 5-year plan through both government grant programs and private investments. This project is also consistent with two strategic areas of the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS). The first is to manage resource scarcity and environmental challenges by contributing to improve land management and energy use as well as protection of the global environmental commons. The second is to reduce poverty, inequality, and social exclus