For the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the Chinese government has decided to reconsider and adjust its policies on economic development because of the pressures of CO2 emissions and fossil energy consumption. The current paper adopts the logarithmic Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model to simulate the relationship between CO2 emissions and other economic development factors in China. Three groups of outliers are found using samples from 1989 to 2008 and the Partial Least Square (PLS) regularity test method. The outlier analysis reveals three important areas for CO2 reduction: (a) decreasing the share of coal to the total energy consumption and replacing it with non-fossil energies; (b) controlling vehicles used in the cities as well as (c) adjusting industrial structure. Furthermore, based on the social and economic realities of China, the current paper designs six feasible development scenarios for the period covered by the 12th Five-Year Plan and predicts the values of each factor in each scenario. The values can test the implementation of China's CO2 control development concept. The experiences obtained by outlier analysis can be of significant reference value for realizing the predicted scenarios. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.