This study has been created in order to better inform climate policy recommendations for China through the study of emissions reduction potential and mitigation opportunities in the major emission sectors in the country. The LEAP model along with three scenarios has been employed in this study. The study has projected that under all scenarios, China's emissions in major sectors will increase. However, through the current sustainable development strategy and even more aggressive emission reduction policies, an annual average of 201-486 million metric tons (MMT) of emissions could be reduced. The cost analysis shows that opportunities are available to achieve significant additional emission reductions at reasonable rates. Besides the results on mitigation opportunities in each sector, this research also explores sectoral preference when determining policies from different perspectives. This study concludes that China's "unilateral actions" since 2000 should be recognized and encouraged. If further emission reduction were required, sector-based mitigation policies would be a very good option and selecting proper policy-making perspective(s) and identifying the most cost-effective mitigation measures within sector and across sectors would be the key information needed to devise these policies. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.