British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to reduce China’s reliance on coal and to move the country’s target date for peak CO2 emissions ahead in order to better combat climate change.

China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is pivotal to the growth of COP26. However, many scientists and climate experts believe China’s existing climate plans are insufficient, and Johnson is eager to encourage Beijing to go farther. 

Beijing submitted updated “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) to combat climate change on Thursday, formally upping headline emission-cutting commitments, but adding nothing new ahead of the United Nations COP26 climate meetings, which Johnson will host.

China expects to witness its carbon dioxide emissions reach a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060, according to submission documents published on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website.

According to an  NDTV report, Johnson told reporters that he raised “a couple of points. First of all about the moment for peaking … they have said before 2030 and so I pushed a bit on that, that 2025 would be better than 2030, and I wouldn’t say he committed to that”.

“On the other point where I was evangelical again was the potential to move away from coal,” he said.

Johnson is eager to make COP26 a success, but with the UN Environment Programme predicting that the world temperature will rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius, with catastrophic effects, some critics question whether the British leader can persuade China and other major polluters to “keep 1.5 alive”. 

Signatories to the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Using soccer as a metaphor, Johnson said, “If this was half time I would say we’re about 5-1 down … and we’ve got a long way to go.”

“But we can do it. We have the ability to equalise, to save the position and to come back.”