David Sandalow, assistant secretary of state for energy, said the continuation of business as usual in China would result in a 2.7C rise in global temperatures by 2050 even if every other country slashed greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
"China can and will need to do much more if the world is going to have any hope of containing climate change," said Sandalow, who is in Beijing as part of a high-level negotiating team that aims to find common ground ahead of the crucial Copenhagen summit at the end of this year.
No effective deal will be possible without the US and China, which together account for almost half of the planet's carbon emissions.
Before arriving for this week's talks, Todd Stern, the head of the US delegation, said China and other developing nations are not doing enough and "need to take significant national actions that they commit to, internationally, that they quantify."
China's position paper says the US and other nations that industrialised earlier should cut emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2020, as well as paying 1% of their GDP to help poorer nations deal with the consequences and causes of climate change.
But even with the shift to renewables, clean car technology and ecologically friendly urban planning, China's overall emissions are not expected to drop for many years. The most optimistic scenario suggests 2020 may be a peak, but the majority of scholars and government officials do not think carbon consumption in China will fall until at least 2030.
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