An unexpected and dramatic twist emerged this week in the global drive to reduce carbon emissions to limit global warming.

The surprise was the way in which the planet’s average temperatures have increased over the past two decades has largely, according to a research team, been driven by China’s successful efforts to clean up its dirty air.

Scientists at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway took newly-published data on Chinese aerosol emissions since 2005 to understand its impact on the world’s climate.

Its new report concluded the gases previously effectively acted as a “reverse blanket”, sitting in the atmosphere as an artificial cooling layer that reflected solar rays back into space, and so prevented the planet’s warming temperature from accelerating at a faster rate.

The headline figure is stark. “In total, China’s air pollution crackdown is responsible for 80 per cent of the increased rate in global warming seen since 2010,” an article this week in New Scientist outlines.

That sounds ludicrous, particularly given the action and investment of many governments and companies to help address a warming planet by making complex economic and industrial change.

But the report also offers a more positive outlook, given the enormous impact China has been able to have on its otherwise harmful and aerosol emissions over the past 20 years, lowering sulphur dioxide outputs by around 20 million tonnes annually through filters on vehicle exhausts, and changes in industrial and energy production. It shows, despite the inadvertent side effect, that such broad commitments can achieve dramatic outcomes in a relatively short space of time.

It is important to note that China’s action hasn’t caused the additional warming, the report stresses. By reducing aerosol-polluted air so successfully, it has essentially unmasked what was already there. Oddly enough, China seems to have done the world a big short-term favour, without knowing it.

China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment did not - perhaps not unsurprisingly - respond to a request for comment on the New Scientist piece.

But it’s not the first time that the scientific link has been identified by researchers. A collaboration between Chinese, American and German oceanographers last year noted that the aerosol curtailment had caused heatwaves over the North Pacific. Less surprisingly, the Daily Mail reported it at the time with an alarmist headline that made it look like a deliberate ploy, while the South China Morning Post gave a more balanced account.

The report will surely trigger more conversation as action on warming is debated, particularly at COP30 later in the year. But as large companies grapple with maintaining their efforts to co-ordinate climate action while potentially working with softening policies and reporting obligations, it will be interesting to see what impact the science community has with other near-term reports - both in the data provided and how it is communicated.