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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China on brink as No. 1 polluter |
| 2007-03-25 |
| China is on course to overtake the United States this year as the world's biggest carbon dioxide producer, according to estimates based on Chinese energy data. The finding might pressure Beijing to take more action on climate change. China's emissions rose by about 10 percent in 2005, a senior U.S. scientist estimated, while Beijing data shows fuel consumption rose more than 9 percent in 2006, suggesting China would easily outstrip the United States this year, long before a forecast. Taking the top spot would put pressure on China to do more to slow emissions as part of world talks on extending the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol on global warming beyond 2012. Thirty-five developed nations have agreed to cut emissions in accordance with Kyoto and they want others, especially the United States and China, to do more. China and India were not included in the pact because they are considered developing countries, which was one reason the United States did not sign it. "It looks likely to me that China will pass the United States [in emissions] this year," said Gregg Marland, a senior staff scientist at the U.S. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, which supplies data to governments, researchers and nongovernmental organizations worldwide. "There's a very high likelihood they'll pass them in 2007." Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas for heat, power and transportation. Many, but not all, scientists say it is a key contributor to global warming. Mr. Marland used fossil fuel consumption data from oil company BP to calculate China's carbon dioxide emissions in 2005 at 5.3 billion tons, versus 5.9 billion for the United States, with respective growth in 2005 of 10.5 percent and less than 0.1 percent. In 2006, Chinese fuel consumption rose 9.3 percent to the equivalent of 2.4 billion tons of coal that year, the deputy head of the office that advises China on energy policy, Xu Dingming, said on Thursday. This was faster than BP's estimate of a 9 percent rise in China's oil, gas and coal consumption in 2005, to 1.45 billion tons of oil equivalent. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises 26 developed countries, said in November that China would overtake the United States as the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter before 2010 if current trends continued. China's Office of the National Coordination Committee on Climate Change said it could not comment on either forecast, as it did not have a reliable estimate of the country's emissions. "These figures are very complicated; we don't have an estimate of [carbon dioxide] for such a recent date," said an official who declined to be named. "We have just set in motion our national reporting plan ... but it will not be done for two or three years." U.N. data for 2003 put the United States at the top with 23 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions and China second with 16.5 percent. But U.S. residents were far bigger producers, at 20 tons per capita versus China's 3.2 tons and a world average of 3.7. China argues that wealthy nations are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and should lead the way in cutting emissions. More economic growth and fuel use translates into higher emissions, particularly in China, which gets around 70 percent of its energy from coal, the highest carbon-producing fuel. Mr. Marland estimated a plus or minus 15 to 20 percent error in the Chinese data versus a 5 percent U.S. margin. China's rapid rise of carbon emissions is threatening to outweigh efforts by the European Union and others to slow climate change. EU leaders said earlier this month they would cut the bloc's greenhouse gases by at least one-fifth by 2020. But China between now and 2015 will build power-generating capacity equal to the entire existing capacity in the 27-nation European Union, the IEA estimates. China's sconomic growth has been fueled largely by burning coal, and it is still building power plants at an unprecedented rate. Last year, it added about 100 gigawatts of new generators, approaching France's entire capacity, most of them coal-burning ones. 100,000 megawatts of new generating capacity, mostly coal-fired, added in China LAST YEAR ALONE?? And Al Gore is worried about our SUVs??? |
| Posted by:Dave D. |
| #8 The Halliburton Solar Modification Divison? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2007-03-25 21:54 |
| #7 I've friends posted to China -- Beijing and Guangzhou. One used to run mini-marathons back home -- doesn't run at all in Guangzhou because the air is too bad. Although that was at first, perhaps she's become accustomed to it by now. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-03-25 21:36 |
| #6 Old Pat, are you giving us a forcase of solar spot activity ? Speak to God lately ? Nostrodomus ? Who knows these things ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-03-25 21:24 |
#5 All of this ignores how communist regimes rank as some of the most hideous polluters of all time. Consider the extensive chemical and radioactive pollution at Soviet Russia's rocket launch and N-test facilities. Siberia's Lake Baikal, is the world's oldest lake and holds more fresh water than all five Great Lakes combined. Yet, even now the Russians are verging on causing irrepairable harm to this pristine ecology.Lake Baikal is a self-contained aquatic system; it is an isolated ecosystem, home to more than 1,500 endemic species found no where else on earth. Among these unique flora and fauna are the Baikal seal believed to be a relative of the Arctic ringed seal, 3,220 kilometers away), and the omul, a fish considered to be a delicacy in the region. Some of the plants and animals can be dated to prehistoric times. As a result, Baikal is a huge natural laboratory. As to communist Chinese pollution: A report released in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that of the ten most polluted cities in the world, seven can be found in China. Sulfur dioxide and soot caused by coal combustion are two major air pollutants, resulting in the formation of acid rain, which now falls on about 30% of China's total land area. Industrial boilers and furnaces consume almost half of China's coal and are the largest single point sources of urban air pollution ...[emphasis added] Yet the global community paints America as the biggest culprit and insists that we hobble our industrial base while China has not even signed on to the Kyoto Accord. As with human life, communism takes a horrendous toll upon this world. The closed societies of Soviet Russia and communist China have allowed them to proceed unhindered by even a whiff of condemnation, despite doing tremendous environmental damage. Generations from now, when the truth finally comes to light, communists will be found complicit in environmental rapes on a scale that defies imagination. America's honest efforts at reducing its pollution will shrink to insignificance in comparison to the havor wrought upon this earth by "scientifically planned societies". |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-03-25 18:12 |
| #4 The next couple of years are supposedly going to be the make/break of "global warming" as the solar sunspot cycle is supposed to start late, be larger by 20-30% than normal, and will cause cooler, wetter temperatures around the world. If that prediction comes to pass, the entire "global warming" house of cards will collapse from its own inconsistency. If I were Gore, I'd start looking for some beachfront property - in Vanuatu, which doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2007-03-25 14:36 |
| #3 Nothing planting a few trees can't handle. They could start by replacing the ones from illegal logging, giving the people a green industry to sustain themselves. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2007-03-25 14:26 |
| #2 Much as I hate to defend the Chinese, it has to be said - CO2 is not a pollutant. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-03-25 07:37 |
| #1 And note the labelling of CO2, an odourless, colorless gas, vital to life on earth, as a pollutant. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2007-03-25 04:35 |