China's carbon emissions soaring past the US

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: The Guardian

China's carbon emissions are soaring past those of the US, new figures reveal, making it the dominant country in the global warming debate.

Chinese carbon dioxide pollution rose by 8% in 2007 and was responsible for two-thirds of the year's total increase in global CO2 emissions, according to experts at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Cement production to meet China's demand for infrastructure to support its booming economy was a large factor: half of all global cement production now takes place in China, and the industry is responsible for a fifth of Chinese CO2. Rebuilding roads and homes after the Sichuan province earthquake is expected to increase demand further.

According to the figures, China is now responsible for 24% of global carbon dioxide emissions, followed by the US with 22%. The EU produces 12%, India 8% and the Russian Federation 6%.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/13/climatechange.carbonemissions?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

[David__77]

1. China's output is much more in line with their share of the world's population than the US's output.

Considering China is maybe 20% of the world population, and the US is maybe 4%, these figures cast China is a better light.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Yes not to mention that they're manufacturing all of our cheap plastic crap

They have trains and electic scooters everywhere in China. The public transportation systems is about 200 years more advanced than ours.

[Psephos]

3. A "much better light"?

You think Chinese environmental policies and actions deserve to be seen in a "much better light"? In the US, pollution per capita, per unit of GDP, and per annum - you pick - has declined. Moreover, the amount of energy consumed per dollar of GDP has dropped by half since the late 1980s. There's plenty more to do, but the trend is moving in the right direction.

By comparison, China is an eco-nightmare...and we all are paying for it, sooner or later.

Even worse, the Chinese trend to further damage, pollution, and CO2 emissions is accelerating.


http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/the-last-empire.html

http://www.climateark.org/blog/2008/03/chinas_pollution_everybodys_pr.asp

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,461828,00.html



And don't miss the pretty pictures:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/pollution_in_china_pics.php

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16712

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1711253_1529789,00.html

[David__77]

5. Yes, a MUCH better light.

Their output is less than the US when its per capita GDP was the same as China's presently. China's economy is growing much, much faster than the US's, which accounts for much of this as well. China has the right to industrialize just as did the US. The developed countries should transfer capital and technology to the developing countries to fight pollution.

[Psephos]

6. Oh, oookkkkkaaayyyy - the pollution itself isn't the issue, just their "right" to pollute n/t

[David__77]

7. No, the pollution itself is important.

That's why I advocate the developed countries massively assisting industrializing countries' efforts to reign in pollution. But we should recognize that there is a cost associated with each level of pollution control. When REAL poverty, such as hunger and and lack of proper sanitation, exist in many developing countries, I fully understand why those countries cost-benefit analysis of "output vs. pollution control" is not the same as in the country like the US.

[Psephos]

8. David, did you look at any of those links I posted? Are you all right with what you see?

Take a look at the NASA photo of the great rivers of polluted air sweeping out of China, over Japan, and then across the Pacific.

Western manufacturing, where good pollution laws are in effect, is moving to China, where virtually no pollution laws are in effect. Much of the worst pollution is hidden by the Chinese government - it's actually worse than what we see. China's CO2 production is not only larger than any other country's, it's also growing, and the rate at which it's growing is increasing. It's a speeding train with no brakes...and it's going to crash into all of us.

China has a GDP of $9 trillion. NINE TRILLION. That makes it the second largest economy. And you want other countries to hand the reckless Chinese government "massive" amounts of money to reign in pollution. WTF? We're *already* handing them massive cash. It's time for them to spend some of it on environmental programs the way the rest of us did.

I'm not trying to be rude, but you and others like you are enablers. You want to give the don't-give-a-damn Chinese a pass on the global mess they're creating, and you want us to hand them even more money than we currently do. It's madness. Ramp up the pressure on the Chinese. They've gotten a free pass for too long.

If you want to cut some slack to Vietnam or Kenya or Romania - ok, I might listen. But China? Put the crack pipe down and go look at some of those links.

[hogwyld]

10. So the solution you recommend, from what I read

Is that the devoloped world should force the Chinese to go back to sustenance farming? Who the hell are WE to tell the Chinese that they have no right to have the things that the first world takes for granted? Our own history in industrialization is a prime example of what China is going through now. In time, they will wisen up like we did, and Europe did as well.

[Psephos]

14. ??? Where the hell did you get that idea?

From your own head, that's where.

The solution is to pressure the Chinese to adopt forward-looking environmental policies, as has been done in the Western world. Maybe you're okay with them pissing poison into the atmosphere and waterways. I'm not. Your notion that silly lines drawn on maps by generals and kings determine when and where it's okay to pollute is both ridiculous and dangerous. China is the world's no. 1 emitter of CO2 (to pick just one of many pollutants) and is becoming more so every day.

We don't have time for the Chinese to "wisen up" - the damage they're doing does not affect only China. Adopting sustainable antipollution laws in China will help them as much as it helps everyone else. Yes it will cost money. But not anywhere near as much as it will cost to try cleaning up or reversing the damage later.

China can afford to industrialize responsibly, and will reap economic benefits for doing so. Wouldn't you like Chinese products to compete fairly with those made in countries where the costs of environmental responsibility are reflected in product prices? You like the idea that they are wiping out Western industrial jobs by using their free pollution pass to undercut prices? I'll restate that: China is using the cost advantage of uncontrolled pollution from its factories to destroy manufacturing jobs in the West. In other words, we're incentivizing job destruction AND global pollution.

(shaking my head)

I've seen the attitudes you expressed repeated here often - that somehow the practices of the past create a "right" for people now to do more damage and unsustainable foolishness so they can suck up some cash. By your logic, the Chinese should also have a right to engage in slavery for a century or two, to "catch up." And then, furthering that logic, once China becomes the world's pre-eminent industrial power, all the former industrial powers will have a right to abolish their environmental laws to catch up to the Chinese. It's a fucking suicide pact.

China has been around as a society for approximately fifteen times as long as the US. What exactly caused them to squander that multi-thousand-year lead? Now you and the other enablers want to pretend Chinese pollution isn't a nightmare in waiting?

No one has the right to poison the Earth, and no one has the right to poison the Earth to build market share while destroying more environmentally-aware competitors and their middle-class workforces.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Me Thinks the Slowdown Will Slow Them Down Too, Eventually

As all China's customers slump into stagflation, China's economy is sure to follow.

[dysfunctional press]

9. not to worry-john coleman says that the warming is over, and carbon emissions don't matter anyway...

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html

"...All the computer models, all of the other findings, all of the other angles of study, all come back to and are based on CO2 as a significant greenhouse gas. It is not.

Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. It is a natural component of our atmosphere. It has been there since time began. It is absorbed and emitted by the oceans. It is used by every living plant to trigger photosynthesis. Nothing would be green without it. And we humans; we create it. Every time we breathe out, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. It is not smog. It is a naturally occurring invisible gas.

Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t.

The UN IPCC has attracted billions of dollars for the research to try to make the case that CO2 is the culprit of run-away, man-made global warming. The scientists have come up with very complex creative theories and done elaborate calculations and run computer models they say prove those theories. They present us with a concept they call radiative forcing. The research organizations and scientists who are making a career out of this theory, keep cranking out the research papers. Then the IPCC puts on big conferences at exotic places, such as the recent conference in Bali. The scientists endorse each other’s papers, they are summarized and voted on, and viola, we are told global warming is going to kill us all unless we stop burning fossil fuels..."

[junior college]

11. One in 3 Americans over the age of 18 have a car

Compared to one in 425 people in China. Most of the Chinese ride bikes or take public transportation. They are light years ahead of the United States.

[Dreamer Tatum]

12. Why not think a little about what you're saying

Suppose your stats are right...doesn't that mean that they're far from "light years ahead," and are in fact
massively BEHIND because their emissions approach ours despite not having an auto-centric society?

I thought the issue was climate change, not usage of public transport.

[junior college]

13. The issue is about climate change

My point is that China's output is much more in line with their share of the world's population than the US's output. Considering China is maybe 20% of the world population, and the US is maybe 4%, these figures cast China is a better light.

[magellan]

15. A light year is a measure of distance, not time

And while it may be true that most Chinese still ride bikes or take public transportation, it isn't because they're ahead of us but because most of its 1.3 billion population still can't afford cars.

A quick google search reveals estimates that only about 100 million people make up China's consumer class -- the ones who can afford luxuries like cars. While small in proportion to China's overall population, that's already 1/3 the population of the US and growing at an astounding rate.

More worrisome are China's coal-fired utilities:

China's coal fired capacity is expected to double that of the United States by 2011 and will achieve a capacity of one million MW by 2030 with an average growth of 25,000 MW per year. In China, 2500 units are either operating, under construction or planned. - GlobeNet, February 28, 2008

http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?MenuId=MjI1&ClickMenu=&doOpen=1&type=DocDet&ObjectId=Mjg3Mzg

China became a net importer of coal last year.