China has now clearly overtaken the United States as the world’s leading emitter of climate-warming gases, a new study has found. The increasing emissions from China – up 8 percent in the past year – accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007, the study found. The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, is an annual study.
China, like the United States, is heavily dependent on coal for its energy, and it has seen its most rapid growth in some of the world’s most polluting industrial sectors, like cement, aluminum and plate glass.
Twenty percent of China’s emissions come from its cement kilns, which are essential for the country’s construction boom and likely to be working overtime this year as the country prepares for the Olympics and rebuilds after a devastating earthquake.
That being said, the United States has clearly maintained its lead in carbon dioxide emissions per person. The average American is responsible for 19.4 tons, followed by Russia at 11.8 tons, Western Europe at 8.6 tons, China at 5.1 tons and India at 1.8 tons.
Experts said the new data underscored the importance of getting China to sign on to any new global climate agreement. Neither China nor the United States participated in the current treaty to limit emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It will be replaced by a new agreement to be signed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
In Bonn on Friday, 2,000 world leaders concluded two weeks of negotiations on what kind of agreement should replace Kyoto. They claimed modest progress but reached no conclusions, according to The Associated Press, which quoted participants as saying not enough ideas were put on the table.
United Nations leaders told them to “pick up the pace.”
“With a little more than a year to go to Copenhagen, the challenge to come to that agreement remains daunting,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Late last year, a UN panel of scientific experts warned that the world had only a few years to reverse a growing emissions trend if it is to avoid severe consequences of global warming, which range from rising sea levels to the death of entire species.
In comparison, emissions in the 15 pre-2004 European Union member states dropped 2 percent in 2007, though Olivier said that this drop was at least partly attributable to a warm winter that reduced the need for heating.
But with high oil and natural gas prices this year, other forces favor emissions growth in the future. High oil prices have created a resurgence in interest in coal-fired power plants for industry, which are far more polluting than other variants.
About 80 percent of the world’s coal demand comes from China, according to the International Energy Agency. But the United States is also a major user of coal to power its industry.
“It is crucial for countries like China and the United States to explore technologies to deal with that,” de Boer said, referring specifically to projects that would pump emissions underground instead of into the atmosphere.
– from International Herald Tribune by James Kanter
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The people and their country who buy Chinese made products also responsible for the pollution that China makes. In the pollution we have to include the transportation of the Chinese products to other international countries and all of those pollution should be charge to that country. Because when we buy something we are being responsible for the pollution from mining to transportation to produce that product on our desk.
So all these pollution can be charged to developed world including US.
People says china’s economy is getting superheated. Why? Its because the developed world transported their manufacturing to developing world and third world to show their companies are making more profit by using cheap labour, resource and in thous countries.
Dont buy Chinese products. Dont buy foreign company products. Buy local.