China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter
Pastor Dale Morgan
China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter*
John Vidal and David Adam
Tuesday June 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of
carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show.
The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing
role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto
world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that
includes the booming Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been
expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's biggest
polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could
happen as early as next year.
But according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,
soaring demand for coal to generate electricity and a surge in cement
production have helped to push China's recorded emissions for 2006
beyond those from the US already. It says China produced 6,200m tonnes
of CO2 last year, compared with 5,800m tonnes from the US. Britain
produced about 600m tonnes.
Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the government agency who compiled
the figures, said: "There will still be some uncertainty about the exact
numbers, but this is the best and most up to date estimate available.
China relies very heavily on coal and all of the recent trends show
their emissions going up very quickly." China's emissions were 2% below
those of the US in 2005. Per head of population, China's pollution
remains relatively low - about a quarter of that in the US and half that
of the UK.
The new figures only include carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel
burning and cement production. They do not include sources of other
greenhouse gases, such as methane from agriculture and nitrous oxide
from industrial processes. And they exclude other sources of carbon
dioxide, such as from the aviation and shipping industries, as well as
from deforestation, gas flaring and underground coal fires.
Dr Olivier said it was hard to find up to date and reliable estimates
for such emissions, particularly from countries in the developing world.
But he said including them would be unlikely to topple China from top
spot. "Since China passed the US by 8% [in 2006] it will be pretty hard
to compensate for that with other sources of emissions."
To work out the emissions figures, Dr Oliver used data issued by the oil
company BP earlier this month on the consumption of oil, gas and coal
across the world during 2006, as well as information on cement
production published by the US Geological Survey. Cement production,
which requires huge amounts of energy, accounts for about 4% of global
CO2 production from fuel use and industrial sources. China's cement
industry, which has rapidly expanded in recent years and now produces
about 44% of world supply, contributes almost 9% of the country's CO2
emissions. Dr Olivier calculated carbon dioxide emissions from each
country's use of oil, gas and coal using UN conversion factors. China's
surge beyond the US was helped by a 1.4% fall in the latter's CO2
emissions during 2006, which analysts say is down to a slowing US economy.
The announcement comes as international negotiations to produce a new
climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol when it expires in 2012 are
delicately poised. The US refused to ratify Kyoto partly because it made
no demands on China, and one major sticking point of the new
negotiations has been finding a way to include both nations, as well as
other rapidly developing economies such as India and Brazil. Tony Blair
believes the best approach is to develop national markets to cap and
trade carbon, which could then be linked.
Earlier this month, China unveiled its first national plan on climate
change after two years of preparation by 17 government ministries.
Rather than setting a direct target for the reduction or avoidance of
greenhouse gas emissions, it now aims to reduce energy consumption per
unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20% by 2010 and to increase the
share of renewable energy to some 10%, as well as to cover roughly 20%
of the nation's land with forest.
But it stressed that technology and costs are major barriers to
achieving energy efficiency in China, and that it will be hard to alter
the nation's dependency on coal in the short term. What China needs,
said a government spokesman, is international cooperation in helping
China move toward a low-carbon economy. Chinese industries have been
hesitant to embrace unproven clean coal and carbon capture technologies
that are still in their infancy in developed countries.