BIG EMITTER: China's emissions of greenhouse gases are rapidly growing beyond those from the U.S.
Image: Wkimedia Commons/Shubert Ciencia
By 2015, China will emit nearly 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the United States, a top Chinese energy researcher said yesterday.
Ye Qi, a professor of environmental policy at Tsinghua University and director of the Climate Policy Initiative, both in Beijing, said China has made enormous strides over the past five years in both reducing energy intensity and developing renewable energy capacity.
But, he said, China's overall energy use has skyrocketed along with its growth, keeping renewable sources just a sliver of the country's overall share. Meanwhile, he said, China's emissions, which were 20 percent higher than the United States' in 2010, could be as high as 49 percent more by 2015.
"There is no question now China is the largest emitter, and the gap between Number 1 and Number 2 is enlarging," Qi said as part of a Brookings Institution panel discussion on China's low-carbon development.
The focus on China's clean energy work comes as Washington prepares for a visit later this month from Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed President Hu Jintao.
Trade issues could 'sink' joint U.S.-China reduction efforts
Casey Delhotal, director for East Asia in the Department of Energy's Office of Policy and International Affairs, said she expected to see more announcements of joint efforts between the United States and China. But, she cautioned, trade issues over wind, solar and electric vehicle subsidies threaten to "sink" 34 years of Sino-American cooperation on energy.
"Politically what this does is put a bad light on our programs," which have been in place since 1978, Delhotal said. She noted that in the last spending bill, DOE had to beat back a rider that would have prevented the agency from working with China in any fashion.
Meanwhile, China is facing and in many cases accepting greater pressure to act on climate change. At the most recent U.N. climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, Chinese leaders accepted an agreement that could force them to take binding emissions targets by 2020.
Exactly how those would look though, remains murky. Currently, China is working on a pledge to curb emissions intensity -- the amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere per unit of gross domestic product -- but has not indicated when it might cut absolute emissions. Qi noted that while China's intensity levels are indeed dropping, the overall emissions are skyrocketing.
In a review of China's 11th five-year plan ending in 2011, Qi's group found that technological developments and not structural changes have had the largest impact on the country's low-carbon performance. That, he said, means that over the coming five years, meeting national goals will be far more difficult. "The low-hanging fruit has been picked," he said.
He noted that the government is studying various scenarios for when it might peak emissions and begin to cut in absolute terms. The most ambitious look at beginning reductions in 2025, while others call for waiting until 2035.
"It's not just a technical number," he said. "It also depends on the ambition and the aspirations of people in the government."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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7 Comments
Add Comment50% more but almost 3 times the population. We still pollute more, per person, than they do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe scary thing would be if worldwide everyone polluted as much as we do.
It's up to the Chinese people if they want to choked themselves by way of industrial pollution they way we, Americans, have been doing to ourselves before the altar of the "almighty money". I am hoping they will wake up and realized what a foolish thing to trade clean air, water and good health in their pursuit for fool's gold.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny measurement of 'pollution per' is a scam. There's only one biosphere. The only measurement is reduction of absolute emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the 2004 Bangkok Conference, China demanded that virtually all the pollution before 1990 was the historical responsibility of 'the West'. The other shoe is out now - China will have to accept responsibility for worst perp on the planet when levels have risen into the 400/ppm danger zone.
David is right. Per country polution is the political propganda spouted by americans when they wish to hide the fact AMERICANS ARE BIGGEST POLLUTERS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever the 1990 figure is inaccurate it would be about a century before that. The west industrialised Asia/Pacific as everyone knows so saying the west has some responsibility is 100% agreed to, however at the times when industrialisation was happening it was not known about global effects. It was however know about local effects on populations, hence the clean air acts in most industrial nations. So whilst the west is to blame, they cannot be held accountable for actions where the consequences where not known or thought about.
Science is a slow laborious process of RIGOROUS testing, not flim flam science, it takes years, decades and sometimes hundreds of years to confirm hypothese.
The author of this paper is part dufus of that we are certain, however the key point which should have been the entire article is NOT "China's overall energy use has skyrocketed along with its growth", as that is a dufus comment but that its emissions are growing per person and a projection when it would exceed America is what we would like.
Another point to note is that India has about the same population and is increasing much faster than china in its emissions per person I believe. Wheres that angle.
Again the blog is written by a dufus who can only fit so much in and we all ned to read more of the direct evidence from sources. Does this blog writer cite any references to this source material...no because hes a dufus.
Emissions per capita. So what? Using the 'per capita' excuse just justifies higher populations that use up even more resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy far the number one emphasis the world needs for environmental integrity...POPULATION REDUCTION.
Or, if you reduce per capita impact AND birthrate in conjunction, then we might have a shot at avoiding the worst aspects of the environmental disasters that we will face in the 21st Century.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe're well into the second decade of the 21st century, and many of the catastrophes that were predicted by 2000 have failed to materialize.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope for your sake Sault that something really bad happens soon....