Global Warming is Inevitable Part...oh I give up

China's carbon dioxide emissions in 2007 were about 14 percent higher than the United States and accounted for two-thirds of the global rise, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) said Friday.

With an eight percent national increase, China's carbon dioxide emissions contributed the bulk of last year's 3.1 percent global rise in CO2 emissions, according to a statement released on the last day of a United Nations conference on climate change in Bonn, Germany.

"With this, China tops the list of CO2 emitting countries, having about a quarter share in global CO2 emissions (24 percent)," it said.

The United States was second with 21 percent, while the European Union was at 12 percent, India eight percent and Russia six percent, said the statement.

[...]

"Since population size and level of economic development differ considerably between countries, the emissions expressed per person show a largely different ranking," added the agency.

The US topped the list of C02 emissions per person measured in metric tonnes with 19.4, followed by Russia with 11.8, the EU with 8.6, China with 5.1 and India with 1.8.

Now let's do an extrapolation. China has a per capita carbon output of 5.1 tonnes vs 19.4 tonnes for America. For the moment, let's assume that the CIA World Factbook's statistics are correct with respect to the size of the Chinese and American economies. The US economy for 2007 was $13.84 trillion dollars. (PPP) The Chinese economy was $6.991 trillion (PPP). The Chinese economy is ~ 50% the size of the US at this point and yet produces 14% more CO2. If it were the same size as the US economy, it'd be at least double that. If the Chinese were as rich per capita with the same "carbon efficiency" as they have now, they'd be putting out 11 1/2 times as much carbon dioxide as the US. If China continues anything close to its current growth rate, they will hit that point sometime around 2031...and China has stated they will NOT do anything to combat global warming until the 2050s.

Unless, of course, demographics and banking issues derail the Chinese train.

Eocene world, here we come.