China has overtaken the United States as the world's top producer of carbon dioxide emissions — the biggest man-made contributor to global warming — based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says.
According to a report released Tuesday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China overtook the U.S. in emissions of CO2 by 8 percent in 2006. While China was 2 percent below the United States in 2005, voracious coal consumption and increased cement production caused the numbers to rise rapidly, the group said.
"It's an expression of their fast industrial production activities and their fast development," Jos G.J. Olivier, the agency's senior scientist who compiled the figures, said Wednesday. The agency is independent but paid by the Dutch government to advise it on environmental policy.
The study said China, which relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and makes 44 percent of the world's cement, produced 6.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. In comparison, the U.S., which gets half its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said.
The group's analysis makes sense and had been predicted to happen by 2009 or 2010, said experts from the United Nations and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and outside academics.
Please see Why Global Warming is Inevitable.
The United States, on a per person basis, emits four times as much carbon as China.
ReplyDeleteSee the numbers here.
Yes, and that, my friend, is that absolute horror of it.
ReplyDeleteIf you use PPP, China has an economy of $10 trillion and the United States $13 trillion. To produce 77% of our economy (PPP) you had to produce 100% of our emissions. The US has 301 million people. China has 1,321 million people. that means your per capita GDP is ~$44,000 and ~$7700 (PPP) respectively. So, what's the emissions going to be like when China's per capita is neraly the same as the US?
HTH. HAND.