Apr
18
China Now World’s Top Polluter
April 18, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
by Carol Zhou Yan (9)
Accoding to the study by researchers at the University of California, China has already surpassed the United States as the world’s largest carbon polluter.
The report, written by economic professors Maximilian Aufhammer of UC Berkeley and Richard Carson of UC San Diego, is to be published next month in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Researchers compiled information about the use of fossil fuels in various Chinese provinces and forecast an 11 percent annual growth of carbon emissions from 2004 to 2010.”Our best forecast has China’s CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions correctly surpassing the United States in 2006 rather than 2020 as previously anticipated.” the study reported.
The researchers predicted that by 2010, “there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country’s levels in 2000.”
As a developing country, China is not obligated to meet targets set by the Kyoto Protocol, under which 38 industrialized countries must reduce their GHG emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels, during the period 2008 to 2012.
Actually, I think one thing the US and developed countries can and should do is offering help:
- Over the next 20 years, half the world’s new buildings will built in China. US or developed countries should share expertise so that those buildings will be energy-efficient-that’s a productive way to reduce energy consumption and pollution.
- US should work to open the Chinese market to energy-efficient American industrial and consumer goods. It will help reduce emissions.
- US should also push to export smokstack-scrubber technology and clean-coal technology.
What’s more, I believe a growing Chinese middle class will be the most potent force for clean air and water. But thar group of people is only 80 milllion out of near 1.4 billion people now.
