China is the new undisputed carbon-emissions champ!
I was going to write up a Saturday New York Times article on China as the new international climate-change poster child, but Steve Milloy has already done it:
China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide Emitter – China has clearly overtaken the United States as the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas, a new study has found, its emissions increasing 8 percent in 2007. The Chinese increase accounted for two-thirds of the growth in the year’s global greenhouse gas emissions, the study found.
The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, found that in 2007 China’s emissions were 14 percent higher than those of the United States. In the previous year’s annual study, the researchers found for the first time that China had become the world’s leading emitter, with carbon emissions 7 percent higher by volume than the United States in 2006.
Many experts had been skeptical of the earlier study, whose results were less clear-cut than those released Friday. The International Energy Agency had continued to say only that China was projected to overtake the United States by the end of 2007. Now there is little doubt.
“The difference had grown to a 14 percent difference, and that’s indeed quite large,” said Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the Dutch agency. “It’s now so large that it’s quite a robust conclusion.”
China’s emissions are most likely to continue growing substantially for years to come because they are tied to the country’s strong economic growth and its particular mix of industry and power sources, the researchers said. (New York Times)
Good for them. Fortunately, atmospheric CO2 is of no relevance where threats are concerned and in fact helps feed our global population, green deserts and increase plant water efficiency, so: Thank you, China, for helping us green the world.