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China likely to overtake US as biggest carbon emitter this year

BEIJING: In a development that could put pressure on its government to take more action on climate change, China appears on course to overtake the United States this year as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, according to an estimate based on Chinese energy data.

China’s emissions rose about 10 percent in 2005, a senior US scientist has estimated, while data from Beijing show that fuel consumption rose more than 9 percent in 2006, suggesting that China would easily pass the United States in emissions this year.

This would increase pressure on China to do more to slow its emissions as part of the international talks on extending the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol on global warming beyond 2012.

Thirty-five developed countries have agreed to cut emissions under Kyoto, and they want others - especially the United States and China - to do more.

Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas for heat, power and transportation. Most scientists say it is an important contributor to global warming.

Gregg Marland, a senior staff scientist at the US Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, used fossil fuel consumption data from the oil company BP to calculate China’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2005 at 5.3 billion tons, an increase of 10.5 percent from the year before, versus 5.9 billion tons for the United States, an increase of less than 0.1 percent. In 2006, Chinese fuel consumption rose 9.3 percent to the equivalent of 2.4 billion tons of coal, Xu Dingming, the deputy head of the office that advises China on energy policy, said last week.

This was faster than BP’s estimate of a 9 percent increase in China’s oil, gas and coal consumption in 2005, to 1.45 billion tons of oil equivalent.

The International Energy Agency, which advises 26 industrialized nations, said last November that, based on current trends, China would overtake the United States as the world’s biggest carbon emitter before 2010.

Americans remain the biggest emitters per capita. According to UN data for 2003, US individuals were responsible for 20 tons per capita of carbon dioxide emissions, compared with 3.2 tons in China and a world average of 3.7 tons.

EU orders cuts by 2 countries: The European Commission on Monday ordered Poland and the Czech Republic to slash proposed limits on future industrial emissions, sparking a battle over the countries’ plans to fight climate change, Reuters reported from Brussels.

The commission cut Poland’s proposed carbon dioxide emissions limit for 2008-12 by 26.7 percent and the Czech limit by 14.8 percent in its latest move to shore up the emissions trading system, the EU’s primary tool for curbing global warming and meeting emission reductions goals under the Kyoto Protocol.

Poland, which already has had disagreements with the commission over environmental law, and the Czech Republic, whose president has likened environmentalism to communism, threatened to sue over the decisions. reuters

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