China's Exploding CO2 Emissions

China Biggest CO2 Emitting Country

Steve Milloy

April 11, 2008



http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2616



Why isn't Gore hounding the Olympic torch?



Tibetan protesters aren't the only ones who ought to be dogging the 
Olympic torch relay.



When Al Gore received his Nobel Peace prize he said that global warming 
is a "moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."



Ted Turner recently told PBS' Charlie Rose that if steps aren't taken to 
control global warming, "in 30 or 40 years. most of the people will have 
died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken 
down. The few people left will be living in a failed state-like Somalia 
or Sudan-and living conditions will be intolerable."



And the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights says that, 
"Global warming and extreme weather conditions may have calamitous 
consequences for the human rights of millions of people."



But despite their melodramatic rhetoric-and the just-re****ted news that 
the Olympic torch relay will release more than 11 million pounds of 
carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 550 
SUVs-you won't see Al, Ted or anyone from the U.N. trying to tackle an 
Olympic torch bearer even though China easily-and unapologetically-wins 
the gold medal for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and will continue to 
do so for the foreseeable future.



The Netherlands Environmental *****sment Agency (NEAA) re****ted last 
year that China became the No. 1 CO2 emitting country in 2006, blowing 
past the U.S. emissions level by a whopping 8 percent. The U.N. 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had projected that 
China wouldn't surpass the U.S. in CO2 emissions until 2020.



Now a new study from researchers at the University of 
California-Berkeley has not only verified the NEAA re****t, but says that 
China's emissions are growing at a rate of 11 percent-two- to four-times 
the rate projected by the IPCC.



It seems that the IPCC is as bad at forecasting CO2 emissions growth as 
it is at forecasting global temperature change.



The Berkeley researchers attribute the IPCC's shortcomings to reliance 
on obsolete data that are almost a decade old. Since then, they say, 
"China's economic and technological growth has accelerated beyond 
anticipation."



Adding insult to injury, the Berkeley researchers point out that, while 
the emissions from countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol will be a 
***ulative 116 million metric tons lower by 2010 than they would have 
been without any agreement, China's emissions will have increased by 600 
million metric tons over that same period.



Now that's what I call a carbon offset.



It's no wonder that Kyoto signatories in the European Union are starting 
to wonder why they struggle to meet their emissions obligations without 
wrecking their economies, while China unabashedly emits CO2 like there's 
no tomorrow.



While burning coal for electricity, a primary source of manmade CO2 
emissions, is rapidly becoming a politically incorrect energy source, it 
seems China can't get enough of it.



In 2006-2007, China added 186,000 megawatts of coal-fueled electrical 
generation capacity, equivalent to twice the entire electricity grid of 
the United Kingdom. Acquiring sufficient coal for its ever-increasing 
power needs turned China in 2007 into a net im****ter of coal for the 
first time, helping to more than double the price of coal over the last 
year.



Don't look to China to save the West from "manmade" global 
warming-whether real or imagined.



In vowing to not allow international action on climate change to 
interfere with its economic development, a Chinese foreign ministry 
spokesman told the Financial Times in early 2007 that, "developed 
countries bear an un****rkable responsibility" for causing global 
warming.



The Chinese attitude-as well as that of India, which is verging on 
becoming the third largest CO2 emitter-is that 95 percent of worldwide 
CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution came from the West, so 
global warming is the West's problem. "Both Beijing and New Delhi fear 
that binding emission caps that limit energy use could threaten future 
economic development-and condemn many of their people to perpetual 
poverty," re****ted the Financial Times.



In a prescient moment in 1997, the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 against the 
Kyoto Protocol because developing countries, like China and India, were 
not bound to reduce their CO2 emissions.



Now that China has blown past the U.S. 15 years earlier than expected, 
the Senate's prescience seems to have vanished as it has scheduled a 
June floor debate on the Kyoto Protocol-on-steroids Lieberman-Warner 
global warming bill.



Even if the bill's heavy-handed provisions achieved its main goal-a 70 
percent reduction in U.S. CO2 emissions by 2050-atmospheric CO2 levels 
would only be reduced by less than 5 percent, according to the EPA. Such 
a trivial reduction in atmospheric CO2 would likely have virtually 
zero-impact on global climate albeit at great societal cost.



Nevertheless, the Senate's apparent abandonment of its 1997 position 
seems to have led climate alarmists to sense that their personal nirvana 
of a carbon-restricted, energy-constipated U.S. is well within sight. No 
wonder the Tibetans are chasing after the flame alone.
-- 


Warmest Regards

Bonzo


"There is no compelling evidence that carbon dioxide has any significant 
control over the direction of global temperature and climate. The 
processes that regulate the interannual to decadal fluctuations of 
climate are poorly understood and, as yet, unpredictable" William 
Kininmonth, Meteorologist, Former Head, National Climate Centre, Bureau 
of Meteorology, 1986-1998