China Carbon Emissions to Rise Sharply
Created: Nov 16 2007
Related articles: China
CHAN:
Four Chinese power companies were ranked among the world's worst carbon emitters in a new report released Wednesday. The report also projects that climate-warming emissions from China will rise by some 60 percent in the next decade.
STORY:
Despite international talk about cutting down on emissions that spur global warming, carbon emissions are going to rise steeply over the next ten years. This is according a database and report by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, a nonpartisan think tank.
The database, called Carbon Monitoring for Action, or CARMA for short, lists carbon emissions from 50,000
power plants around the world. It has figures for the years 2000 and 2007, as well as projections for five and ten years into the future.
Internationally, the U.S. power sector is the top emitter, spewing nearly 2.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually; China follows closely at 2.7 billion tons. By 2017, China will far out-pace the United States.
In the future, China may be more getting electricity from the Three Gorges Dam, which emits no greenhouse gases. But environmentalists say the dam will trap silt, cause erosion, and risk turning its reservoir into a pond of industrial chemicals and sewage. China may also try to solve the problem by using more nuclear power. But nuclear power poses a challenge for safe disposal of radioactive fuel... especially in a country with such a poor track record for waste disposal.
David Wheeler, one of the CARMA database's co-creators, notes that the top executives of the 100 biggest power companies worldwide preside over plants that emit 57 percent of all emissions. This gives this small group of people extraordinary influence. And Wheeler says that they will have to make tough decisions, because major changes need to happen soon.
[David Wheeler, Center for Global Development]:
"If we continue on this path, then the worst case scenario projected by the IPCC, which are quite severe, are pretty certain to happen, and we're all going to regret that."
Four Chinese power companies were ranked among the world's worst carbon emitters in a new report released Wednesday. The report also projects that climate-warming emissions from China will rise by some 60 percent in the next decade.
STORY:
Despite international talk about cutting down on emissions that spur global warming, carbon emissions are going to rise steeply over the next ten years. This is according a database and report by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, a nonpartisan think tank.
The database, called Carbon Monitoring for Action, or CARMA for short, lists carbon emissions from 50,000
power plants around the world. It has figures for the years 2000 and 2007, as well as projections for five and ten years into the future.
Internationally, the U.S. power sector is the top emitter, spewing nearly 2.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually; China follows closely at 2.7 billion tons. By 2017, China will far out-pace the United States.
In the future, China may be more getting electricity from the Three Gorges Dam, which emits no greenhouse gases. But environmentalists say the dam will trap silt, cause erosion, and risk turning its reservoir into a pond of industrial chemicals and sewage. China may also try to solve the problem by using more nuclear power. But nuclear power poses a challenge for safe disposal of radioactive fuel... especially in a country with such a poor track record for waste disposal.
David Wheeler, one of the CARMA database's co-creators, notes that the top executives of the 100 biggest power companies worldwide preside over plants that emit 57 percent of all emissions. This gives this small group of people extraordinary influence. And Wheeler says that they will have to make tough decisions, because major changes need to happen soon.
[David Wheeler, Center for Global Development]:
"If we continue on this path, then the worst case scenario projected by the IPCC, which are quite severe, are pretty certain to happen, and we're all going to regret that."
