James Kantor, Green, NYT: China's per capita emissions rising steeply

Per-Capita Emissions Rising in China

By JAMES KANTER, Green, New York Times, July 1, 2010

 

European Pressphoto Agency A coal-fired thermal power plant under construction near Hailar, China.

 

Carbon dioxide emissions per person in China reached the same level as those in France last year, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said Thursday.

The Dutch agency said that per capita emissions were 6.1 tons in China in 2009, up from only 2.2 tons in 1990. Among the French, emissions were 6 tons per person last year, said Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the Dutch agency.

Per capita emissions in France tend to be lower than in some other industrialized countries because of the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear plants to generate electricity rather than fossil fuels. Per capita emissions in 15 nations of the European Union were 7.9 tons in 2009, down from 9.1 tons in 1990, the study said. In the United States, the figure was 17.2 tons in 2009, down from 19.5 tons in 1990.

Over all the Dutch agency found that global emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, were unchanged last year. That came as a surprise: Because of the onset of the worst economic crisis in decades, other bodies like the International Energy Agency had predicted a significant decline in 2009, the report said.
But the hefty increase in emissions from fast-developing parts of the world like China and India had the effect of canceling out the sharp decline in emissions elsewhere. Emissions from China and India “completely nullified CO2 emission reductions in the industrialized world,” the report said.



“These changes reflect a number of factors, including the large economic development in China, structural changes in national and global economies, and the impact of climate and energy policies,” it said. “Due to rapid economic development, per capita emissions in China are quickly approaching levels common in the industrialized countries.

The evidence is likely to add to pressure on Beijing to accept binding limits on its greenhouse gas emissions. A dispute over whether China would ever be prepared to accept effective monitoring of its pledges to cut emissions overshadowed a United Nations climate conference last December in Copenhagen at which nations failed to agree on a timetable for a global treaty to curb emissions.

Last year, 53% of emissions came from developing countries like China and India, and 44% came from industrialized countries, according to the Dutch agency. The remaining 3% is attributed to international air and sea transport.
 
The study included CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and producing chemicals and cement, but excluded emissions from activities like deforestation and logging, forest and peat fires, the decay of biomass after burning and decomposition of organic carbon in drained peat soils.

It was the first year since 1992 that the agency had not recorded an annual increase in global CO2 emissions. From 2002 to 2008, the average annual rate of growth in emissions had been 3.5%.

Emissions from fossil-fuel combustion – including burning waste gas from oil drilling and other industrial processes – decreased by 7% last year across parts of the world like the European Union, Japan and the United States.

But in China, those emissions increased by 9% and in India by 6%, according to the Dutch agency. India surpassed Russia last year as the fourth largest emitter after China, the United States and the EU-15, Mr. Olivier said.

The increases in China came despite a doubling of wind and solar energy there for the fifth year in a row, the agency said.

Link:  http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/emissions-soar-in-china-and-india/