China racing to be world's worst
polluter By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - China has delayed the release of
a long-expected national plan on tackling global
warming amid warnings that the country is set to
overtake the United States as the world's biggest
source of greenhouse gases this year - much
earlier than forecast - because of its runaway
economic growth.
It is the second time
this month that Chinese officials have deferred
the release of the anticipated public information.
Earlier, national statisticians delayed the
publication of quarterly data
about
the country's economic growth, announcing
consequently that China's growth increased
unexpectedly by 11.1% in the first three months of
2007.
The new increase comes on the heels
of breakneck annual economic expansion of more
than 10% for four straight years, which has seen
China rapidly emerge as the fourth-largest economy
in the world.
The problem with China's
transformation into an economic powerhouse,
however, is that it is fueled almost entirely by
highly polluting coal.
Burning coal and
other fossil fuels release gases such as carbon
dioxide, which are believed to cause global
warming by trapping the sun's heat within the
atmosphere - the so-called greenhouse effect. Last
year China burned more than 1.2 billion tons of
coal - and it has ambitious plans to build a
series of new coal-fired power plants to continue
its economic expansion.
Chinese
statisticians are not the only ones taken by
surprise by the country's raging economic growth.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), which
advises developed countries on energy policies,
has had to revise its projections regarding China
too.
Analysts had predicted that China's
emissions of greenhouse gases would surpass those
of the US by 2009. But in the light of China's
astonishing economic performance of last year and
the first three months of 2007, the IEA now
believes this is going to happen within months.
What is more, if those emissions are left
unchecked, in 25 years China will be emitting
twice as much carbon dioxide as the richest
developed countries together, according to IEA's
chief economist, Dr Fatih Birol. By then China's
pollution could outstrip any gains made elsewhere
in the world.
"In 25 years, carbon-dioxide
emissions ... from China alone will be double the
carbon-dioxide emissions which come from all the
OECD [Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development] countries put together - the whole
US, plus Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New
Zealand," Birol was quoted as predicting this
week.
The deferred national "action plan"
on climate change is expected to promise emission
cuts but no carbon caps, which limit carbon
dioxide and other gases linked to global warming
that a country may release.
Such caps are
perceived by Chinese leaders as costly measures
because they may stifle economic growth, which
they regard as paramount in maintaining social
stability. So far, Beijing has refused to consider
any preventive steps that could hobble economic
expansion and lead to social unrest.
Instead of trying to cap greenhouse-gas
emissions, China's leaders are trying to reduce
energy intensity, the amount of coal and other
fuels the country burns relative to economic
output. Chinese academics say this will be the
keystone of the new "action plan" on climate
change.
China is a signatory to the 1998
Kyoto Protocol, which obliges developed nations to
limit their output of greenhouse gases, but as an
emerging nation it is exempt from mandatory
limits.
However, China's continuing
economic boom means that if it does not control
emissions, any attempts to moderate global warming
will be meaningless.
"Without having China
on board, no international climate-change policy
has any chance of success at all," Birol said.
"Without China playing a significant role, all the
efforts of every other country will make little
sense. It is terribly important."
Beijing
has given contradictory signals to its willingness
to be a full participant in future global efforts
to fight climate change.
During a visit to
Tokyo this month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
announced that his country is prepared to
participate in talks on a future framework to curb
global-warming emissions to replace Kyoto Protocol
provisions that expire in 2012.
But
Beijing has also signaled that rich industrialized
nations should take the lead in cutting greenhouse
gases, since they bear the responsibility for
causing global warming. Chinese officials argue
that per capita emissions in China are much lower
than in the West and climate change is an
accumulative result of long-term emissions of
developed countries.
According to Qin
Dahe, an expert on climate change who retired this
month as head of the China Meteorological
Administration, Chinese per capita emissions in
2000 were just 0.65 tonne per person - one-fifth
of levels in the OECD countries.
Beijing
has also expressed skepticism about the soundness
of some scientific claims on global warming.
China, along with the US and a few other
countries, has challenged assessments presented in
a draft report at a United Nations climate-change
meeting in Brussels this month. The report was
approved after some climate warnings were toned
down.
In another development, China has
questioned the need for climate change to be
regarded as a security threat. During a UN
Security Council meeting last week, China rejected
calls by the United Kingdom to discuss at the most
powerful UN body the potential for climate change
to cause wars and conflicts.
"The
developing countries believe that [the] Security
Council has neither the professional competence in
handling climate change nor is it the right
decision-making place for extensive participation
leading up to widely acceptable proposals," said
Liu Zhenmin, China's deputy ambassador.
The official China Daily went even further
in suggesting there were ulterior motives behind
the proposal to discuss climate change at the
Security Council, of which China is one of the
five permanent members.
"The call for the
international community to address climate change
is sensible, but sensationalizing it as an issue
of security is conspiratorial," the paper said in
an editorial on Tuesday.
But despite
Beijing's reticent official attitude on climate
change, Chinese leaders are aware that rising
temperatures present a danger to China as they
threaten its continuous economic development - the
very thing they have been trying to protect by
warding off mandatory carbon caps.
A
report by Chinese scientists published last
weekend paints a bleak picture of China where
climate change will mean larger deserts, severe
droughts and reduced water availability. Rising
sea levels and deadly typhoons could also threaten
the country's affluent east coast.
Perhaps
the scariest possibility of all is the impact that
rising temperatures could have on China's food
security. The country will face an uphill battle
to feed its 1.3 billion people if water scarcity
and droughts reduce its crop production by up to
30% in the next 20 years as predicted.
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