Workshop of the World

China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show.

The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China’s growing role in driving man-made global warming…the guardian via instapundit

This may have something to do with the fact that China uses roughly 7 times the energy per unit of production than the US does. And it might have something to do with the fact US CO2 emissions have been falling under Bush.

The takeaway for the Kyotoists is that total compliance by the West with Kyoto (as if) is pointless: a) because the science is not very certain, b) even if the science turns out to prove a CO2 GW link, any savings we make in the West will be dwarfed by Chinese emissions. Which, even if the Chinese government leaps on board the GW bandwagon, are not going to decrease because the Chinese government barely controls the commercial dynamo which the Chinese economy has become.

Written by jay on June 21st, 2007 with 2 comments.
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2 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John Fitzpatrick
#1. June 21st, 2007, at 7:48 AM.

The United States, on a per person basis, emits four times as much carbon as
China. See the numbers here.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com jay
#2. June 21st, 2007, at 8:55 AM.

Unfortunately the link is busted (send me the right one and I’ll post it).

The number, assuming it’s true and I suspect it is, makes good sense. A billion Chinese, 300 million Americans, 700 million Chinese peasants with low carbon (though high soot) footprint. 0 American peasants.

As more and more Chinese come out of peasanthood and into the urban economies the carbon signature of China will rise. As more Chinese move from labourer to factory work to the middle class, the carbon fingerprint will increase. And, if I was even slightly concerned about manmade CO2 as a greenhouse gas I might think this is a bad thing. But as I am not my only concern is that the Chinese are going to have to go through the “killing fogs” which characterized Industrial Revolution (and beyond) England before they get a handle on their pollution problems. China is going to get very much worse before it gets any better.

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