The world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases by geographical boundaries is China. A close second is the United States. Between the two great powers, they account for 40 percent of all carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Heading into the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, the pressure was on for China to come up with a real plan for how it would scale back its record emissions.
Compared with the U.S., China was looking like it had made some strides before joining 191 other nations at the summit. Its goal of emissions cuts in the range of 40 to 45 percent is official policy, for starters. In the U.S., its goals for emission cuts are stuck at 17 percent and aren’t yet signed into law because the Senate has yet to approve them.
Earlier this week, China announced a pilot project where the government would subsidize greener cars and trucks in four Chinese cities in an effort to cut emissions.
For the weekend, we ask the question: Is China doing its fair share to combat global warming?
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Dr. David Suzuki, geneticist and journalist:
China could and should do more, especially if rich, polluting countries step up their own efforts and support China’s actions and ambitions.
China has already engaged on the issue of climate change in a way that many developed countries have not.
It promised to improve the energy intensity of its economy by 20 percent in just 5 years (ending in 2010) and is on track to deliver on that pledge.
Its success comes from closing down hundreds of inefficient coal plants and funding household and industrial energy-conservation projects.
It has set renewable-energy targets and has had to adjust them upward because it met them early. Its mandated vehicle fuel-efficiency standards are stronger than voluntary targets in the EU, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.
But China is not done. It has put forward a greenhouse gas pollution target in the Copenhagen negotiations to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, also on an intensity basis.
The reason so much attention is being paid to China is that its emissions are the highest of any country.
It is largely not responsible for the global warming problem and, even today, has emissions on a per capita basis that are a small fraction of those in the industrialized world. It also has a lot less wealth and a lot more poverty than the developed world. China ranks 98th on the Human Development Index, so it’s no surprise that poverty alleviation and economic development are as much priorities as tackling global warming.
Nonetheless, China has shown itself to be a willing contributor to action on global warming. And it could no doubt do more if, as agreed to in the Bali Action Plan, developed countries step up and deliver support through financing and clean technologies.
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Dr. Gidon Eshel, physics professor at Bard College:
Probably not. It’s playing the game everybody else does.
You can see why China will focus on carbon intensity, because that makes it looks the least bad.
While understandable, it will fail the single test that matters for any intervention policy, reduction of atmospheric GHG concentrations.
It therefore makes sense for the U.S. team to press China to do better.
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What do you think? Is China doing enough?
(Photo shows shoppers covering their noses and mouths near a passing car as they wait to cross a street at Hong Kong’s shopping Causeway Bay district July 15, 2009. REUTERS/Bobby Yip)
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