With the recent news that China has surpassed the United States in carbon dioxide emissions, there will certainly be an increased level of rhetoric from skeptics, including President Bush, about how China and other developing countries should be included in any international agreements on regulations of greenhouse gases. So I would like to spend a little time clearing up some of the misconceptions involving China’s emissions. Please understand that this is not an attempt to make up excuses for China, but is instead an effort to look at the issue objectively. First of all, China’s carbon dioxide emissions for 2006 were indeed higher than those of the United States:
A new report has revealed China overtook the US in carbon dioxide emissions last year, making it the world's biggest producer of the gas blamed for global warming. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency report shows China produced 6,200 million tonnes of CO2 in 2006, surpassing the US total of 5,800 million tonnes by eight percent, according to the Guardian Unlimited news site reports. In 2005, China's emissions were 2.0 percent below those of the US, it said. - World News AustraliaHowever, this does not mean that China’s lack of regulations under Kyoto should be used as a reason for other nations not to take the necessary actions to limit their own emissions. China was exempted from Kyoto for two primary reasons: its size and its status as a developing country. First, China is a very large country. China’s total yearly emissions are high, but these numbers must be put into perspective. Imagine for a second that there is a country with a size and population similar to that of our entire planet. Would it then be fair to compare that country’s total yearly emissions with one the size of the United Kingdom? I hope your answer is “no”. The larger country has many more citizens, which will obviously result in higher total emissions. Therefore, a more reasonable metric is per capita emissions.
Looking at emissions in 2003, we see that China’s emissions were 3.2 metric tons of CO2 per capita. When this is compared to the per capita emissions of the United States for the same year (19.8 metric tons of CO2), this number suddenly seems much more reasonable. While China’s total emissions may seem high, the reality is that the majority of people in China still live very meager lifestyles. As a matter of fact, much of China’s recent spike in emissions is a result of Western development within China’s borders:
Greenpeace UK director John Sauven said: “Responsibility for China’s soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo. All we’ve done is export a great slice of the west’s carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result. … The West moved its manufacturing base to China knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US. No environmental conditions were attached to this move, in fact the only thing manufacturers were interested in was the price of labour. This trend kept the price of our products down but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Long term this policy has been a climate disaster. - Green Building Press
Not a sight you see here
in the U.S., unfortunately |
The second primary reason for exempting China from emissions regulations is its history of CO2 emissions. China has only had a very recent increase in development. For instance, in 1920, China emitted 7.3 million metric tons (MMT) of CO2, while the US emitted 467 MMT CO2. In 1950, China had increased to 21.5 MMT CO2, while the US emitted 693 MMT CO2. By 1970, China was up to 209 MMT CO2, while the US emitted 1.16 billion metric tons of CO2. Overall, the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center estimates that China has emitted about 1.13 billion metric tons of CO2, compared to a whopping 86 billion from the United States. China is still developing, and is therefore not responsible for much of the CO2 that is currently in the atmosphere.
I would like to clarify that I am definitely not attempting to make excuses for China or advocating a continued lack of regulations for them. China should work on reducing their emissions like everyone else. My purpose here is to apply a bit of objectivity in the hopes of demonstrating that there are valid reasons for allowing China to opt out of regulations in the first international agreement to reduce emissions. China and other developing countries should not be used as obstacles for not reducing our own emissions. Rather than worrying about what other countries are doing, we should be doing whatever we can, not only to reduce our own personal emissions, but also to petition our respective governments to do their part.
