China racing to be world's worst polluter

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.