China

Greenpeace India points out the obvious

The taxi driver that took me from the Bali airport to my hotel in Nusa Dua, the secure "green zone" where the climate negotiations are taking place, didn't speak much English. Just well enough to say, haltingly, that he was "too stupid" to have a better job, he didn't drink, and he was very depressed because he was lonely, but too poor to get married. Oh, and that the Westin, where I was not staying, was the "best" place. Very "luxury." Very "Western."

Now, about a week later, I've been in lots more cabs. I can report that Third World beach resorts are very strange places. And that the negotiations are running in their usual courses: bitterness, bad faith, recriminations, pulling teeth, and rising tension. The Bush people, despite promises to play a constructive role, are making destructive interventions in a number of working groups. But the Bush people aren't what they used to be. And -- hope against hope -- the developing world is rising to the occasion.

There is no comparison between Chinese and American GHG emissions

Al Gore's Nobel Prize speech, as reported by the NY Times:

... he singled out the United States and China -- the world's largest emitters of carbon dioxide -- for failing to meet their obligations in mitigating emissions. They should "stop using each other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate," he said.

Much as I love him, Gore's sentiment here is far too generous to the good ol' U.S. of A. There is simply no fair comparison with China. We're not equally responsible for the problem. Not even close.

What the fate of two old turtles says about China’s future

Having spent two summers researching amphibians and reptiles, I have a poster of endangered frogs and salamanders on my wall what one might call a healthy fascination with these endearing ectotherms. Being thus inclined, my eyes lit up when I stumbled on The New York Times’ latest feature, “China’s Turtles, Emblems of a Crisis.” It’s […]

The question for China and India is not whether to make the transition away from coal, but how soon

In part one I made the point that if China and India develop along the same path as the West, we’re all doomed. This fact is becoming increasingly clear to everyone. One way or another, whoever foots the bill, they’ll have to change, and that means shifting to a more expensive-in-the-short-term source of electricity, of […]

Developing nations will not remain immune to the need for sustainable development

I want to thank Jeremy Carl of Stanford’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development for dropping by and making the case for coal — or rather, the case for holding our nose, accepting that coal’s growth is inevitable, and working to make it cleaner (Jeremy’s posts are here and here). I hope the conversation will […]

On who is accountable for Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions

Yesterday a D.C. nonprofit, the Center for Global Development, released an inventory of the world's power plants. Its nifty database shows that on a national level, China trails only the the U.S. in total emissions of greenhouse gases, and not by much.

This will disappoint the global warming proponents at the National Review, who have been predicting for months that China will surpass the traditional emissions champ -- the United States -- this year.

But both the scoffers on the right and the worriers on the left may be overlooking a central question, which was broached this Monday in a news story from The Wall Street Journal.

Simply put: a high percentage of Chinese emissions are produced in factories making products for buyers around the world. Shouldn't that be considered in the emissions accounting?

The vast majority of the world's MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 17 pounds of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. iPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate. If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?

The story hints at the complexity of fault-finding when it comes to emissions, which we as a nation and as a species have barely begun to unpack. Not only must we contend with the fact that carbon dioxide is indivisible -- and equally warming no matter if it's emitted in a Communist nation such as China, a capitalist nation such as the U.S., or a third-world nation such as India -- but there is also what The Stern Review calls the "intergenerational" aspect of emissions. Carbon released today may have catastrophic effects thirty years from now, when the original emitters are long dead. Who will the children of today blame then?

But to continue with Jane Spencer's thoughtful, probing story:

China is prepared to make a climate deal

Potentially a very big deal -- The Independent reports "China 'will agree to cut its carbon emissions'":

China, now the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, will eventually agree to cut its soaring carbon dioxide emissions, one of the country's leading environmentalists forecast yesterday -- but only on the basis of a deal with the United States and the rest of the developed world.

When is eventually?

The Chinese would be very unlikely to set their own unilateral target for reducing CO2, said Professor C S Kiang, the founding dean of the College of Environmental Science at the University of Beijing. But they would join in the next, post-2012 stage of the Kyoto protocol, the international climate change treaty, and seek to reduce their emissions to a definite figure, as long as this was part of a global agreement that involved all countries acting together -- including the US -- and the transfer to China of modern energy technology, he said.

Now, Kiang says, all the world needs is a new U.S. President:

Maybe get filthy rich

Now that the U.S. housing market has cooled off, American investors are looking to the Chinese coal industry. Another risky proposition, but for different reasons.

As China's appetite for coal is booming, American investors and businesses are cashing in.

American pension and mutual fund money is being invested in the Chinese coal industry ...

"In general, they're doing a very smart thing," said Mike Tian, an analyst with independent investment research company Morningstar. "That's where the money is."

Plans for reducing emissions in China

David linked to the Reuters report about China's refusal to accept binding emissions caps in any international agreement. On the topic of China and climate change, last week I got some face time with the head of the World Bank's energy unit in Beijing, Dr. Zhao. Too much for one blog post, but here are some highlights:

According to his research, the World Bank's go-to guy on these matters believes: "It will be difficult or even impossible for China to reduce CO2 emissions in absolute terms." Depressing conclusion. As he saw it, "The question now is, what can be down to reduce China's growth rate [of CO2 emissions]?"

While refusing to sign international agreements on carbon caps, Beijing has issued some fairly ambitious goals of its own. One is to have 15 percent of energy come from renewable sources by 2020. Of course, whether this target is based in reality is another question. As Dr. Zhao told me, "In most other countries, you do the analysis first, then set goals. In China, you set the goal first, then you do the research and set the policy to try to achieve it." Translation: the temptation to fudge numbers to reach preordained conclusions is dangerously high.