China Will Exceed US CO2 Emissions In 2009 - 10- Years Ahead Of Schedule - NYT

[hatrack]

China will surpass the United States in 2009, nearly a decade ahead of previous predictions, as the biggest emitter of the main gas linked to global warming, the International Energy Agency has concluded in a report to be released Tuesday.

China’s rise, fueled heavily by coal, is particularly troubling to climate scientists because as a developing country, China is exempt from the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements for reductions in emissions of global warming gases. Unregulated emissions from China, India and other developing countries are likely to account for most of the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions over the next quarter-century. The agency’s prediction highlights the unexpected speed with which China is emerging as the biggest contributor to global warming. Still, China has resisted limits on its own emissions and those of other developing countries.

Up until now, Chinese officials have instead called repeatedly for even tighter limits on the industrialized countries’ emissions of global warming gases after the Kyoto Protocol’s limits expire at the end of 2012. China says rich countries bear responsibility for the increase in global carbon dioxide levels that has already taken place. Moreover, the biggest current emitter of the gases, the United States, has rejected the protocol in part because most lawmakers and President Bush say its exemption for rising powers like China is unfair.

“You cannot tell people who are struggling to earn enough to eat that they need to reduce their emissions,” said Lu Xuedu, the deputy director general of Chinese Office of Global Environmental Affairs, at a conference two weeks ago. Chinese officials did not respond to attempts by phone and fax to obtain a response to the agency’s forecast.

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=63391

[Javaman]

1. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are so fucked.

[Nihil]

2. You jest?

> “You cannot tell people who are struggling to earn enough to eat that they need
> to reduce their emissions,”

F*ck me, it's hard enough telling people who have money pouring out of every
pocket that they need to reduce their emissions ...

When will people understand that WE (yes WE) have to set a good example to have ANY
chance of persuading people who are incredibly worse off than us to "do the right thing".