2007: China worst carbon emitter

[Dr Mordrid]

Scientific American article....

SCIENCE NEWS

March 23, 2007

China seen topping U.S. carbon emissions in 2007

BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) - China is on course to overtake the United States this year as the world's biggest carbon emitter, estimates based on Chinese energy data show, potentially pressuring Beijing to take more action on climate change.

China's emissions rose by some 10 percent in 2005, a senior U.S. scientist estimated, while Beijing data shows fuel consumption rose more than 9 percent in 2006, suggesting China would easily outstrip the U.S. this year, long before forecasts.
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[VJ]

However, when you consider the CO2 emission per capita (in the same article), it becomes a whole different story: the US emits 20 tons per capita; China 3.6 tons per capita...


Jörg

[Dr Mordrid]

They have more "capita" than we do and odds are we'll be going down while they won't.

Higher economic growth and fuel use translates into higher emissions, particularly in China, which gets around 70 percent of its energy from coal, the highest carbon-emitting fuel.

CDIAC's 2004 emissions estimates, based on BP data, closely matched the IEA's estimates for the same year -- reached using its own energy data and U.N. emissions calculation methods, strengthening the reliability of the BP data, Marland said.

He estimated a plus or minus 15 to 20 percent error in the Chinese data versus a possible 5 percent U.S. error margin.

China's rapid growth in carbon emissions is threatening to outweigh efforts by the European Union and others to tackle climate change -- EU leaders said earlier this month they would cut the bloc's greenhouse gases by at least a fifth by 2020.

But China between now and 2015 will build power generating capacity equal to the entire existing capacity in the whole of the European Union, the IEA estimates.

China's growth has been fueled largely by burning coal, and it is still building new power plants at an unprecedented rate. Last year alone it added around 100 gigawatts of new generators, approaching France's entire capacity, most of them coal-burning.

[Brian Ellis]

However, when you consider the CO2 emission per capita (in the same article), it becomes a whole different story: the US emits 20 tons per capita; China 3.6 tons per capita...


Jörg

Who are you kidding? The US is 120 tonnes per capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ons_per_capita

120 x 300M = 3,6 Gt
3.6 x 1.2G = 4.3 Gt

Cyprus has one of the higher European rates at 10.26 t per capita. Compare that with Switzerland's 6 t, yet the standard of life there is higher than that of the USA with 20 times the emissions.

[gt40]

Who are you kidding? The US is 120 tonnes per capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ons_per_capita

120 x 300M = 3,6 Gt
3.6 x 1.2G = 4.3 Gt

Cyprus has one of the higher European rates at 10.26 t per capita. Compare that with Switzerland's 6 t, yet the standard of life there is higher than that of the USA with 20 times the emissions.

According to the chart it's 20 tonnes.

[rylan]

Yeah I think he is reading the Virgin Islands listing, which is #1 with 120. The US #11 on the list.

[Technoid]

Yeah I think he is reading the Virgin Islands listing, which is #1 with 120. The US #11 on the list.

bahh, I think he reads any environmental material like the devil reads the bible

[Brian Ellis]

The link I quoted says categorically 120 t, which I admit sounds high, so let's do some maths.

The world emissions of CO2 are estimated at 19.1 Gt and the USA is purported to be responsible at figures variously quoted at 23-28% of this. Let's say 25%. So the total USA emissions work out at 4.78 Gt. Divide this among 300M people, and you have actually 15.9 t, which is too low. According to the EIA, the total USA emissions from fossil fuels work out at 5.91 Gt out of a world total of 27.04 Gt (2004 figs); this approaches the 20 t/capita you quote. However the 27 Gt is way too high. The estimate for fossil C (not CO2) emissions is 7.1 Gt ±0.3 Gt. If this were all in CO2 (which it isn't), this would work out at 19.45 Gt of CO2. This US Govt. link quotes 7.3 Gt (2003), so there, we are in the same ballpark. I think the upshot is that we simply don't have accurate figures from anywhere.

However, even if the USA emits "only" 20 t/capita, the W. European nations or Japan even approach half this. I don't go for it being a function of size creating more travel, as the average European travels more than the average American, especially on trans- and inter-continental flights. As an example, the UK, with a population of ~60M has official statistics showing:

Visits by overseas residents to the UK rose by six per cent during the 12 months ending November 2006, from 30.1 million to 31.9 million. The number of visits from residents of North America showed an increase of seven per cent (to 4.5 million), from residents of Western Europe of four per cent (to 20.4 million), and from other parts of the world of 10 per cent (to 7.1 million).
In the same 12-month period, visits abroad by UK residents rose by two per cent from 66.5 million to 68.1 million. Visits to North America decreased by nine per cent (to 4.5 million), visits to Western Europe rose by two per cent (at 50.9 million) and to other parts of the world increased by 11 per cent (to 12.7 million).

[Fat Tone]

Brian, look more closely at that link. The first line is United States Virgin Islands