It’s generally agreed – despite the fact that America is, by far, historically the number one contributor to global warming – that the ultimate hurdle to climate stabilization will be China.
Alarmingly, the word on the street is that China’s emissions are not just growing at a furious pace, they are growing more than twice as fast as feared.
How bad is it? Conservatively estimated, China will have added between 2000 and 2010, 600m tons of CO2. For perspective, Kyoto was only seeking 116m tons of reductions worldwide by 2012. Death spiral anyone? The numbers are staggering – and conservative!
“A notable shift occurred in China around the year 2000, around the time when hope for an agreement with the U.S. on the Kyoto Protocol began to diminish along with external pressure for China to reduce its emissions,” said Carson. “Energy use started to grow faster than income, and much of the energy that was used wasn’t efficient.”
How do we stop China’s race into oblivion? I think we must start with radical reductions here in the United States. Then with the Europeans we’ll be in a position to exert political and economic pressure to slow and then turn around China’s runaway train (and our own in the process). To get started now – I humbly suggest – download this checklist, and get busy.
Tags: checklist, China, global warming, Kyoto
