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China's Carbon Effeciency Goals will Lead to Increased Emissions
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by Gordon Clark | November 26, 2009 at 01:18 pm
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I doubt many people would have guessed it but China is ahead of the rest of the world in carbon emissions efficient. Sound suspicious? China counts its carbon emissions differently then the rest of the world. When the rest of the world count total carbon emissions and their priority targets China uses what they call carbon efficiency. carbon efficiency is total carbon emissions divided by GDP.
What does this mean? It means that China only cares about their carbon emissions in comparison to their GDP growth. As long as their economy is growing faster than their how much carbon they are emitting they are satisfied.
This is concerning for environmentalists because it is economic activity that leads to carbon emission and pollution, thus creating a self perpetuating cycle.
greenhouse gas emissions in China have not been rising as fast as its economy has been growing.
As the Copenhagen summit approaches China has released a statement saying that their goal is to decrease their carbon intensity by 40-45% by they year 2020 compared to 2005. A couple concerns with that:
- China released their statement before the Copenhagen summit. This means they are basically doing only what is in their best interests without concern or participating with other countries.
- Their carbon intensity decrease is perfectly unclear in relation to the real problem of total carbon emissions. They could meet their emissions target even if their total carbon emissions increases greatly as long as their GDP increases more.
I am no environmentalist, nor ecological economist but I can see when logic is flawed
All of that being said, there are potential benefits to China's carbon efficiency goals. They are within the definition of efficiency. It is likely that while China is trying to increase its economic output it will also make some attempt to increase its use of energy - not that its natural stocks are plentiful enough.
All in all: not an impressive environmental move by China but there is still a bit of potential yet.
For information on the upcoming Copenhagen Summit click here.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 14:32 on November 26th, 2009
ty for this post
at 15:17 on November 26th, 2009
Good story, but long term targets 10 years into the future, says that we will let the next guy in power worry about what we promise today. China also stated they need to get their economy ramped up before they can start reducing. Course 10 years from now that may be an excuse that more time is needed, Their cheaply made throwaway products we buy here results in more manufacturing over there to keep up demand as asian products break here and are thrown away. A vicious circle.
Meanwhile our governments as developed nations are in a struggling economy too. Sounds like a lot of promises that we will have to visit in 10 years, My feeling is no one will meet their target, but we will have tons of rhetoric to appease the masses who revolt when a carbon tax of a few cents hit their pocket book.Guess someone was hoping their was a Carbon fairy flying around to save the day.
at 19:26 on November 26th, 2009
The national environmental protection investment was 47.642 billion yuan and 130.657 billion yuan in the 7th
Five-Year Plan period and the 8th Five-Year Plan period respectively. The figure was further up to 351.64 billion yuan in the 9th Five-Year Plan period accounting for more than 1.0% of GDP for the first time in history. The
environmental protection investment in 2004 accounted for 1.4% of GDP. The environmental protection investment in the first four years of the 10th Five-Year Plan period totaled 600.71 billion yuan with the share of
Environmental Protection Investment in China. Wu Shun-ze1, Lu Yuan-tang, Wang Jin-nan ,
1.14%, 1.3%, 1.39%, 1.4% in GDP for the year of 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively. Those figures were recalculated to 1.01%, 1.13%, 1.20%, 1.19% based on the adjusted GDP data following the nation-wide economical census
China has established the world's most aggressive energy efficiency target, calling for a 20 percent reduction in energy intensity (which is a nation's energy consumption per unit of GDP) between 2005 and 2010. If fully implemented, this target would translate to a reduction of over 1.5 billion tons of CO2 in just five years. In comparison, the EU commitment under Kyoto is about 300 million tons of CO2 between 1997 and 2012.
Due to the way CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere (once present in the atmosphere, it remains for centuries), global warming is determined by cumulative CO2 emissions rather than annual CO2 emissions. In this context, it is important to determine China's cumulative emissions when examining its role in contributing to climate change. Between 1750-2006, China emitted 8.2 percent of the cumulative emissions from fossil fuel use, compared to the US which emitted 27.5 percent, more than three times the emissions of any other country.