US, China CO2 Emissions Compared

February 9th, 2011

This is an excellent motion graph comparing US, China to 2006. To get a good idea of the trend, it’s best to set the slider at the bottom to begin at 1960, since much of the data before then is too old and insignificant to be of much interest. Then hit the “Play” button to watch the trend unfold.

If there is a shortcoming, it’s that the data ends at 2006. In 2008, 2009 the western economies went through a major contraction, and China’s stimulus package helped Chinese factories to continue to operate at a high level of capacity while the OECD economies slowed. So what has happened to carbon emissions between 2006 and 2011, the time of writing for this article?

Fortunately for us, the folks managing the Datablog at The Guardian, have not only posted the information up till the end of 2009, but have also created a graphic.

A few interesting takeaways:

  • China’s CO2 emissions at the end of 2009 were higher than the US, Canada combined.
  • CO2 emissions are falling fast among the OECD countries, which have suffered slow to negative growth following September 2008
  • The main CO2 culprit is China and other developing nations, not the OECD nations
  • The big challenge for China’s leaders is how to maintain economic growth and social stability, while keeping CO2 emission within “acceptable parameters”
  • Does the Chinese government have a definition of acceptable CO2 parameters? Or is this a slider parameter which changes according to social, political conditions?
  • There are other factors at work, such as north China’s drought. Droughts put a strain on other resources, which means that CO2 emissions are likely to go up even faster.

This is all something to think about.

When Worst-Case Scenarios Become Best-Case Scenarios

March 26th, 2008

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Environmental experts paint a bleak picture of the future when the subject comes to global warming. Now, it turns out because of the rapid increase in energy needs in China, what were originally worst-case scenarios for global warming will now, almost surely, turn into best-case scenarios.

This is because many of the decisions for new power plants and energy have been pushed from Beijing down to the provincial levels, and simply put, the provinces have more incentive to produce more energy than to decrease carbon emissions. What was a bad situation becomes much worse, not just for China, but for the whole world. While the US has previously been the world’s worst emitter of hydrocarbons, China is on the path to replacing the US to become a hydrocarbon emitting country on a much grander scale, and in a league of its own. This will lead to much greater condemnation of China in the international press and also in China’s more vocal domestic arena of public opinion which uses the Internet as its main venue.

Richard Carson, a professor at the University of San Diego, is the leading expert on China’s carbon emissions, and he has co-authored a paper on his measurements and forecasts for carbon emissions based on his on-the-ground work in China. You can read about it here.