Update: I almost forgot to write that I think it's a terrific turnaround for WUWT to suddenly take an active interest in urging nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I look forward to many more articles by the environmental activists at WUWT. Hopefully soon they will be strongly urging governments in the USA and Australia as well as urging China to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
At Anthony Watts pseudo-science blog, WUWT, there is an article by Paul Homewood (
archived here). He criticises the efforts of China to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Paul has done some sums and has worked out that China's commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, because it's based on a percentage of GDP, would result in their doubling emissions by 2020. Based on my cursory reading, that is an overly simplistic view of what is happening in China.
Paul Homewood's strawman
I haven't checked Paul's numbers or assumptions, but what I did notice was his writing this (
archived here):
All of this rather begs the question – if CO2 is really such a problem, why are not the UN, Greenpeace, UNFCC, Western politicians, activist scientists and all the other hangers on jumping up and down and demanding that China starts making real cuts now?
What is evident is either:
- Paul Homewood isn't familiar with what these agencies and organisations are doing and have done or
- Paul Homewood is familiar with these efforts but chooses to disinform readers at WUWT, knowing they demand that their dislike of the UN, Greenpeace and environmentalism in general (and their conspiracy ideation) be appeased.
I haven't checked the specifics of what the UN and UNFCC and Western Politicians are doing in regard to China in particular. However the fact that the UN organises conferences to combat global warming and get countries to agree on sustainability commitments is evidence that they are encouraging all member nations to deal with these issues. (I did some quick research on what Greenpeace has been up to - see below.)
There is no pleasing deniers at WUWT
On the one hand WUWT-ers rail at any initiatives to combat global warming and improve the environment and the next minute they are complaining that not enough is being done.
No-one could ever accuse WUWT of being consistent!
As an aside, I find it surprising that someone at WUWT would suggest that scientists get involved in policy, seeing it's something they usually castigate scientists for doing even when they aren't.
What Greenpeace is doing in East Asia
I'm not up on what Greenpeace does so I did a bit of a web search to see what Greenpeace has been advocating and what it's been doing in East Asia. Here are just a few of the items I came across, going back several years:
There is a lot more as you can imagine. Greenpeace is a large, active organisation and has an East Asia section. For example, only a few days ago there was
this article at Greenpeace, which refers in part to the new
Air Pollution Control Plan announced this September, and to the individual pledges made by four key provinces to reduce coal consumption in real terms. Below are
some extracts:
How do we translate China's policy shift on air pollution into progressive climate position? Li Shuo
...Facing mounting public pressure from Beijing, as well as many other regions in China’s populous eastern provinces, the government published a comprehensive air pollution control plan in September of this year. Coal consumption control is featured heavily in the plan.
According to various evaluations, coal combustion is the leading cause of China’s air pollution. China’s coal consumption not only contributes to two thirds of the global CO2 emission growth in the past five years, but is also leading to systemic damage of the health of its citizens.
Pursuant with the call from the central government, four provinces (two of them – Shandong and Hebei are China’s top and fourth-largest coal consumers respectively) made individual pledges to peak and decline their coal consumption by 2017 – the first time in Chinese history that negative coal consumption targets have ever been mandated. Added together, these four provinces will need to collectively reduce 83 million ton of coal in the next four years, a sharp annual average decline of 6% This is even more significant given that these provinces still kept growing at 6-8% over the past five years.
...As China prepares to slash coal, climate benefits will inevitably follow. According to the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency's 2013 Trends in Global CO2 emission report, the slowdown of China’s energy appetite in 2012 has already contributed to the slowest global emission growth. This trend, predicted by the Agency is likely to continue. If that is the case, it will have considerable implication on the way from Warsaw to the 2015 Paris COP.
Warsaw is therefore a good opportunity to foster this emission trend and bring it down even further. The global community should encourage their Chinese counterparts to put air pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation equally on the agenda. Strong connections between the two issues should be facilitated and communicated back to Beijing, so that a mutually reinforcing loop could be created in domestic policy making.
Li Shuo is a Climate and Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia.
Here are some more articles of relevance:
Greenhouse gas emissions per capita and in total
Here are some numbers to digest - showing
greenhouse gas emissions per capita from CDIAC as at 2010. The first number is the world ranking in terms of per capita emissions. The last number is that actual emissions per capita in tonnes of carbon (not CO2):
- 1 Qatar 10.94
- 12 USA 4.71
- 14 Australia 4.57
- 18 Canada 4.00
- 37 Japan 2.52
- 39 Germany 2.47
- 47 United Kingdom 2.16
- 63 China (Mainland) 1.68
- 75 Hong Kong 1.4
- 136 India 0.45
China and India need to bypass fossil fuels and shift straight to clean energy production
Looking at the above, it's obviously of critical importance that fast-growing economies like India and China develop their economies using clean energy and avoid as far as possible a transition through dirty energy.
Top ten total emitters in the world
I downloaded
the latest data from CDIAC, which has preliminary numbers on a per country basis up to 2012. China was by far the largest emitter, with 2,625 million tonnes C followed by the USA with 1,396 million tonnes, then India with 611 million tonnes. Here are the top ten nations, with their total emissions and per capita emissions. Note that the per capita emissions are ranked on the basis of this list of top ten emitters only. It does not include all nations.
Country
|
2012 m tonne
|
% increase on 2010
|
Pop (million)
|
Per capita
|
Rank per capita out of top ten only
|
| China |
2,625,730 |
16%
|
1350
|
1945
|
9
|
| USA |
1,396,791 |
-6%
|
314
|
4448
|
2
|
| India |
611,226.3 |
12%
|
1237
|
494
|
10
|
| Russian Federation |
491,840.3 |
4%
|
144
|
3416
|
4
|
| Japan |
342,270 |
7%
|
128
|
2674
|
6
|
| Germany |
199,716.1 |
-2%
|
82
|
2436
|
7
|
| South Korea |
166,679.2 |
8%
|
50
|
3334
|
5
|
| Iran |
164,497.7 |
6%
|
76
|
2164
|
8
|
| Saudi Arabia |
137,877.7 |
9%
|
28
|
4924
|
1
|
| Canada |
137,819.8 |
1%
|
35
|
3938
|
3
|
China is now the largest emitter, followed by the USA and then India. China and India are the two fastest growing in terms of emissions growth over the period 2010 to 2012. China and India are the lowest
per capita emitters in this list.
The USA is the only one of the current top ten to have reduced total emissions between 2010 and 2012. However - out of the top ten emitters, the USA still ranks number two on
per capita emissions behind Saudi Arabia.
From the WUWT comments
As usual, many WUWT-ers make snide comments and don't bother doing any investigation themselves. (WUWT comments section is often nothing more than a splatter board at which science rejectors and conspiracy theorists fling empty, meaningless words.) Some of them are more aware and interested in the issue than others though.
What's odd is that usually WUWT-ers rant at NGOs for being activists. WUWT-ers usually despise activism, especially when it relates to the environment. In this thread though there are a lot of people complaining that NGOs aren't doing enough - or aren't "doing anything". If only deniers would make up their minds.
You can read more comments
archived here.
Jimbo says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:07 pm
There are lies, damned lies and………………….
H.R. says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Glad to see the Chinese still have a great sense of humor. The joke is on all the rest of the world.
John says:
November 24, 2013 at 5:28 pm
On the flip side, haven’t US CO2 emissions already actually been substantially cut. Driving miles are down and natural gas replaced a lot of coal power generation.. I thought we were the only country to actually achieve the Kyoto targets.
The USA has reduced total emissions in the past couple of years and over the long term has had no growth in
per capita emissions. But it is still a huge source of emissions (ranking in the top 15 nations on a per capita basis) and can't sit back on its laurels. Here is a chart
up to 2009 from CDIAC:
Nick Stokes is not a typical WUWT-er and looks at the numbers from a different perspective. He says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm
“jumping up and down and demanding that China starts making real cuts now?”
The CDIAC site you cited also has per capita figures for 2010: China 1.68 ton C/cap/yr, USA 4.71, Australia 4.57, Qatar 10.9.
CO2 needs a world effort. We can’t expect people to respond differently just because of the size of the political unit they happen to live in. China has a big population and will have a big GDP. The best we can do is to ensure that the GDP is achieved as efficiently as possible. We can’t expect Chinese to respond to Westerners pressuring them to cut in absolute terms when
Westerners are using more than twice as much.
“But don’t believe the likes of John Gummer…”
In your quote Gummer expected Chinese emissions to peak about 2025. You attempted to refute that by saying that they would be emitting more in 2020 that now. That does not refute.
“Actual emissions were 2625, which represents a cut of 41% from 4430″
Well, then, they are indeed doing well.
William McClenney says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Ah, but the latent question is: how does it feel to have been played?
Neville. breaks the mold and says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Her are the EIA co2 emission forecast until 2040— see graph. The OECD emissions will essentially flatline for 30 years while non OECD emissions will continue to soar.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm
They say that fully 94% of extra co2 emissions will come from China ,India etc and only 6% from the OECD until 2040.
The entire OECD could retire and live in caves and it wouldn’t make ZIP difference at all to climate and temp.
John says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:13 pm
Neville – Have we learned anything yet about models and forecasts.
Gary Hladik says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Out of curiosity, is China actually doing anything to really cut CO2 emissions, in addition to replacing old coal power plants with new, and building nuclear power plants?
Mike Smith says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:49 pm
China is an interesting case. There must be a huge interest in reducing pollution, by which I mean particulate matter, carcinogens, toxic materials etc.
I doubt that the Chinese give a hoot about CO2 but, of course, their politicians will make all of the right noises to appease the west since they’re rather tired of playing the western world’s punching bag. I think the “China reassures world” article is fine example of same.
AntonyIndia says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:50 pm
China is always excused by Green alarmists: those poor communist underdogs. The US are the main target: those wicket ultra rich top dogs. Dawn facts and statistics. Viewing the world through green coloured glasses damages the world’s environment the most.
Dr. Bob decides to complain that NGOs aren't doing anything - or so he thinks and says:
November 24, 2013 at 7:28 pm
At the 2007 Pittsburgh Coal Conference, I remember a poster session on coal seam fires In China, coal seam fires emit more CO2 than all the cars in the US. A little searching indicated that 20-200 million tons of coal per year are lost to mine fires. The number is very vague as no one really knows how much coal is lost to mine fires. CO2 emissions from these sources are probably not counted in net emissions but represent maybe 12% of China’s GHG emissions.
If GHG emissions are truly a threat to mankind, why haven’t the NGO’s gone after this source of uncontrolled emissions? If CO2 was a real problem, this would be the low hanging fruit. But no one mentions this
