China pledged today to slow the growth of its carbon emissions despite the rapid growth of its economy.
President Hu Jintao told nearly 100 leaders at a UN summit on climate change that the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases would cut carbon dioxide emissions by a “notable margin per unit of GDP” by 2020. “We have taken and will continue to take determined and practical steps to tackle this challenge,” he said.
Mr Hu said that China, now overwhelmingly dependent on coal, would “vigorously develop” renewable and nuclear energy and try to increase the share of non-fossil fuels to 15 per cent by 2020. He added that the country would plant 40 million hectares of forest to absorb carbon emissions.
It is encouraging that China has started to think about the massive pollution that it is putting out. I believe it was quoted that recently they were commissioning a new coal-fired power station every day or so.
What good news that China is going to start to re-forest, as well! A couple months ago a Chinese post-doc I attended a meeting with described how there is not one stick of wood to be found in her part of China, every piece of naturally growing timber having been stripped off the countryside in the times of burgeoning population…..
My husband also describes a China denuded of trees. He has visited several interior industrial areas.
If the USA really wants to get off of power sources which emit particulates, it should move towards nuclear power.
It would be nice if they could bring China up to the level of fuel efficiency that the US now exhibits. So much of the world is so far behind us in clean air/water technology. Of course a lot of that is the result of politics, since communism up till now has not admitted the superiority of Western technology.