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It’s official: China is the world’s bigger polluter
Duncan Clark, Guardian
A new global dataset confirms China as the most prolific producer of carbon dixoide
We like stats at the Guardian, so we’re delighted to be the first to publish – today – the Energy Information Administration’s latest round of global emissions figures, covering the year 2006. So much so, in fact, that we created this rather amazing graphic to put the figures into perspective.
The most interesting fact contained in the new data is the change at the top of the list. China, with 6.01 billion tonnes of CO2, has finally overtaken the US, with 5.90 billion tonnes.
It was fairly clear that this was going to happen. Indeed, last year we reported on analysis by the Netherlands Environment Agency that made the same claim. But only now has China’s top-spot status been confirmed as part of a complete, globally recognised dataset.
(9 December 2008)
The carbon atlas
Christine Oliver, Guardian
New figures published today confirm that China has overtaken the US as the largest emitter of CO2. This interactive emissions map shows how the rest of the world compares.
Global C02 emissions totalled 29,195m tonnes in 2006 – up 2.4% on 2005
(9 December 2008)
Nice interactive map. I wish that the per-capita emissions were more visible – the map empahsizes total emissions per country. -BA
Poor countries ‘need carbon cuts’
Richard Black, BBC
People in developing countries will need to make big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if “dangerous” climate change is to be avoided, a report warns.
Researchers at the Third World Network calculate that even if rich nations make deep cuts, the developing world will face per-capita reductions of 60%.
It suggests this would pose challenges to these countries’ development.
Meanwhile, another report warns that current proposals for cutting developed world emissions do not go far enough.
(9 December 2008)
Greenhouse gas comes from solar panels
Foreign Policy
Think switching to solar energy will make you green? Think again. Many of the newest solar panels are manufactured with a gas that is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming.
Nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, is used for cleaning microcircuits during the manufacture of a host of modern electronics, including flat-screen TVs, iPhones, computer chips—and thin-film solar panels, the latest (and cheapest) generation of solar photovoltaics. (Time named the panels one of the best inventions of 2008.) Because industry estimates suggested that only about 2 percent of NF3 ever made it into the atmosphere, the chemical has been marketed as a cleaner alternative to other higher-emitting options. For the past decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actively encouraged its use. NF3 also wasn’t deemed dangerous enough to be covered by the Kyoto Protocol, making it an attractive substitute for companies and signatory countries eager to lower their emissions footprints.
It turns out that NF3 might not be so green after all. “NF3 has a potential greenhouse impact larger than … even that of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants,” according to a June 2008 study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. Because NF3 isn’t covered by Kyoto, few attempts have been made to measure it in the atmosphere. But last October, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that four times more NF3 is present in the atmosphere than industry estimates suggest, and its concentration is rising 11 percent a year.
Compared with the damage caused by CO2 emissions, NF3 remains a blip because far less of it is emitted. But Ray Weiss, who led the Scripps team, thinks that, unless regulations require more complete greenhouse gas measurements, more unpleasant surprises will be in store.
(December 2008? No date)
From the series, “The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008”
Press the panic button
Jonathan Porritt, The Guardian
Environmental NGOs in the US had hoped – against the odds – that President-elect Obama might defy convention and turn up at the Poznan conference this week to tell the world in person that the US would soon be doing everything in its power to combat the increasingly dire threat of climate change.
That’s not going to happen; but Obama did ask John Kerry, who is leading the US Senate’s delegation in Poland, to be his ears and eyes, if not his mouthpiece. Kerry is certainly keen (“We intend to pick up the baton and really run with it here”), and no doubt he’ll be doing a lot of behind-the-scenes reassuring. But there’s something extra – and hugely important – that he could get sorted too…
(10 December 2008)
See the previous article on this topic from the Guardian that I posted in yesterday’s Climate headlines Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst for what is beginning to add up to very disturbing picture indeed! KS
