Wednesday, February 2, 2011

China remains the world's biggest CO2 polluter

China is still the world's biggest CO2 polluter, not only that, China has also managed to significantly increase its carbon emissions, and compared to decade ago China's carbon emissions rose by staggering 171 %.

Despite the strong development of renewable energy China's carbon emission continue to grow because coal is still the most dominant fuel in China. The coal will very likely remain the dominant fuel in China for at least the next decade.

India, another fast developing country is also polluting world with carbon emissions more than ever before, and is now the third largest CO2 polluter in the world, behind China and United States, and before Russia.

The remaining top ten CO2 polluters include Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea, Iran and United Kingdom.

Though the United States has had declining CO2 emissions for two years running it is still the number one in terms of per capita emissions among the top ten polluters with 18 tonnes emitted per person, while world's largest polluter China has little less than 6 tonnes, and third ranked India only 1,38. By looking at the global picture, world currently emits around 4.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions per person.

The environmentalists believe that the only way world can reduce CO2 emissions is by agreeing the new international climate deal, a successor for Kyoto protocol. The climate talks have so far been just that (talks), and international climate deal is still more in the sphere of dreams than the reality. This is mostly because there is a big difference in opinion between the developed and developing world, and until this is sorted out new climate deal looks almost impossible.

World still heavily depends on fossil fuels and renewable energy sector is still to weak to satisfy world's ever-growing hunger for energy. Until this changes, carbon emissions will likely grow even further, strengthening the impact of climate change and global warming.

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