JEEM in the headlines: China number 1 CO2 polluter

It is not everyday that a JEEM paper gets the USAtoday headlines. Given the long lags at JEEM the results of this paper were probably generated over 2 years ago. Better late than never.

After probably spending weeks toiling over this paper grinding out the results he get this quote from Richard Carson:

Unless China sharply cuts its emissions, "the situation is pretty bleak," says Richard Carson of the University of California, co-author of a study in today's Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. "There's a lot less time to do something than people previously thought."

Brilliant.

China now No. 1 CO2 offender [USAtoday]

WASHINGTON — China has overtaken the USA to become the world's No. 1 industrial source of carbon dioxide, the most important global-warming pollutant, according to a scientific study to be published today.

The study and two others — one recently published and another coming — agree that China's carbon-dioxide emissions surpassed those in the USA in 2006. That's decades earlier than had been predicted by the International Energy Agency four years ago.

All three studies examine emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal. Energy usage is the most significant man-made source of carbon dioxide, which accumulates in the atmosphere and traps heat.

Unless China sharply cuts its emissions, "the situation is pretty bleak," says Richard Carson of the University of California, co-author of a study in today's Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. "There's a lot less time to do something than people previously thought."

China's total emissions in 2006 roughly tied U.S. emissions, according to another study in the April 24 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. But China's monthly production of carbon dioxide overtook the USA's in mid-2006, the study says. "Nobody could anticipate the rate of growth that's taken place in the last six or eight years in China," says Gregg Marland of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the authors of that study.

Even better than this article that simply rehashes old news are the comments from USAtoday readers. I have to share a couple with you:

CO2 is not a pollutant. Somebody please put some real news on this page.

[by tq2]

China rapes the Earth of it's animals (sharks, tigers, bears, etc etc) so it is no big surprise they are polluting the air as well. If you think they are going to become "environmental" all of a sudden then you got rocks in your head.

[Mik]

The other comments are often funny, offensive and entirely wrong. If anything it makes it clear why the US was the biggest polluter until recently.

Things really are looking bleak.

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