China Now World's Top Polluter

April 16, 2008 -- China has already surpassed the United States as the world's largest carbon polluter, the authors of a California study report.

"Our best forecast has China's CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions correctly surpassing the United States in 2006 rather than 2020 as previously anticipated," said the study by researchers at the University of California.

The report, written by economic professors Maximilian Aufhammer of UC Berkeley and Richard Carson of UC San Diego, is to be published next month in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Researchers compiled information about the use of fossil fuels in various Chinese provinces and forecast an 11 percent annual growth of carbon emissions from 2004 to 2010.

Previous estimates had set the growth rate at 2.5 to five percent.

The spike in air pollution by China has largely cancelled out efforts by other countries' attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, the authors said.

The researchers predicted that by 2010, "there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country's levels in 2000."

That growth would "dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol," the report said.