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Originally posted by Wezil
Rest of article here: http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/3...erally-part-i/
The immorality of China’s coal policy is breathtaking (literally) — Part I
Yes, America’s climate policy is immoral. But that doesn’t make China’s rapacious coal plant building moral. The N.Y. Times has published the sobering numbers, which bear repeating:
The country built 114,000 megawatts of fossil-fuel-based generating capacity last year alone, almost all coal-fired, and is on course to complete 95,000 megawatts more this year.
For comparison, Britain has 75,000 megawatts in operation, built over a span of decades.
China is now the main reason the world is recarbonizing — the carbon content of the average unit of energy produced has stopped its multi-decade decline, as noted. Yes, America is still responsible for a great deal more cumulative emissions, which is what drive concentrations, and China is doing Much of its dirty manufacturing for U.S. consumers (never said our hands were clean).
But China seems to have adopted a policy of build as many coal plants as is humanly possible until they are forced to stop — or, I suspect, until they get a deal that pays the country to shut them down (much as they have gamed the clean development mechanism under Kyoto).
.
.
.
Yes, America’s climate policy is immoral. But that doesn’t make China’s rapacious coal plant building moral. The N.Y. Times has published the sobering numbers, which bear repeating:
The country built 114,000 megawatts of fossil-fuel-based generating capacity last year alone, almost all coal-fired, and is on course to complete 95,000 megawatts more this year.
For comparison, Britain has 75,000 megawatts in operation, built over a span of decades.
China is now the main reason the world is recarbonizing — the carbon content of the average unit of energy produced has stopped its multi-decade decline, as noted. Yes, America is still responsible for a great deal more cumulative emissions, which is what drive concentrations, and China is doing Much of its dirty manufacturing for U.S. consumers (never said our hands were clean).
But China seems to have adopted a policy of build as many coal plants as is humanly possible until they are forced to stop — or, I suspect, until they get a deal that pays the country to shut them down (much as they have gamed the clean development mechanism under Kyoto).
.
.
.
Rest of article here: http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/3...erally-part-i/
Global cooling agents
Coal
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