Investor's Business Daily, June 28th, 2007
Pollution Control: China's booming economy has made it the world's biggest polluter. So why is it exempt from Kyoto, and why are the greenies so silent? Should we stop buying Chinese goods to fight global warming?
Pollution and greenhouse gases are China's biggest export. But you won't see that in any balance-of-trade numbers or hear about it from the environmentalists who recommend draconian restrictions on the U.S. economy and insist we all drive battery-operated cars.
Nor will you hear from the global warmongers, including Al Gore, that China has officially become the world's No. 1 polluter.
China's emissions of carbon dioxide have exceeded those of the United States at least two years ahead of most international estimates, according to a report issued last week by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. CO2 emissions, it says, rose an astounding 9% in 2006. China produces 12% of the world's CO2 and 25% of its mercury pollution.
In contrast, the Energy Information Administration announced that the big, bad USA's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels fell 1.3% in 2006, while our booming economy grew 3.3%. We are using energy more efficiently and reducing emissions without Kyoto. Energy use per unit of GDP fell 4.2 % last year, and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP fell 4.5%.
While environmentalists and congressional Democrats have shut down our domestic development of fossil fuels like oil and even clean-burning natural gas, a new coal-fired plant big enough to supply every household in a city the size of San Diego comes on line every seven to 10 days in China, exporting more pollution to California and the western U.S. than even Gore's economic straightjacket could hope to eliminate.
As Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation reports, sulfur from China alone reaches 10% to 15% of the EPA's allowable levels in California, Oregon and Washington state alone. Estimates are that a third of California's air pollution and a fifth of Oregon's come from China. Sensors in the Sierra Nevada mountains have identified huge Chinese pollution clouds that traverse the Pacific.
As a "developing" nation, China is exempt from Kyoto -- one of the reasons the U.S. Senate once voted 97-0 not to consider it for ratification. China would love to see the U.S. economy handcuffed as it races to make this century a Chinese one. As it is, our states and taxpayers struggle to clean up imported Chinese pollution.
Beijing has plans for 2,200 additional coal-fired plants by 2020. China relies on coal for some 75% of its energy and industrial needs. In 2006, China consumed more than 2.7 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity -- almost double its 2002 rate. There's also vehicular pollution from 20 million cars on the road, a number expected to jump to a minimum of 150 million tailpipes by 2020.
According to the World Bank, the north-central Chinese coal town of Linfen is the world's most polluted city. China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, and, according to the World Health Organization, 400,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from respiratory diseases.
Environmentalists are always suggesting ways we should change our lifestyles to reduce our "carbon footprint." Since a lot of what is produced in these pollution-belching Chinese factories is exported to the U.S., would they suggest we stop buying anything made in China until it cleans up its act?
Greenies say it'll take a lot to save the earth. We have a place they could start and remind them that a journey of a thousand miles begins with an inconvenient truth.
