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MADELEINE BRAND, host:
From NPR News, this is DAY TO DAY.
We are no longer number one - China is. It is now the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide. That's the main greenhouse gas causing global warming. This new research on CO2 emissions comes from the Netherlands.
MARKETPLACE's Janet Babin joins us now. And Janet, I guess this was just a matter of time. After all, China has more than a billion people and a rapidly growing economy.
JANET BABIN: Yeah. China's economy, Madeleine, expanded by more than 10 percent for each of the past four years. So experts had expected that China was going to become the largest emitter eventually, but I do think that some people were surprised that it happened so quickly.
According to the report from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China's CO2 emissions in 2006 were estimated to be about eight percent higher than those in the U.S., and the report was based on data on energy use in cement production.
BRAND: Will this report then put more pressure on China to do something to curb its greenhouse gases?
BABIN: Well, it could. We've all been hearing a lot about that, especially with the Olympics being held in Beijing in the summer of 2008. But I spoke to a Professor Jonathan Harris about this. He's at Tufts University. And he says it would be wrong to put the onus on China now to take the lead on cutting emissions because you have to look at something called per capita emissions, and that's basically emissions per person in a country. He says they tell a fuller story. And in per capita emissions, the U.S. is still well ahead of the rest of the world.
China's per capita emissions are about a quarter of what they are here in the U.S., and we also emit about twice the amount of greenhouse gases per person as people in Europe and Japan do.
Now, that said, Professor Harris does think that it's inevitable that emissions from China and the rest of the developing world are going to rise.
Dr. JONATHAN HARRIS (Senior Director, Institute of the Environment, Tufts University): That the goal, a good goal would be to compensate for that by cutting emissions for the currently developed world so that at least you have a net zero - in other words, it would destabilized emissions.
BABIN: But there's still disagreement, Madeleine, on how to stabilize the emissions, right? China and other developing nations said recently that they'll do what they can, their fair share to cut emissions. But it's basically up to the developed world - the U.S., Europe and Japan - to lead the way here.
And meanwhile, President Bush has said that China and the developing countries have to do more. But what Professor Harris said, basically, the way he thinks we could stabilize emissions is to really focus and find common ground on efficiency - that if the U.S. were to become more efficient, we could reduce emissions. And he means the simple things, like becoming more efficient through fluorescent light bulbs or hybrid vehicles, mass transit and bringing AC systems and heating up to date. He says that could reduce U.S. emissions by 50 percent, down to levels we find in Europe and Japan. And they don't exactly have a poor standard of living there.
BRAND: Thank you, Janet. That's Janet Babin of public radio's daily business show, MARKETPLACE. It's produced by American Public Media.
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