Clean Up Your Act

China is now number 1, and often that is a good thing. Not in this case. China recently surpassed the U.S. to become the world's single leading emitter of CO2. Congratulations. For the last few years, China's emissions have grown by at least 11 percent per year. As a Nation I feel that we have a pretty lousy environmental track record, so to surpass us, means that China is really in need of some green changes. A fact that I had to check twice, was that China has been building coal-fired power plants at the rate of two per week for the last few years. Holy CO2 Batman! What's worse, many of the new coal-fired power plants that have been built in the past few years, are low-cost designs, which are less efficient and therefore emit more CO2. Holy #%$@ Batman! China now says that it will "actively join" the Kyoto Protocol deal on global warming. In a statement China said; "China will take notice of Japan's view that the world as a whole needs to slash greenhouse gas emissions at least by half by 2050 from the current level, and China will show its willingness to study ways and measures to realise the ultimate purpose."
It seems that all of the industrialized Nations including the U.S., are setting emissions goals that can be best summarized as to little to late. The proposed pace of CO2 emission reductions planned by industrialized Nations, falls far short of what many scientists say is necessary to stabilize the Global climate. In fairness, I acknowledge that The United States has not signed the Kyoto Protocol. I think we have good reasons for not signing so long as the agreement only mandates CO2 reductions for developed countries. Like it or not, friend or foe, we are all in this one together.