Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
commitment at the Copenhagen Conference, that relative to 2005 levels China
would reduce carbon emissions/GDP by 40-45 % by 2020, total carbon emissions
will still climb.
The newest carbon emission statistics publicized by IEA reveals that China's
emissions per capita is 4.6 t CO
2
; the US figure is 19.8 t, 4.3 times that of China.
However, China's carbon emissions make up 21.9 % of the world's total, surpass-
ing the 18.7 % of the US and topping the rest of the world. At the same time, China
leaves Japan, India, Brazil and so on far behind in carbon emissions. Its total
amount will rise to 8.632 billion tons in 2015 and reach 8.9 billion tons in 2020,
and 12.8 billion tons in 2030, at which point it will account for 30.5 % of the
world's total and 52 % of the global increase until then. China therefore becomes
the focus and target of international talk and criticism as it increasingly gains
international influence.
1.2.4 China: The Biggest Victim of Global Climate Change
Why should China actively respond to global climate change? Ross Garnaut,
climate change advisor for the Australian Government, the author of
Global
Climate Change Review
, and the former ambassador to China, insightfully pointed
out that China's efforts on climate change were not only forced by international
pressure, but more by its own need. Chinese scientists have found out that, like
Australia and other Asia-Pacific neighbors, the crisis confronting China is more
severe than that facing the developed countries. For instance, the potential disap-
pearance of the glacier in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau provoked wide concern in
China's scientific community. It might destroy those big rivers that have had stable
water flow for thousands of years. Particularly, the Yangtze River and the Yellow
River, praised as cradles of the Chinese people and civilization, will bear the brunt
of the impact. Second, water loss and soil erosion will impact irrigation and
temperature rise will greatly threaten farming in the North China Plain. Third is
the threat of rising sea level, which will influence economic activities of those
frontier cities in the reform and opening up, including the Pearl River Delta,
Shanghai and its outskirts, Ningbo, Tianjin, and so on, since they are situated in
coastal lowlands. Because rivers with wide flow coming from the Himalayas in the
Tibetan Plateau flow together into the sea, the sea level will rise. Therefore, like
Australia, China has to share the flood with its South Asian and Southeast Asian
neighbors (Fig.
1.4
).
Climate change will lead to an increase in natural disasters and China is a
country with the gravest disasters in the world. Recently, drought hit Northwest
and North China frequently and also widely attacked Northeast, Southwest, and
South China. Two thirds of the nation's land is under the risk of flood and more
and more places suffer from elevated temperature and heat waves. Between 1990
and 2009, direct losses from natural disasters amounted to 2.48 % of China's GDP,
or 20 % of the annual GDP increase. The denser the economy and population in
