Yesterday a D.C. nonprofit, the Center for Global Development, released an inventory of the world's power plants. Its nifty database shows that on a national level, China trails only the the U.S. in total emissions of greenhouse gases, and not by much.
This will disappoint the global warming proponents at the National Review, who have been predicting for months that China will surpass the traditional emissions champ -- the United States -- this year.
But both the scoffers on the right and the worriers on the left may be overlooking a central question, which was broached this Monday in a news story from The Wall Street Journal.
Simply put: a high percentage of Chinese emissions are produced in factories making products for buyers around the world. Shouldn't that be considered in the emissions accounting?
The vast majority of the world's MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 17 pounds of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. iPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate. If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?
The story hints at the complexity of fault-finding when it comes to emissions, which we as a nation and as a species have barely begun to unpack. Not only must we contend with the fact that carbon dioxide is indivisible -- and equally warming no matter if it's emitted in a Communist nation such as China, a capitalist nation such as the U.S., or a third-world nation such as India -- but there is also what The Stern Review calls the "intergenerational" aspect of emissions. Carbon released today may have catastrophic effects thirty years from now, when the original emitters are long dead. Who will the children of today blame then?
But to continue with Jane Spencer's thoughtful, probing story:
Roughly 23% of China's emissions come from the production of goods that are shipped elsewhere, according to a recent report by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Britain.
Some economists dismiss the argument and note that China happily benefits from the arrangement. "China loves being an exporter, so it's ironic they would blame the U.S. for their exports," says Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard University. "It's called having your cake and eating it too."
At this point, the blame-the-buyer approach is more a negotiating tactic than a serious proposal for redrafting the global-emissions map. But as new studies and reams of data become available tallying embedded emissions, the research could influence the debate over what kind of emissions cuts various nations should be called on to make.
Interestingly, the facts compiled by the WSJ undercut the recent boast from the prez that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation to cut emissions last year.
Technically, carbon emissions in the U.S. have declined in recent years, a fact noted by President Bush. U.S. carbon emissions fell 1.3% in 2006. But a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggests the U.S. may be cutting its emissions by outsourcing more manufacturing.
As international trade has boomed over the past decade, the U.S. has begun importing dramatically more carbon-intensive products from its trading partners, according to the researchers. The study found that so-called embedded emissions in U.S. imports roughly doubled from 1997 to 2004. In 2004, the U.S. imported as much as 1.8 billion tons of CO2 embedded in products, the equivalent of 30% of the nation's carbon output that year. Many of those goods are coming from China.
The news story goes on to argue that regardless of who is to blame for what is now known as "embedded emissions," the solution is the same: a tax on "carbon-intensive" goods such as iPods. As evidence, Spencer points to proposals from France and bills in Congress to tax energy-consumptive imports.
It should be noted that the WSJ has its own reasons to flatter China: Rupert Murdoch, soon to be the new owner of the paper, plans to launch new editions in developing markets such as China and India. "Somewhere between 50 and 100 million people a year are joining the world economy," he told a shareholder group. And earlier this year he was accused by a group of China-based reporters at the paper of "sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims."
But that doesn't change the fact that everyone of us who owns an iPod or a similarly carbon-intensive product bears some responsibility for its manufacture and its emissions -- even if it was made in China.
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Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:32 am
15 Nov 2007
If you want a reason to stop loving China other than its soon to be record breaking greenhouse gas output, I suggest you go to Netflix and do a "Watch Now" on the film "The Devil Rode on Horseback", a documentary about genocide in Darfur...fueled by our pals in Shanghai and Peking.
My Log
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John former Marine Posted 12:03 am
16 Nov 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:31 am
16 Nov 2007
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 4:56 am
16 Nov 2007
Of course you cannot blame them for wanting to live like us. And of course it is difficult to look at their life-style that existed before they had better paying factory jobs, but that does not change the fact that we are resposible for the pollution all over the globe.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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Greta Posted 3:02 am
18 Nov 2007
Without us buying the stuff China would still be poor
That is a slippery slope. Remember, poor is relative. I don't feel poor because I don't own an iPod. I feel poor because I cannot afford to buy food. If Climate Change decimates food sources, we would all be richer without factories.
Of course you cannot blame them for wanting to live like us.
Uh, yes, 'you' can. And, 'you' can blame us for wanting to live like us, too. Living to excess is not a genetic predisposition or act of "god"...it is a choice.
You've heard those stories about how lotto winners implode. Happens to cultures and civilizations too. Greed and materialism erode the foundation of good values.
Who needs an iPod when you can have humming...for free!
www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org
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Greta Posted 3:08 am
18 Nov 2007
Greta
P.S. -- On who is accountable for that subheading. Yikes! (--> "Who is accountable for Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions" / better: "Who should be accountable for Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions"; or "To whom should accountable for Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions fall". ...Just omit the first word ("On") and have a nice day!
www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org
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Greta Posted 3:10 am
18 Nov 2007
www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org
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caniscandida Posted 6:11 am
18 Nov 2007
But let us not assume that if only the Chinese could be liberated from the various compromises that doing business with the West entails, they will return to a pristine state of nature-loving innocence and virtue.
Consider a few animal-welfare-related issues (and "Chinese" in this context means not just the people from China, which the unsufferably vile Lou Dobbs makes a point of calling "Communist China," but also semi-autonomous Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore; and there are large and influential Chinese business communities in many or all of the other Southeast Asian countries):
it is probably true that affluent Chinese have always liked to display their affluence somehow, like affluent people in many other societies; a current device to this end is ordering the very expensive shark-fin soup (see the link to the new documentary "Sharkwater," in Andrew Sharpless's latest "This week in ocean news" post);
the need to supply the pharmacopoeia of traditional Chinese medicine drives an illegal international trade in the body parts of such endangered animals as tigers and rhinoceroses;
probably not exclusively for Western markets (but yes, collectors in the West bear great responsibility), elephant ivory has "value added" by Chinese (and other East Asian) sculptors;
probably not exclusively for Western markets (but yes, Western manufacturers and customers bear great responsibility), fur is flayed from dogs, cats and raccoon dogs, either after the caged animals have been plunged into vats of boiling water, or while they are still alive.
As for the moral blindness that notoriously attends Chinese business interests in Africa, to the best known example of which John Bailo refers, well, that is indeed troubling. But at least the hypocrisy of Western colonialist enterprises is absent; there is no smug sense of "improving" the very people who are being enslaved and exploited.
Anyway, it would seem that a universal, impartially distributed cynicism is still amply justified.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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bookerly Posted 1:49 pm
18 Nov 2007
Thanks Kit for raising an interesting issue. But, there is a counter side to this issue that usually gets lost. Bush claims the US has reduced emissions, and folks say that is because of out-sourcing (and not only to China, though China has become the symbolic demon for white America's fears of the developing world).
But notice something, if the manufacturing has been largely outsourced, then the emissions should have dropped, no??
Oh wait, they mostly didn't. That means that Americans have sent their pollution producing factories overseas, but haven't reduced their pollution.
An amazing task. Not many Las Vegas magicians could duplicate this.
It has required tremendous efforts by Americans at all levels to keep CO2 production high in American while at the same time creating new sources of it in other countries!!
Good....errr.. job... folks..
patrick in Beijing
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bookerly Posted 1:56 pm
18 Nov 2007
The current civil war in Sudan is not the first in memory, there was an earlier one that went on for many years, but the West never paid much attention (hint, at THAT time, US companies were vying for Sudanese oil, so, ummm, under those circumstances, ummm, human rights don't matter as much).
2.4 million refugees in Iraq. Another million or so in Afghanistan. Haitians starving just off shore from the continental US. And these are all caused by direct US intervention in other countries affairs.
If you say the Chinese government if fueling the conflict in Sudan, why not make a list of recent American "genocide" (don't forget Native Americans in the US, who are ever as I type, being robbed of their resource royalties by the US government, a theft that has been going on ever since they were foolish enough to sign treaties with America).
People have stopped listening to Americans on issues like this. They used to listen, but the pile of atrocities grew too large.
Sad, really.
patrick in Beijing
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bookerly Posted 8:54 pm
18 Nov 2007
Sigh. I was rushing out to teach the migrant kids, and just poured out my poorly spelled words... (moan, groan). Good thing they were not for an exam, I would fail!! How embarrassing to read them a few hours later!!!
(The 5th graders were darling, the 6th are acting up...hormones?)
A couple of additional points. The locally made angle is sweet, Jon. But really, look at all of the superfund sites in the US. Under what dream conditions do people think that the manufacturing in the US is always clean and green? Of course, in a typical fashion, the toxic waste could be exported... sigh.
And Greta, of course you can blame the poor for wanting to be other than poor!!! And you can blame starving children for starving, and you can blame parents for wanting a better life for their children. Heck, you can blame me for as many things as you can type!
However.
Merely finding a scapegoat won't change anything.
And for American Sponsored Global Warming, change needs to begin at home.
patrick in Beijing
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 3:47 am
19 Nov 2007
What remains is that even though we can tell other countries (or people) what they do is wrong, it looks rather strange and hypocritical if it is not done by us either. Looking at North America does not shed a great light on us as teachers of how to live well or intelligent leaders. If we want them to learn it on their own we have to let them. If we want them to follow our example - that is what they are doing.
And, no you cannot blame people to want to have electricity in their home to run lights. Or have access to hospitals. Or to be able to heat their water and homes whenever it is cold. Or to have several sets of clothes, money to send their kids to school, etc. You cannot blame people to want to live decently. Not luxurious, just decently. And just living decently is what they are getting into right now. And that is a natural urge that has nothing to do with choice in my opinion. You cannot blame people for wanting to breathe, work less than 10 hours every day, or just live a bit longer than 45 years or so.
Fighting for a clean environment is honorable. But it comes AFTER your basic needs are covered. And those basic needs are not covered in the countries from which we buy our useless gadgets, and basically everything else that can be made, shipped, or done by phone.
I will continue to point out what and where we do wrong in North America and anywhere else where people have reached a standard of living that allows them to stop scrambling for survival. Once the world's largest user of energy and resources (=us) begins showing insight and slows down it will be time to show it to the rest of the world.
Until then, I do what I can here.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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