China's hand in global coal power hinders climate deals
Date
10/28/2015 3:43:49 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Scientists on Tuesday said the international community cannot overlook China’s involvement in the global coal industry.
Chinese businesses have accelerated the growth of coal-intensive energy solutions in developing nations that will have a significant effect on climate change according to a study from researchers at Princeton University University of California-Irvine and Tongji University in Shanghai.
The study was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change and comes one month before the UN’s climate change summit.
The UN’s climate summit is scheduled to begin Nov. 30 in Paris and more than 150 nations are expected to agree on carbon emissions regulations meant to keep the global average temperature within 2 degrees Celsius of what it was in 1750 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
While China has made strides in limiting its infamously high carbon emission levels researchers argue that the country needs to also regulate its involvement in coal plants in rapidly developing nations including Brazil and South Africa. The paper included the first ever tally of Chinese involvement in power plants around the globe.
“While China has tightened its belt on coal power domestically that's pushing Chinese firms to help build coal plants in other countries so much so that China's firms are disproportionately focused in coal-intensive energy abroad relative to other nations” lead author Phil Hannam of Princeton said in a statement.
Researchers called for China and the UN to lead the way in creating more sustainable energy agreements in developing nations that aren’t currently held to the same emissions standards as already industrialized regions.
In a separate paper published Tuesday by the European Commission Joint Research Center researchers claims that agreements across the globe need to be revised. According to its survey of climate change commitments from 155 countries the global temperature would still increase 3 degrees Celsius (37 F) by 2030 higher than the UN’s current goal.
By Barry Eitel
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