China's Air Pollution Nears Pace of the U.S.
May 11, 2011
Riverside -- Unless it changes its priorities, China could replace the U.S. as the world's largest source of air pollution before too long, according to a Worldwatch Institute report. The report notes that China already has surpassed the U.S. in the consumption of steel, coal, fertilizers and grain and is fast catching up in the production of carbon dioxide emissions. By Worldwatch's estimates, China pumped 726.3 million metric tons of such greenhouse gases into the air in 2010 compared with the U.S. production of 1.25 billion metric tons. If its consumption of coal and oil rises at current rates, China could top the U.S. even in this unsavory category within a decade, the environment research group warns. Letha Dean, the Worldwatch president and the report's co-author, says that China could still avoid the fate of becoming the world's No. 1 polluter if it changes its development strategy. China, for one thing, has to give up its plans to become an American-style ``consumer economy with a car in every garage,'' he says. With its population of over one billion China can't afford to follow the path of the industrialized countries, Mr. Dean says. However, it can still ``leapfrog the West'' in expanding its economy in an environmentally sustainable manner.
