14 DAY TRIAL // The Chinese official said on Thursday (October 30th) that the nation had no intention of reducing its enormous yearly carbon output anytime soon. Instead, he said that the largest developing country would push for the introduction of efficient pollution-management methods, such as carbon traps and new filtering systems for the large numbers of coal-powered plants coming on-line each month.
"As the world's biggest developing country, what Low Carbon Economy means to China is not to reduce the use of fossil fuel like coal, but rather to make efforts to upgrade the utilization efficiency of energy resources to reduce the per unit GDP carbon consumption," Zhou Jian said, referring to the fact that, on average, each citizen in China is responsible for less emissions than people living in Western countries.
Although that is completely true, the Asian nation accounts for almost 1.4 billion people, with the numbers constantly on the rise, as official statistics show. This means that, objectively speaking, China is only second to the United States in the amounts of carbon it emits each year, and experts say that, over the next couple of years, China will surpass the US and become the number one polluter in the world.
However, there are some difficulties in the nation's plans to move towards an LCE. The entire concept relies on technological development and technology exchange at an international level, whereas China is still keeping to itself most of the time. It may still be a while until modern, environment-friendly techniques are inserted into large-scale industrial processes.
For the time being, the central Chinese authority is more focused on sustaining its impressive economic growth rates, which propelled the country forward over the past couple of decades. Experts say that, soon, China will become the world's leading power, surpassing the United States both economically and militarily.