Experts express skepticism over China’s ability to account accurately for carbon emissions.
When world leaders meet for the international climate talks next month in Paris, among the critical points of the discussions will be the contributions to carbon emissions from the developing world. But underlying the debates will be the scientific challenge of calculating emissions from some of the world’s largest and most swiftly growing economies.
China is a particularly vexing case in point, according to Reuters. Carbon emission estimates from the country are based on uncertain data about the country’s energy consumption, agricultural practices, industry, land use and waste.
But many international observers are unconvinced of the accuracy of China’s internal accounting. One expert noted that since China does not publish its carbon emissions, the country’s purported data cannot be verified.
At the 2009 climate conference, China and other developing countries rejected calls for greater transparency, on concerns that such openness could violate their sovereignty. This leaves 2005 as the last year China released an official “estimate” of its emissions, when the country reported about 7.47 billion tons of carbon releases.
China has stated it will reach its goal of peak emissions by no later than 2030, analysts say they cannot determine if the high point will mean a release of as little as 11 billion tons of carbon emissions or as much as 20 billion tons – an amount greater than the total current emissions from the E.U.
While no country or region currently can quantify emissions exactly, others are doing more and are more open than China. For example, in the E.U., 11,000 power plants and factories in 31 countries are monitored with regular emissions measuring and reporting. The reporting is conducted under U.N. guidelines and is verified independently.
By contrast, carbon emissions data is collected by local and national officials using disparate and sometimes conflicting methods, resulting in inconsistent and unreliable reporting. The 2013 count of emissions from coal production by 26 provinces differed from the count by China’s National Bureau of Statistics by 500 million tons.
