China has delayed the release of a long-expected national plan on tackling global warming amid warnings that the country is set to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) this year — much earlier than forecast — because of its runaway economic growth. It is the second time this month that Chinese officials have deferred the release of the anticipated public information. Earlier national statisticians delayed the publication of quarterly data about the country’s economic growth, announcing consequently that China’s growth has increased unexpectedly by 11 per cent in the first three months of 2007.

The new increase comes on the heels of breakneck annual economic expansion of more than 10 per cent for four straight years, which has seen China rapidly emerge as the fourth largest economy in the world. The problem with China’s transformation into an economic powerhouse however, is that it is fuelled almost entirely by highly polluting coal. Burning coal and other fossil fuels release GHGs such as carbon dioxide, which are believed to cause global warming. Last year the country burnt more than 1.2 billion tonnes of coal and has ambitious plans to build a series of new coal-fired power plants to continue its economic expansion.

Chinese statisticians are not the only ones taken by surprise by the country’s raging economic growth. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises developed countries on energy policies, has had to revise its projections regarding China too. Analysts had predicted earlier that China’s emissions of GHGs would surpass those of the US by 2009. But, in the light of China’s astonishing economic performance of last year and the first three months of 2007, the IEA now believes this is going to happen within months. What is more, if those emissions are left unchecked, in 25 years China would be emitting twice as much carbon dioxide as the richest developed countries together, according to IEA’s chief economist Dr Fatih Birol. By then China’s pollution could outstrip any gains made elsewhere in the world.

“(In 25 years) carbon dioxide emissions, which come from China alone, will be double the carbon dioxide emissions which will come from all the OECD countries put together — the whole US, plus Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand,” Birol was quoted as predicting this week.

The deferred national “action plan” on climate change is expected to promise emission cuts but no carbon caps, which limit carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming a country can release. “Without having China on board, no international climate change policy has any chance of success at all,” Birol said.

A new report prepared by Chinese scientists and published last weekend paints a bleak picture of China where climate change will mean larger deserts, severe droughts and reduced water availability. Rising sea-levels and deadly typhoons could also threaten the affluent Chinese east coast. Perhaps the scariest possibility of all is the impact that rising temperatures could have on China’s food security. The country would face an uphill battle to feed its 1.3 billion people if water scarcity and droughts reduce its crop production by up to 30 per cent as predicted in the next 20 years. — IPS