Developing economies threaten environment

The leaders of the world's biggest developing countries, led by China's President, Hu Jintao, will be at Gleneagles this week to begin a vital dialogue with the rich nations about how they can join in the fight against global warming.

For it is the greenhouse gas emissions from the developing nations, with their mushrooming economies, which will be crucial to the fight against climate change in decades to come.

Yet at the moment the countries of what used to be called the Third World are not committed in any way to controlling the carbon dioxide pouring from their power stations and vehicles in ever-increasing amounts.

They have no binding emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol, the international climate treaty, of the sort that are applied to the industrialised countries, which was the principal reason why the United States Senate indicated it would never ratify the treaty.

Their overriding aim is growth. They recognise that climate change is a threat to everyone, themselves included, but at the moment tend to treat any mention of binding carbon dioxide targets with hostile suspicion, alleging that this is simply a way of forcing them to hold back their development.

Understandable, perhaps, but this situation is fraught with menace for the world.

For if these countries cannot control their CO2 output, the efforts of the industrialised nations will be useless, as the benefits of any reduction that the rich world makes in the years to come will be swamped by the colossal emissions of the emerging economies.

It is widely known that the US, with 4 per cent of the world's population, emits 25 per cent of the world's CO2, and is thus the biggest polluter and climate disrupter on the planet.

But within the next two decades China is likely to overtake the US as the biggest emitter, and thus become the biggest single influence on the stability of the atmosphere.

There is a good case for saying that the explosive, double-digit growth of the Chinese economy is the scariest thing on earth; the world has never seen anything quite like it.

As the world's most populous nation - it is home to 1.3 billion people, more than four times as many as the US - rushes headlong towards wealth, it is sucking in commodities and natural resources on a scale already scarcely believable, but rapidly increasing.

In the five basic commodities of grain, meat, steel, coal and oil, China's consumption now outstrips that of the US in all but the last.

In 2005 it uses twice as much steel as America, and consumes nearly twice as much meat - half the world's pigs are in Chinese pigsties - and 50 per cent more grain.

America may burn 600 million tonnes of coal a year, but China burns more than 800 million tonnes and the figure is set to soar.

Only in oil does the US still lead, consuming three times as much as China (20 million barrels per day compared with 6 million).

How is China to power this behemoth? Scary time again, for the answer is mainly by coal-fired power stations, the biggest CO2 producers of all.

The Chinese intend to build 500 coal-burning electricity generating plants by 2030 of 1000MW capacity each.

What this will do to world CO2 emissions, when combined with similar expansion in the other developing countries, led by India, was spelled out in graphic detail last year in the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2004.

By 2030, in the absence of action to cut back, emissions will have grown by 62 per cent, more than half of this from the developing world.

Tony Blair's own aim to cut emissions from present levels by 60 per cent by 2050, in the hope of stabilising the climate, in such circumstances becomes a nonsense.

Anyone who gives the issue a minute's thought can see the active involvement of the developing countries is now an indispensable part of confronting global warming, and yet they are not involved.

That is why Mr Blair's attempt at Gleneagles to start a climate change partnership with the developing world, or at least initiate a dialogue, is vital.

Mr Blair thinks he sees a way forward. It is to reassure emerging economies the rich West does not wish to hamper their growth - but can assist them in growing cleanly.

This could be done by helping them design power stations, for example, with the latest technology to reduce CO2.

But power stations, once built, last for up to 50 years, so this agreement is not only essential; it is essential soon.

China gasping for energy

China's economy is steaming ahead at a rate of 9 per cent a year, and doubling in less than every 10 years.

What happens when China's 1.3 billion people (and counting) get the cars and air conditioners that people in the West take for granted?

On current trends, the Chinese - one-fifth of the world's population - will be within reach of the coveted Western lifestyle in a generation.

And why shouldn't they have a slice of the world's crumbling economic pie? Because, say environmental campaigners, if they continue to follow the Western consumer model, we will all go up in flames.

The damage is already mind-numbing: China has 16 of the world's 20 most-polluted cities, and for 70 per cent of its energy needs it depends on coal, helping make it the planet's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases.

And despite consuming more oil (6.5 million barrels a day) than any other country except the US (20.4 million) it is gasping for energy. Blackouts are common and power generation is set to fall short by up to 23,000 megawatts this year.

In Shanghai, Buicks, Volkswagens and Toyotas are pushing the famous bicycles off the streets faster than fuel can fill their tanks. Oil use doubled between 1994 and 2004.

Environmentalists want China do something no developing country its size has managed: leap-frog the smokestack phase of development to clean technology.

But they acknowledge that it won't be easy.

India struggling in the smog

It doesn't take long in the thick, choking smogs that hang over major Indian cities to realise the seriousness of the pollution problem.

Even when it's 48C in Delhi you won't get a sun tan - the air is too polluted.

India is already the fifth-largest producer of carbon emissions in the world, releasing 250 million tonnes into the atmosphere a year, more than any European country.

Carbon emissions grew at 61 per cent between 1990 and 2001; only China's grew faster. Per capita emissions are expected to triple by 2020.

The main factor is demand for power generation, as the economy continues to grow at a ferocious pace.

Large areas of Delhi continue to suffer daily blackouts during the summer and the authorities have only been able to keep a constant supply to Bombay, the powerhouse of India's economy, by imposing blackouts on nearby towns for days at a time, which earlier this year led to riots.

In 2002 India had a total power generating capacity of 120,000MW.

Over the next 10 years the government plans almost to double that, but, despite being the only country in the world with a ministry devoted exclusively to renewable energy, India's performance in the field is poor.

Hydro-electric power supplied 11.5 per cent of energy 25 years ago; in 2001 the figure was 6.3 per cent.

Solar and wind power account for just 0.2 per cent.

The biggest problem is that most of India's power stations are still coal-fired, and most domestically mined coal is of poor quality, leading to high carbon emissions.
But India's thirst for oil is growing too, from 2.1 million barrels a day in 2001 to a predicted 5.5 million by 2025.

India still has relatively few private cars, but that is changing fast.

- INDEPENDENT