Submitted by: Michael G. McManus (FG Staff Journalist)

From Reuters

Amsterdam - China has overtaken the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, because of surging energy use in its economic boom, a Dutch government-funded agency said on Wednesday.

Other experts have estimated that China will only surpass the United States in coming years. The rise to number one emitter may put pressure on Beijing to do more to help a U.N.-led fight against global warming.

“China’s 2006 carbon dioxide emissions surpassed those of the United States by 8 percent,” the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said in a statement. In 2005, it said China’s emissions were 2 percent below those of the United States.

“With this, China tops the list of CO2 emitting countries for the first time,” it said. Almost all scientists say rising amounts of carbon dioxide will bring more droughts, floods, desertification, heatwaves, disease and rising seas.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) — which advises rich nations — said it was possible that China had overtaken the United States in 2006.

In April it had said China was likely to surpass the United States as the top carbon dioxide emitter in 2007 or 2008.

“But whether it is 2006 or 2007 is not the key issue, what is key is that China is becoming the world’s top CO2 emitter … there is emergency,” IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol said, adding that real emissions’ data — rather than estimations as used in the report — would be released by the end of the year.

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