China Exports Made It World’s Largest Greenhouse-Gas Factory

By Todd White and Jeremy van Loon

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China became the world’s biggest generator of greenhouse gases largely by making electronics, metals and chemicals for wealthier countries.

Export manufacturing comprised about half of China’s 45 percent increase in carbon-dioxide emissions from 2002 to 2005, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research said on its Web site. Developed nations bought a majority of the goods, according to the Oslo-based group, which contributed to the study being published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The findings illustrate “carbon leakage” in which richer countries bound by international agreements to cut emissions increase imports from poorer nations that have no limits. Under the 1997 Kyoto treaty, 37 developed nations vowed to reduce emissions and to meet individual targets by 2012.

China, the second-biggest exporter after Germany, powers its factories largely by burning coal, the dirtiest fuel among the five major power sources. Every two weeks last year, a new coal- fired plant was built in the world’s most populous country.

The nation in 2006 released 6.02 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, exceeding the 5.9 billion-ton output of the U.S., according to Bloomberg data. China is the second-largest energy user after the U.S.

The U.S., Canada and Japan in December rebuffed demands by developing countries for pledges to cut greenhouse-gas emissions at the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland. Requests by China and South Africa for more industrialized nations to share clean- energy technologies received no support at the talks.

The next round of UN climate talks is in December in Copenhagen.

To contact the reporters on this story: Todd White in Madrid at twhite2@bloomberg.netJeremy van Loon in Berlin at jvanloon@bloomberg.net