From VOA News:
Rising emissions of so-called “greenhouse gases” like carbon dioxide threaten to warm the planet, changing weather patterns and melting polar ice caps.
Author and economist Nicholas Stern says China needs to become a “key player” in averting this scenario, or it will suffer, too.
“If global warming was left uncontrolled, there would be very severe droughts in northern China, severe floods in southern China, and great water stress as a result of receding glaciers and snow caps in the Himalayas,” he said.
Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, was commissioned last year by the British government to put a price on global warming. [Full Text]
UPDATE: See also an op-ed by Elizabeth Economy in tomorrow’s Washington Post, “A Blame Game China Needs to Stop”:
Technorati Tags: China, Climate Change
Last month the International Energy Agency announced that China would probably surpass the United States as the world’s largest contributor of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2009, more than a full decade earlier than anticipated. This forecast could spur China to adopt tough new energy and environmental standards, but it probably won’t. China has already embarked on a very different strategy to manage its environmental reputation: launching a political campaign that lays much of the blame for the country’s mounting environmental problems squarely on the shoulders of foreigners and, in particular, multinational companies. [Full text]
