The Guardian reports from Ordos, Inner Mongolia on experimental reforms in China’s coal industry:
Ordos is a city that few outside China know. But the future of global emissions, and global warming looks increasingly more likely to be set in industrial powerhouses like this than in the negotiating halls of Copenhagen.
While the world’s countries struggle to reach a treaty to defeat climate change, Chinese miners and scientists here are ramping up production and finding new ways to burn and bury carbon that will shape the policies of the world’s biggest polluting nation.
Ordos is the new face of coal in China. It is home to the world’s biggest coal company and an industrial-scale experiment to turn coal into diesel that could create a major new source of greenhouse gases. At the same time, it hosts the planet’s most efficient mine and one of China’s biggest carbon capture and storage projects, which buries the gases blamed for global warming.
What to do about China’s emissions will be high on the agenda when China’s president, Hu Jintao, meets Barack Obama tomorrow. The summit brings together the two countries that together account for 40% of the world’s greenhouse gases – most of which derives from this dirtiest of fossil fuels.
Read more perspectives on China’s and the United States’ roles in achieving a clinate deal in Copenhagen:
– “How can China, U.S. address climate change?” from SFGate.com
– “Obama Hobbled in Fight Against Global Warming” from New York Times
– “Now what do the Copenhagen climate talks mean?” from the Los Angeles Times
