China Likely Cut GHG Emissions In 2015 (greenpeace.org)

mdsolar writes: Economic and industrial data released [Thursday] by the Chinese government's statistical agency indicates the country's carbon emissions likely fell by around 3% — with the contraction of key heavy industry sectors and the continued expansion of renewable energies driving a wedge between total energy demand and coal use. According to the data, China's coal output fell by 3.5% in 2015, thermal power generation by 3%, coal imports by 30%, pig iron output by 4%, coking coal output by 7%, and cement by 5%. All this suggests that both power sector coal consumption and total coal consumption probably fell by more than 4%. Total oil consumption grew only 1.1% in the first eleven months, gas consumption by 3.7% while cement production (which releases CO2 directly) fell by 4.9%. This indicates a fall of 3-4% in China's fossil CO2 emissions, roughly equal to Poland's total emissions.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Slashdot linking to terrorist organizations now? Look, it's in nobody's interest to harm the planet that's essential for our survival. But that make it okay to use any means necessary. Greenpeace's methods are atrocious and are often eco-terrorism.

Any reduction in GHGs from China seems to be due to their economic slowdown and not a real effort to curb emissions. If their economy rebounds, GHGs will go back up. If the goal is to reduce GHGs, this isn't a victory. China hasn't changed, but their economy has temporarily slowed.

Besides, the evidence for GHGs as pollutants is tenuous at best. There is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to essentially make its spectra opaque to outgoing radiation. Adding more carbon dioxide won't make something that's already opaque even more opaque. The predictions of rapidly increasing temperatures haven't verified and global average temperatures have only risen slightly. This is probably due to the sun being particularly bright in the past several decades and the time delay in heating the deep oceans. GHGs probably aren't causing much warming at all, with the sun being the real culprit. The slowing of global warming since 1998 can be explained quite well by the fact that the sun has dimmed very slightly over the past couple of decades. Even though China has decreased their GHG output, there isn't any good reason to consider GHGs as pollutants.