The Price Of ‘C’ In China
Source: U.S. Department of Energy
As the chart above indicates, since the end of World War II, the amount of carbon being leaked into the atmosphere has increased almost parabolically, with a brief pause around 1980 after the price of oil had come unhinged from its single digit moorings and economic activity slacked off for a bit. This rise is in line with the amount of coal, oil and gas that has been consumed in the meantime. It is also highly correlated to atmospheric and oceanic temperature increases.
In 2014, 35.5 billion metric tonnes were added to the mix. So far, this has not been a pay-as-you-go proposition, rather, the effects, and the externalities have been passed on to anyone and everyone who has been in the path of rising seas, rising temperatures and the storms, droughts and fires that have spread in their wake.
(Click to enlarge)
Though the U.S. has contributed the most since 1965, when temperatures started to rise (273 billion to China’s 166 billion, out of a total of 1.14 trillion added tonnes, according to BP), China has now taken the lead in annual output (9.7 billion tonnes in 2014 vs. 6 billion tonnes for the U.S., making up 44 percent of the total between the two), mostly due to that country’s reliance upon coal for so much of its electricity. China became the world’s largest car market a few years ago and expects to sell 24 million units, compared with 16 million projected sales in the U.S., assuming the recent market selloff there does not portend a dramatic economic slowdown.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
