Bad news for everyone. The recently published 2006 World Energy Outlook report by the International Energy Agency (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/2006.asp) estimates that world carbon dioxide emissions will keep on growing for the next few decades. China will be the country with the highest growth of CO2 emissions in the next decades, even surpassing the United States as the world largest emitter this year or in 2008. It is a fact that China will still have a relatively low per capita CO2 emission when compared with that of the United States. But with a fast-growing economy and a consuming market equivalent to 1/5 of world population depending on huge quantities of coal and oil to feed its industry and transportation, it is disturbing to hear that the Chinese government will likely continue rejecting binding caps on carbon emissions until the mid of the century on grounds that it is still a developing country.
If highly polluting countries such as China, the United States, Russia, India, Brazil among other do not make enough efforts in tackling carbon dioxide discharges to the atmosphere, will Kyoto Protocol caps make any substantial difference to the global warming problem?