Page 50 - Low Carbon Development in China and India

Figure 1.7 discusses the share of US, EU27 nations, China, and India in 1.0

the world fossil fuel emissions. China and India are now the first and

fourth largest fossil fuel CO2 emitters, respectively, in the world. Their
emissions account for about 24.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent of the world,

total emission, respectively, in 2011. Since 2002, the annual economic

growth in China accelerated from 4 per cent to 11 per cent, on average.

Figure 1.6: CO2 Emission Trends from Fossil Fuel Use
Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), cdiac.ornl.gov

The CO2 emissions have increased by 142.5 per cent in China and in
India by 83 per cent. In 2011, China’s fossil fuel CO2 emissions jumped
9.4 per cent to 8.08 billion tonnes. This increase was consistent with
the increase in thermal power generation of 14.7 per cent (mostly in
coal-fired power stations), in steel production of 7.3 per cent (also a
large coal user) and in cement production of 10.8 per cent as reported
by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS 2012). Meanwhile,
India’s CO2 emissions continued to increase in 2011 by 7.4 per cent to
2.14 billion tonnes of CO2.
Figure 1.8 discusses the CO2 emissions per capita from fossil fuel
use. As already discussed in Figure 1.3, China and India are two of
the few countries in the world whose main energy source is coal;
however, the dependence on coal in India is still less than China.
Although the energy structure of China has begun to show a trend

Chapter 1 Dimensions of Low Carbon Development in China and India 15