E3G

China’s Carbon emissions: John Ashton on BBC Radio

By Quentin de Molliens

The news that China has overtaken the USA as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide was reported widely in the UK media.

E3G Founding Director John Ashton, in his role as a Special Representative for climate change of the UK Foreign Secretary, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme for his views on what can be done.

John’s remarks particularly focussed on the role of coal, and he underlined the importance of deploying carbon capture and storage technology – not just in China, but in India, the USA and Europe too.

A transcript of the interview follows bellow and you can “listen again” on the BBC website. The interview can be found from around 7.50 am, starting at 22m05s of the 28m59s audio track.

Interview of John Ashton on BBC 4 Today Programme, 20th June 2007

Sarah Montague: China has now overtaken America as the world’s biggest polluter of carbon dioxide. That’s according to an independent agency in the Netherlands.  It’s happened much sooner than expected and that’s because China is putting up two major coal-fired power stations every week. So what should the rest of the world be doing about it? What can we do about it?

John Ashton is the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on climate change; and he is here in the studio.

Good morning

John Ashton: Good morning

SM: Is there anything we can do about this?

JA: Well there is. Be clear from the start, we can’t fix the climate if we try and do it as a blame game. And indeed, when Margaret Becket was in China very recently it was clear from what Chinese leaders said to her, they are trying actually as hard as anybody to get their energy use and their emissions under control. They have some of the world’s most aggressive policies for example on energy efficiency. But what we are seeing in China is really a fast-forward version of the dilemma that we face everywhere, which is how to supply the energy that we need for our economies without wrecking the climate. That’s a soluble problem because we have the technology and the capital to do that, we just need to get better at putting them together and deploying low carbon technologies, building a low carbon future for the world.