Why fewer dirty factories in China is bad news for climate change
Shift in cheap manufacturing from China and India to more heavily coal reliant emerging economies could add to greenhouse gas emissions, study warns
The shift of low-value, energy-hungry manufacturing from China and India to coal powered economies with even lower wages could be bad news for the fight against climate change, researchers cautioned Monday.
As Asia’s giants move up the globalisation food chain, many of the industries that helped propel their phenomenal growth – textiles, apparel, basic electronics – are moving to Vietnam, Indonesia and other nations investing heavily in a coal-powered future.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, global warming has been caused mainly by burning oil, gas and especially carbon-rich coal.
“This trend may seriously undermine international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions,” said Dabo Guan, a professor of climate change economics at the University of East Anglia in Britain and co-author of a study in the journal Nature Communications.
“The carbon intensity of the next phase of global economic development will determine whether ambitious climate targets such as stabilising at two degrees Celsius [35.6 degrees Fahrenheit] will be met,” he said.