China is producing far more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previous estimates and this will frustrate global aims to stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases, a group of US economists said.
China is the world's second-largest emitter of CO2 and some studies suggest it might already have overtaken the United States last year. The report could add to calls for China to sign up to binding cuts, something it has refused to do.
Writing in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego said China's CO2 emissions will grow at least 11 per cent annually between 2004 and 2010.
Previous estimates, including those used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to five per cent annual increase in CO2 emissions during the same period.
The release of the article comes as energy and environment ministers from the world's 20 major greenhouse gas emitting nations prepare to meet in Japan from today to discuss climate change, clean energy and sustainable development.
The G20, ranging from top polluters the US and China to Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, emit about 80 per cent of mankind's greenhouse gases.
Pressure is growing on these nations to hammer out a pact to halt and reverse growing emissions of CO2, the main gas blamed for global warming.
In the journal report, the US researchers said that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions in China over levels in 2000.
They said that figure from China alone would overshadow the 116 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol during the pact's 2008-2012 first commitment phase. China is not obliged under Kyoto to cut greenhouse gas emissions during 2008-12. But it joined nearly 190 nations in Bali in December in agreeing to launch two years of UN-led talks to create a global emissions-fighting pact to replace Kyoto from 2013.