- Bruce Rich
- Environmental Forum
- May-June 2009
- p. 20
Numerous authorities now attribute most of the recent rise in CO2 emissions to the rapid growth of new coal-fired generating power plants in developing nations, especially in Asia. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fuels, and new plants lock in CO2 emissions for up to half a century. The International Energy Agency reports an accelerating “re-carbonization” of world energy production since the 1990s....If current investment trends do not change, 97 percent of the increase in world energy-related CO2 emissions between 2006 and 2030 will occur in developing nations. Without a reorientation of international energy investment, the entire industrialized world could reduce its CO2 emissions to zero by 2030, but the planet would still overshoot irreversibly past the point of no return for dangerous global warming.
