Most economists and those familiar with international environmental issues were hardly surprised when Chinese President Hu Jintao announced to the United Nations Assembly in late September that his country would not commit to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
Instead, Jintao said China would go forward and expand clean energy production.
In short, he said China would not promote greenhouse gas reduction at the expense of Gross Domestic Product growth.
Rapidly developing countries such as China, Brazil, India and Mexico have far more to lose by cutting back on carbon emissions than do more advanced economies, like our own.
In Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, England and the United States, there has been a reduction in carbon emissions per GDP growth, according to a study by Jody Lipford of Presbyterian College and Bruce Yandle of Clemson University.
The two economists traced the relationship between economic growth as measured by the GDP and carbon emissions from 1950 to 2004.
During this period, they also found there was no decline in emissions per unit of GDP growth in countries with less developed economies such as Russia, Brazil, India and Mexico.
This study and a similar one by Indur Goklany, author of “Economic Growth and the State of Humanity,” shows as incomes rise, people in developed countries tend to reduce emissions that threaten their quality of life.
The reduction of smog in Los Angeles, Calif., in the 1970s and 1980s is a case-in-point.
Developing countries, however, have a greater incentive for rapid economic development — even if it comes at the expense of increased pollution.
Most developing countries also create more pollutants per capita because they have relatively inefficient energy technologies.
According to the Property and Environment Research Center, China emits 2,173,000 metric tons of carbon to yield a $1 increase in per capita income.
The United States emits one-tenth as much — 204,000 metric tons — to get the same dollar increase in GDP. Meanwhile, France emits just 2,470 metric tons — one-tenth of the U.S. — for every dollar increase in GDP per capita.
France’s enviable track record in increasing per capita income while generating fewer metric tons of carbon is directly related to its emphasis on, and continued refinement of, nuclear power.
That fact, along with its relatively small population, has made economic growth in France a relatively less costly exercise in terms of pollutants emitted.
The other extreme is China’s exorbitant ratio of per-capita income to carbon emissions, a derivative of its size and its polluting energy source, namely bituminous coal.
The data clearly show that efforts by developed countries to reduce emissions will therefore be dwarfed by the pollutants produced by developing countries as they strive to improve their own people’s quality of life.
Asking developed countries to unilaterally reduce pollutants is a policy doomed for failure.
Instead, it makes more sense fiscally and environmentally to improve incentives for developing and discovering cleaner energy.
Northeastern Pennsylvania has an opportunity to become part of the solution through the careful and thoughtfully regulated extraction of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.
Natural gas emits far less carbon than oil or coal.
Other technologies such as nuclear-generated power and wind power also offer significant opportunities, but will take longer to develop.
Natural gas is an excellent short-term way to limit pollutants while not sacrificing continued economic growth and prosperity here and abroad.
Michael A. MacDowell is president of Misericordia University in Dallas, Pa.
The North Branch Land Trust recognized President MacDowell’s commitment to being a steward of the community and for fostering an environmentally friendly campus by presenting him with the Stewardship Award last year.