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Showing posts from October, 2009

China outperforms US on green issues

China is often accused of not doing enough to reduce the carbon dioxide and other pollution pouring from its factories and coal-fuelled power stations. But a new report suggests the country is doing more to tackle climate change than it gets credit for: in fact, its environmental standards surpass the US in some key measures. The World Resources Institute (WRI), a respected environmental think tank based in Washington DC, says China is on track to meet its main climate change target, which is a 20 per cent reduction in energy intensity – the amount of energy used per dollar of gross domestic product – by the end of next year. Cutting the energy intensity of the Chinese economy like this will put a brake on the growth of the country's carbon dioxide emissions China is also making good progress towards its goal of generating 15 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to the report. By the end of the next decade it will have 150 gigawatts of wind power in