China building more power plants

China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said. He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions. Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC. His statement came as a new report suggested that China may have already become the world's biggest polluter - much earlier than expected. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China's CO2 emissions had risen by 9% last year, compared with 1.4% in the US.

"It is a massive challenge," Mr Ashton told the BBC following a recent trip to China. "We need to convince China that they don't have to make a choice between prosperity and protecting the climate. We need to help them towards a low-carbon future. "There is also a moral case. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been put there by developed countries without the constraint of having to worry about the climate. That means we should bear the leading edge of responsibility."

"Responsibility for China's soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo," said Greenpeace UK director John Sauven. "All we've done is export a great slice of the West's carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result. The West moved its manufacturing base to China knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US," he added. "No environmental conditions were attached to this move; in fact the only thing manufacturers were interested in was the price of labour. "This trend kept the price of our products down but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Long term, this policy has been a climate disaster."

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