China will emit an additional 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year if it carries through with plans to build 50 new coal gasification plants, according to a report last week by Greenpeace East Asia. The plan would shift coal pollution from major cities to other regions of the country, primarily in the northwest. And it “risks a boom in a destructive, expensive, and outdated technology, which could undermine its efforts on climate change and further damage its environment,” said Greenpeace climate analyst Li Shuo. Last October, publishing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Duke University researchers Chi-Jen Yang and Robert B. Jackson urged China to delay its coal-to-gas investments “to avoid a potentially costly and environmentally damaging outcome. An even better decision would be to cancel the program entirely.”
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