Report: China Overtakes U.S. As Top CO2 Emitter [2007 June 21]

... According to a report released Tuesday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China overtook the U.S. in emissions of CO2 by 8 percent in 2006. While China was 2 percent below the United States in 2005, voracious coal consumption and increased cement production caused the numbers to rise rapidly, the group said.

... The study said China, which relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and makes 44 percent of the world's cement, produced 6.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. In comparison, the U.S., which gets half its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said.

...Beijing also indicated an unwillingness to enforce mandatory emissions caps.

Illegal Power Plants, Coal Mines in China Pose Challenge for Beijing, by By Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, Page A1 [2006 December 27]

"JUBAO VILLAGE, China -- On the edge of this dusty farming hamlet, the massive smokestack of the half-finished Xinfeng Power Plant looms as a monument to China's out-of-control demand for energy.

Unlike two other power plants nearby, Xinfeng isn't supposed to exist. China's electricity regulators never authorized the $362 million coal-burning plant. But in 2004, the provincial government here in northern China's Inner Mongolia ignored Beijing's call to slow down investment and started building the plant anyway, hoping to ensure enough juice for the region's supercharged industrialization by tapping its rich reservoirs of coal."

"Based on our analysis of the intense economic, crude oil, and military confrontations developing among the China Rim region’s largest economies, we believe that the most aggressive crude oil price targets calling for $100 per barrel within the next three years will prove to be conservative. In our view, specific crude oil price targets are the realm of financial organizations with equity and commodities trading desks. As a pure independent research firm, we have neither. However, it is our opinion that the “likely direction of surprise” in crude oil prices will continue to be to the upside."

"Ever since Lord Curzon, a member of Britain’s World War I cabinet, declared that the Allies “had floated to victory on a sea of oil,” major industrialized powers have sought oil security."

Matthew Yeomans is the author of Oil: Anatomy of an Industry and edits the oil blog www.petropulse.com.

Three reasons why the US and Europe won't make up, by Niall Ferguson in The Guardian [2005 February 21]

"China, Iran and Iraq all loom over Bush's bid to woo the Europeans

"... It is not widely recognised that the US is being subsidised by foreign monetary authorities, mostly Asian. Central banks, led by the People's Bank of China, are financing about 75%-85% of the US current account deficit...

"... Or has George Bush already booked his flight to Beijing?"

Chinese demand set to push Opec to limit, by Javier Blas and Kevin Morrison in London [2005 February 16]

"The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries signalled a significant tightening of oil markets towards the end of this year, warning on Wednesday it would have to pump close to its maximum capacity next winter to meet rising demand from China against the backdrop of slowing Russian production."

Tension rises as China scours the globe for energy, by Richard Spencer [2004 November 19]

"In September, China threatened to veto any move to impose sanctions on Sudan over the atrocities in Darfur. It has invested $3 billion in the African country's oil industry, which supplies it with seven per cent of its needs."

World's Seven Largest Economies (G7) Admit They Have No Idea How Much Oil Is Left - Issue Emergency Call for Transparency at DC Summit. A Challenge to the Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates and Cornucopian Economists - It's Now or Never, by Michael C. Ruppert [2004 October 1]

"China, in a desperate attempt to secure oil, is looking to build a pipeline across Burma to the Indian Ocean, thereby avoiding the increasingly dangerous and volatile Straits of Malacca and South China Sea (Asia Times, Sept. 22, 2004). China is also rushing to build a pipeline from Kazakhstan eastward through Central Asia from the Caspian basin, across hostile and expansive territory, some of it close to regions occupied by the US military in Kyrgyzstan. The US has been encircling China militarily since September 12th 2001. China is also cold calling on countries from Iran, to Saudi Arabia, to Venezuela, to West Africa offering large payouts for any oil it can get."

China to have 140 million cars by 2020, seven times more than now ... fueling demand for transportation infrastructure and services, state media reports. [2004 Sep 3]

China swelters as energy crisis soars, By Louisa Lim, BBC correspondent in Beijing [2004 June 22]

"China has released new figures showing its crude oil imports soared by nearly 40% in the first five months of the year as the country needs ever more oil to fuel its explosive economic growth.

"Meanwhile, China's coal stockpile has plunged to its lowest level in 20 years.

"Faced with a power squeeze, it has raised electricity prices by 5% while coming up with other ingenious energy-saving schemes."

China’s Energy Needs and Strategies, Guy F. Caruso, Administrator, USA Energy Information Administration, Testimony Before The Commission on US-China Economic and Security Review [2003 October 30]

China suffering from high oil prices by Hooman Peimani, Taipei Times [2003 Feb 10]

Sizing Up the Competition -- Is China The Endgame? by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Contributing Editor for Energy, From the Wilderness [2003 September 25]

Sizing Up the Competition -- Is China The Endgame?, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, FTW Contributing Editor for Energy [2002 September 25]

"... The U.S. will have to find some way to deal with those countries which are expected to take the lead in rising energy demand. Those countries just happen to be the world's most populous countries, and all three are Asian. Ranked by population and projected energy demand, they are China, India and Indonesia."

China wants to expand oil deals with Venezuela, Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections - Volume 3, issue #25 [1998 October 27]

[1998 Sept. 10] "China wants to follow its $ 360 mm purchase of drilling and exploitation rights for 2 oil fields in Venezuela with similar deals, Vice Premier Wu Bangguo said.

"'Venezuela is the first country in Latin America to receive Chinese investments, and we are very satisfied ... we have come to strengthen this relationship and look for other areas of co-operation,' Wu said.

"The China National Petroleum Corporation bought the rights in 1997. The deal was part of Venezuela's plan to open its state-controlled oil industry to foreign and national companies.

"China also is a major buyer of Venezuela's trademark Orimulsion, a tar-based boiler fuel.

"'China is a country with an enormous population and a huge industrial capacity that demands more and more energy, and Venezuela is a country immensely rich in energy,' said Miguel Burelli Rivas, Venezuela's foreign minister."

China's New Oil Development Strategy Taking Shape by John Wong & Wong Chee Kong (East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, Pub. date: Aug 1998)

"A surge in demand for oil due to rapid economic growth and stagnation in domestic oil output has turned China into a net oil importer since 1993. Faced with increasing reliance on imports to meet its domestic needs, China now places a high priority on securing long-term stability of its oil supply in the next century. Hence a new oil development strategy focuses on boosting the domestic oil industry and exploiting overseas resources.

"In this regard, China has pursued an active 'oil diplomacy' by signing international oil deals with a diverse range of nations from Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, in particular a series of deals worth US$6 billion with Kazakhstan, Iraq and Venezuela in June 1997. While the overseas ventures will no doubt facilitate China's integration with the world economy, such internationalisation of China's oil industry will also carry significant geoeconomic and geopolitical implications for oil-consuming countries."

Our Real China Problem by Mark Hertsgaard, The Atlantic Monthly, November 1997

"The price of China's surging economy is a vast degradation of the environment, with vast planetary implications. Although the Chinese government knows the environment needs protection, ... it fears that doing the right thing could be political suicide."

The US Energy Information Agency reports: "The People's Republic of China (China) is the world's most populated country and the second largest energy consumer (after the United States). Production and consumption of coal, its dominant fuel, is the highest in the world. Rising future oil demand is also expected to make China an even more significant factor in world oil markets.