China promised climate action. Its emissions topped US, EU, India combined

Taipei, Taiwan – More than any other country, China holds the power to make or break global efforts to prevent a climate catastrophe.

The world’s second-largest economy is the largest polluter globally, although its emissions are comparable to many countries on a per capita basis.

China produces about 30 percent of total emissions – more than the United States, the European Union and India combined, according to Global Carbon Budget 2022.

At the same time, Beijing is eking out a place as a leader in renewable energy, building up more solar power capacity than the entire rest of the world.

But while developed economies are reducing their emissions – albeit too slowly to meet their Paris Agreement pledges – China’s emissions are rising fast due to a furious appetite for coal used to power its cities and energy-intensive industries like steel.

China continues coal spree despite climate goals

China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week, a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.

The government has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and in 2021 the president, Xi Jinping, promised to stop building coal powered plants abroad.

But after regional power crunches in 2022, China started a domestic spree of approving new projects and restarting suspended ones. In 2022 the government approved a record-breaking 106 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity. One gigawatt is the equivalent of a large coal power plant.

A Fracking Company Is Suing a Victim of Its Own Pollution for Speaking Out

Cabot Oil & Gas, a petroleum, natural gas and natural gas liquids exploration and production company based in Houston, Texas, has filed a $5 million lawsuit against water pollution victim Ray Kemble and his lawyers for speaking out about his polluted water well.

Kemble, who lives in Dimock, Pennsylvania, a tiny town in the rural northeast corner of the state whose aquifer was famously polluted by gas extraction, hasn't had clean water since Cabot started hydraulically fracturing, or fracking, near his home eight years ago. The town’s fracking-related pollution was featured in the HBO films Gasland and Gasland II.

Pollution More Deadly Than War, Smoking, Or AIDS: Lancet Study

OTTAWA — Pollution kills more people around the world than war and infectious diseases, says a new report — proof, environmental lobbyists say, of why Canada needs enforceable national air quality standards.

The Lancet medical journal study out Friday suggests at least nine million people died around the globe in 2015 because of pollution. Almost half of those deaths occurred in India and China, nine in 10 were in low and middle-income countries, and those most affected came from marginalized and poor communities, the report found.

Pollution Is Killing 50,000 People In The UK Every Year

Pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in the UK, a report in the Lancet has found.

The figure constitutes 8% of all deaths and puts the UK in 55th place out of the 188 countries measured – higher than the US and many European countries including Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Denmark.

Scary New Evidence Suggests Air Pollution Can Harm Babies in Utero

As fires spread across Northern California last week, smoke fouled the air of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Ash fell from the sky like snow, walkers strapped on face masks before heading outside, and school children throughout the region were kept indoors. The fires have since been controlled, but air quality hasn’t yet returned to normal in the area.

It’s no secret that air pollution is dangerous; the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 3 million deaths worldwide are linked to outdoor air pollution every year—nearly double the number of people who die each year from diabetes, and more than double the number who die from road injuries, according to the organization.

Protecting Superfunds: The Polluter Must Pay

It has been almost 40 years since the nation heard the cries for help from Love Canal, where a school and neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, was built on a toxic dump filled with 21,000 tons of chemical waste. Children were sick, parents were scared and families lost their homes.

I know, because my children, my family and my home were among them.

Big Polluters Are Headed to Germany for UN Climate Talks

According to a new report from Corporate Accountability International, several trade and business organizations based in countries that are among the biggest contributors of climate change are potentially obstructing the international community’s attempt to fight global warming.

India’s polluted air now kills 1.1 million people per year

In early November, a thick layer of smog choked Delhi, prompting the Indian government to close schools, shut down construction sites, temporarily cease operations at coal-fired power plants. In the country’s capital city, levels of harmful particles in the air were so high that they could not be measured by most air quality instruments. Those that could measure the pollution found levels of particulate matter — tiny particles that can penetrate deep into lungs and cross the blood-brain barrier — to be 16 times the safe limit.

It’s official. Congress has rolled back two Obama-era rules that curbed pollution and corruption.

Friday morning, U.S. senators took some time out of their day to vote on a rule that increased transparency requirements for oil and gas companies operating overseas.

They voted to overturn the rule.

It was the second time this week the Senate, following on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted in favor of fossil fuel industries.

Farming’s Dirty Needs Have a Deadly Effect

LONDON—Farming is a dirty business—so dirty now that, according to new research, air pollution from agriculture in the form of fine particles of lung-choking dust outweighs all other human sources of that kind of pollution.

These particles are calculated to cause around 3.3 million deaths a year worldwide—and most of this lung-penetrating murk is from fertilisers. Back in 1950, the world produced 20 million tons of artificial fertilisers, but farmers now spread on their fields every year around 190 million tons.

More Than Half Of The U.S. Is Living With Unhealthy Pollution Levels

If the apocalyptic photos of smog blanketing Beijing last year seemed like a world away, think again.

The American Lung Association released its annual “State of the Air” report Wednesday and revealed that if you live in the U.S., chances are you’re living among some seriously unhealthy air.

The report, which covers data collected from 2012 to 2014, measures year-round particle pollution, the average amount of tiny solid and liquid particles found in the air over a year; short-term particle pollution, harmful hours- or dayslong spikes in particle pollution; and ozone pollution, also known as smog, which is created when gases that come out of tailpipes, smokestacks and other sources come into contact with sunlight.

Teflon Toxin Contamination Has Spread Throughout the World

IN RECENT MONTHS, PFOA, the perfluorinated chemical formerly used to make Teflon, has been making news again. Also known as C8, because of its eight-carbon molecule, PFOA has been found in drinking water in Hoosick Falls, New York; Bennington, Vermont; Flint, Michigan; and Warrington, Pennsylvania, among many other places across the United States. Although the chemical was developed and long manufactured in the United States, it’s not just an American problem. PFOA has spread throughout the world.

Rural Water, Not City Smog, May Be China’s Pollution Nightmare

BEIJING — More than 80 percent of the water from underground wells used by farms, factories and households across the heavily populated plains of China is unfit for drinking or bathing because of contamination from industry and farming, according to new statistics that were reported by Chinese media on Monday, raising new alarm about pollution in the world’s most populous country.

After years of focus on China’s hazy skies as a measure of environmental blight, the new data from 2,103 underground wells struck a nerve among Chinese citizens who have become increasingly sensitive about health threats from pollution. Most Chinese cities draw on deep reservoirs that were not part of this study, but many villages and small towns in the countryside depend on the shallower wells of the kind that were tested for the report.

Portland Is Suing Monsanto Over Toxic Chemical Pollution

Monsanto may have stopped developing Polychlorinated Biphenyls — typically known as PCBs — nearly four decades ago, but on the West Coast, lawsuits associated with this toxic group of chemicals keep mounting against the agrochemical giant.

On Wednesday, the Portland City Council voted to sue the Monsanto Company in federal court. Once Portland files the suit, it will become the seventh city to go after Monsanto over the toxic chemicals it produced, Portland City Attorney Tracy Reeve told ThinkProgress.

Coal Pollution Costs Western Balkans Dear

LONDON—One dollar in three earned by the economy of Serbia is accounted for by those of its citizens who die early because of the country’s soaring air pollution.

The finding, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is contained in a report published by a campaign group that argues for an end to coal-burning throughout Europe by 2040 to protect health and to reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change.

Southern California’s Air Quality Board Votes To Roll Back Pollution Regulations

On Friday, Southern California’s air quality board voted during a closed-door meeting to forcefully roll back pollution regulations in favor of regulations backed by oil refineries and other polluters. At the same time, the board also voted to dismiss their executive officer Barry Wallerstein, who had presided over the board since 1997.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District board manages pollution in a four-county region of Southern California, including some of the most polluted areas in the country. Under Wallerstein’s tenure, the number of days that air quality exceeded federal standards dropped by a third, but environmental and public health groups are quick to note that Southern California’s pollution levels are still far from meeting federal health standards, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Department of Defense Is the Third Largest Polluter of US Waterways

Advocacy group Environment America has "crunched the numbers" in an effort to reveal who the largest polluters of American waterways are. The culprits that crack the top-15 list may very well surprise you.

If you ask people on the street who America's biggest water polluter is, for many, oil Goliaths like Exxon or Chevron might be first to come to mind - but not by a long shot would either of those be the correct answer.

Air Pollution Kills More People Than Malnutrition And Unsafe Sex, Scientists Say

When Cecilia Salas sees fumes of agricultural burning rising in the horizon, she knows it will be a bad day for her son.

Gabriel, 16, has suffered from serious respiratory problems like asthma for about a decade, Salas told ThinkProgress, and little has changed since he was first taken to a hospital. “His condition hasn’t improved,” she said in Spanish.

Utility Dumps Over 30 Million Gallons Of Coal Waste Water Into Virginia Creek

Allegations of dubious practices are mounting against a Virginia state agency that last month approved the disposal of millions of gallons of partially-treated coal ash water in two Virginia Rivers. This time, however, harsh comments are not coming from environmentalists alone.

Just days after Dominion Virginia Power, a utility company, confirmed it released 33.7 million gallons of coal ash water into a tributary of the Potomac River last spring, county officials say they distrust the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the company alike.