Silent continent, echoing carbon footsteps--40% of CO2 comes from Asia (November 2007)

Silent continent, echoing carbon footsteps--40% of CO2 comes from Asia (November 2007)

In 2007, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were redrawing the map more heavily and quietly than ever before.
A report released that year by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) quietly sent chills down the spines of those sensitive to environmental issues.

Asia will account for 43% of the world's CO2 emissions by 2030.

This is not just a statistical forecast.
It signified a power shift from a 20th century Western-driven industrial society to the economic awakening of Asia's emerging economies.
And the impact of this growth on the global problem of climate change was clearly quantified.

According to the report, Asia's share of CO2 emissions was 36% in 2005.
But just 25 years later, it will jump to 43%.
China and India will account for about 70% of that total.
In other words, an era will arrive in which the environmental behavior of Asia as a whole will greatly influence the world's carbon budget.

Let me remind you.
In that year, China had completely leaped to the center of the world economy in both name and reality as the "world's factory.
With the Beijing Olympics just a year away, production of steel, cement, and chemical products reached record highs.
Behind the scenes, large-scale coal-fired power plants were coming on line one after another in Inner Mongolia, and automobile factories were mushrooming along the Yellow River.

India is also making great strides, especially in the IT and pharmaceutical industries.
The stock exchange in Mumbai was crowded with U.S. dollars and rupees, and the city was awash with air conditioners and motorcycles.
The price of this comfort was a ballooning demand for electricity, and the soot and smoke from aging thermal power plants were dancing in the sky.

In Japan and Western countries, the spirit of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was barely alive.
But meanwhile, overall emissions were quietly shifting to "Asia.
Europe was increasing the ratio of renewable energy toward 2020, and energy efficiency improvements were underway in North America.
However, this was not a matter of reducing the absolute amount of emissions, but of shifting the source of emissions.

In Japan, the export of energy-saving technologies and emission-reducing systems was a hot topic, as the country prided itself on being a "technology-driven" nation.
Hybrid cars, high-efficiency boilers, solar panels, insulation, and smart meters.
However, neither the government nor the companies had a clear strategy for how much impact the supply of these technologies would have on Asia as a whole.

Some people say that environmental business is Japan's duty to Asia.
While there are those who advocate this,
On the other hand, the logic of developing countries is also strong, dismissing environmental regulations as a drag on growth.

A quiet struggle.
Behind the GDP figures, carbon tells a story.

This is where Japan stands.
With both its history as a former emitter and its present as a suppressed technology.

40% of CO2 comes from Asia.
It was not the future, but a change of subject in the 21st century that had already begun.
And only those who realize this will be qualified to tell the next answer--.