Environment & Energy

Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose at a record-shattering pace last year, a new report shows, a surge that surprised scientists and spurred fears of an accelerated warming of the planet in decades to come.

Concentrations of nearly all the major greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, reflecting ever-rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks but also, scientists believe, a diminishing ability of the world’s oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans, according to data released early Tuesday by the United Nations’ meteorological advisory body.

CO2 emissions were unchanged from 2013 levels: 32.3 billion metric tons.

However, buried in a recently published statistical communique from China is the following important note,

data have been revised based on the results of the Third National Economic Census. The output of coal in 2013 has been revised from 3.68 billion tons to 3.97 billion tons.

In other words, coal production in 2013 was revised upwards by 7.9%, and by 0.29 billion tonnes. This revision is the equivalent of 1/3 of the annual coal production of America.

And this raises another problem. There is a long history of official manipulation of statistics in China. Stats are juked so that targets can be met and so that officials can get promoted. This is well understood.