China has surpassed the US as the world's largest carbon polluter, according to a new study.
The report by researchers at the University of California says that China's CO2 emissions surpassed the US in 2006 rather than 2020 as it was previously anticipated.
The report, written by economic professors Maximilian Aufhammer of UC Berkeley and Richard Carson of UC San Diego, is to be published next month in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Researchers compiled information about the use of fossil fuels in various Chinese provinces and forecast an 11% annual growth of carbon emissions from 2004 to 2010.
Previous estimates had set the growth rate at 2.5% to 5%.
The increase in air pollution by China has largely cancelled out other countries' attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, the study says.
The researchers predicted that by 2010 there would be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country's levels in 2000.
According to the report the projected annual increase in China alone over the next several years is greater than the current emissions produced by either Britain or Germany.
