China overtakes US as worlds top CO2 emitter AS Experts contest CO2 emmisions report

China has overtaken the US as the world's top producer of carbon dioxide emissions -- the biggest man-made contributor to global warming -- based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says.

A report released on Tuesday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China overtook the US in carbon dioxide emissions by about 7.5 percent last year. While China was 2 percent below the US in 2005, voracious coal consumption and cement production caused the numbers to rise rapidly, the group said.

"It's an expression of their fast industrial production activities and their fast development," Jos G.J. Olivier, the agency's senior scientist who compiled the figures, said on Wednesday.

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 US, which gets half of its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said.

"It is meaningless to compare China's national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with those of other countries, as China has the world's largest population," Cui Cheng, deputy director of the energy research institute at the National Development and Reform Commission.

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