In China, 10,000 Protest a New Coal Plant

South China Morning Post:

Around 10,000 residents of Heyuan in northeastern Guangdong took to the streets on Sunday to protest against a new coal-fired power plant, according to demonstrators.

Minor scuffles broke out between the demonstrators and members of the mainland’s special police but there were no reports of injuries.

The demonstration began with thousands of people staging a peaceful sit-in outside city government offices at about 8am. Many wore surgical masks and stickers denouncing the plant.

Police dispersed the crowd at around 10am, sending the protesters into the streets, where the numbers quickly swelled to around 10,000 before noon.

The crowd marched through the downtown area, chanting “Give me back my blue sky” and “Go away power plant”. Some protesters held small signs that read: “Stop feeding people with smog”.

“This is not just a small fraction of people with an ulterior motive but a concrete outpouring of public opinion from the entire Heyuan public. From babies to the elderly, everyone is appealing to our government to stop polluting our sky,” a woman protester said, refusing to be named.

Meanwhile, in other news..

Sydney Morning Herald:

China is poised to overtake the United States as the main cause of man-made global warming since 1990, the benchmark year for UN-led action, in a historic shift that may raise pressure on Beijing to act.

China’s cumulative greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, when governments were becoming aware of climate change, will outstrip those of the United States in 2015 or 2016, according to separate estimates by experts in Norway and the United States.

The shift, reflecting China’s stellar economic growth, raises questions about historical blame for rising temperatures and more floods, desertification, heatwaves and sea level rise.

Almost 200 nations will meet in Paris in December to work out a global deal to fight climate actions beyond 2020.

“A few years ago China’s per capita emissions were low, its historical responsibility was low. That’s changing fast,” said Glen Peters of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (CICERO), who says China will overtake the United States this year.