Photo Gallery Emissions in China
A chemical factory in Tianjin, northern China. Even under optimistic scenarios, China's carbon emissions will rise sharply over the next 20 years.
China's booming growth -- driven by demand from the West -- will result in a sprawling infrastructure. Energy from coal will still provide the lion's share of China's energy needs.
The city of Lanzhou regularly qualifies as one of the thirty most polluted cities in the world.
The Yellow River flows through Lanzhou.
In poor quarters of Lanzhou, as well as other cities, garbage piles up in streets and courtyards. Collectors find plastic, glass and metal to sell to recyclers or middlemen.
It's an environmentally friendly habit -- at street level. But the government "will not even be capable" of reducing emissions, according to Dabo Guan of the Electricity Policy Research Group at Cambridge University.
Private solar panels on an apartment house in Lanzhou.
