There can be no question that the epic story of our time is our struggle to endure against the threatening demons of our own creation. In that story, China must be the sleeping giant. As the story opens, the giant awakens, searching for a way to improve the livelihood of his people, inadvertently trampling on a number of the Earth\u2019s delicate structures in doing so. Realizing this, a second awakening occurs. But can the giant change direction quickly enough, before too much harm is done?The damage that re-directed the giant was the realization that fossil fuel emissions, particularly from coal-fired power plants, are\u00a0pushing atmospheric carbon levels to dangerously high levels. China\u2019s emissions have grown\u00a07 percent annually\u00a0\u2014\u00a0far faster than the rest of the world, which is growing at 2.8 percent. Now that we all realize that emissions have to start decreasing, fast, China has pledged to achieve peak emissions by 2030, after which its emissions will begin to decrease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-806768","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n