"China is the new climate leader."

LOL!

2004 "China is the dominant player. The country is on track to add 562 coal-fired plants - nearly half the world total of plants expected to come online in the next eight years. India could add 213such plants; the US, 72."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1223/p01s04-sten.html

2007 "where demand for power is growing rapidly, such as India and China, coal is booming. Energy lore has it that in China a new coal-burning plant is fired up every week. What is certain is that China has become a net importer of coal for the first time this year. India's imports have been growing steadily for the past 20 years."

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10145492

2007 "The total capacity of Chinese fossil-fired power plants in operation or under construction as displayed in the new McIlvaine Chinese Utility Plans database is 699 700 MW. By 2011 China will have more coal-fired capacity than the US and Europe."

http://www.engineerlive.com/Power-Engineer/Maintenance/Capacity_of_chine...

I guess they really are the new climate leader in CO2, particulate matter, and soot in general.

China may be trying very hard to be a climate leader, but the sad fact is that's impossible with very high growth rates in an industrial based (ie relatively energy intensive) economy. No government, not even the hard government that China has, can manage that kind of growth with respect to stabilizing GhG emissions. Much less reducing it on an absolute level.