China has surpassed the United States in carbon emissions to become the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA) reported Tuesday.

NEAA said China’s output surpassed that of the United States by about 7.5 percent in 2006, making it the largest man-made contributor to global warming. Although China sat 2 percent below the U.S. in 2005, their upped cement production and large coal consumption has pushed them ahead.

The NEAA reported that cement production makes up about 4 percent of the world’s global warming contributions via fuel use and industrial action. It’s no surprise then, that China has overtaken the U.S. for first place. They produce 44 percent of the world’s cement—an industry so large in China that it makes up 9 percent of the nation’s emissions.

As for fossil fuel emissions, in 2006 China’s output increased by 9 percent while the U.S.’s decreased by 1.4 percent, the NEAA also reported.

Unfortunately, this is all happening before expected. The United Nations (U.N.) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration told the Associated Press (AP) Wednesday, that China’s emission overhaul was predicted to happen in 2009 or 2010, although it was expected.

“The Dutch agency referred to BP PLC’s Review of Energy 2007 statistics, which is the standard reference tool,” John Christensen, in charge of the U.N. Environment Program’s Center on Energy, Climate, and Sustainable Development in Denmark, told the AP, “We have no reason to doubt that the numbers are right. We have no reason to doubt the methodology.”

Chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, Faith Birol, sharpened a prior forecast in November to predict China would overtake the U.S. in 2007 or 2008.

Although China may be emitting more carbon, global warming is more closely related to how many carbon dioxide atoms linger in the air. Jay Apt, a professor of engineering, business, and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told the AP that the U.S. is responsible for 27 percent, Europe for 20 percent, and China is only responsible for 8 percent.

China has unveiled its first national program to combat global warming. One of the steps the nation has taken is to up the ante on an earlier promise to improve energy efficiency in 2010 by 20 percent over 2005’s level.

In an offbeat approach in Southern China, a dozen professional sniffers have been employed to determine the cause of pollution. They will be sniffing out noxious gases released by chemical and rubber factories.

The professional noses will be based at an environment monitoring station in Panyu.

“We have honed down our smelling skills from various sources of pollution,” Liu Jingcai, Vice-Director of the station, told China Daily, “It will help in the detection efforts of the bureau, and hopefully, bring pollution violators to justice.”

The certificates the smellers must obtain remain good for three years—based on the fact that one’s sense of smell diminishes with age.

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