China’s carbon emissions per head are approaching those of the European Union, but are still about a third of the United States’, according to research published in the latest edition of the science journal Nature Climate Change. Emissions per person in China were 6.6 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) compared to the EU’s 7.3 tons. The figure for the U.S. was 17.2 tons. However, China is still the world’s biggest contributor of global carbon dioxide emissions which are due to reach a record high of 35.6 billion tons this year, according to the Global Carbon Project led by researchers from the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at the UK’s University of East Anglia. China was responsible for 28% of emissions in 2011 compared to the United States (16%), the EU (11%), and India (7%). Emissions in China and India grew by 9.9% and 7.5% in 2011, while those of the U.S. and the EU decreased by 1.8% and 2.8%, according to the Fudan Tyndall Center. “Something like 30% of China’s carbon emissions are related to goods consumed in other countries,” said Chen Jianmin, Director of the Fudan Center and Professor in the University’s Environmental Science and Engineering Department.