Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Did he know for sure his wife was a woman? (I mean, I hope the book you refer to was not by Bernard Boursicot.)

Xiao was introduced to the BBC by a Chinese businessman, 36-year-old Sun Kejia - one of an unknown, but reportedly growing number of wealthy Chinese, drawn in recent years to the mysticism of Tibetan Buddhism.

The increasing popularity of religion in general in China has been well documented and is often explained in terms of China's rapid economic expansion.

Millions of Chinese today may now have the kind of wealth that previous generations could only dream of, but economic growth has been accompanied by seismic social upheaval and many of the old certainties have been swept away.

"I was once confronted with great difficulties and problems in my business," Sun says.

"I felt they couldn't be overcome by human effort and that only Buddha, ghosts and God could help me."

Sun, Xiao and Geshe Sonam next to Xiao's shrine in his apartment
So Sun became a follower not of merchant bankers or money managers, but monks - Tibetan monks in particular. And he has indeed since earned his fortune, which he estimates at more than $100m.

He now runs a chain of Buddhist clubs, and pays from his own pocket for Tibetan gurus like Geshe Sonam to come and preach there, giving them badly needed funds for their missions and monasteries back in Tibet.

But while Sun's invited guests - businessmen, party officials and property owners - find comfort and spirituality, he finds something else.

"What I want is influence," he says.

McKinsey estimates

Another thing going on is that the airline which lost that flight has discovered running into double figures not properly trained and now suspended until they are.

Why intelligent people admits to Chinese keep on doing environmental crimes it's a mystery to me.

But in an interesting development, China's emissions per head of population exceeding those of the European Union for the first time.

While the per capita average for the world as a whole is 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide, China is now producing 7.2 tonnes per person, to the EU's 6.8 tonnes. The US is still far ahead on 16.5 tonnes per person.

"We now see China's per capita emissions surpassing the EU," said Dr Robbie Andrew, from the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway, who was involved in the research.

"They are still nowhere near the US or Australia, but the fact that they have surpassed the EU will be quite surprising to a lot of people."

Future beats the past
This development will shine an interesting light on global climate negotiations where China has often used its relatively low per capita emissions to argue that it is on the same page as other developing countries, and that restrictions on its use of carbon were not justified.

China's rapid industrialisation over the past 20 years has seen the construction of huge numbers of mainly coal fired power stations.

This build-up means that the emissions that China is committed to in the future, now exceed the total of everything it has emitted to date.

Prof Corinne Le Quere from the University of East Anglia, who is also involved with Carbon Project, said that a significant proportion of China's emissions were in fact, driven by demand from consumers in Europe and the US.

"In China about 20% of their emissions are for producing clothes, furniture even solar panels that are shipped to Europe and America."

"If you look at the emissions in Europe with that perspective, they would be 30% higher if we accounted for those goods that are produced elsewhere."

The other major emissions growth is seen in India. In 2013 the country's carbon grew by 5.1%, and it is now on track to overtake the EU in 2019.

"India has enormous problems, if the current government could sort out the issues with toilets that would an enormous achievement," said Dr Andrew.

"They have so many things to focus on in that country, to ask them to pull back on emissions, is a big problem."

For 2014, the carbon record is likely to be broken again as emissions are likely to hit 40bn tonnes, 65% above 1990 levels.

The researchers involved say the recent rise is due to the global economic recovery combined with a lower than expected increases in carbon intensity, especially in the developing world.

So, what happened? For one thing, fresher data. Old statistics for China in particular is pretty much useless.

Which leads us to the most useful metric, carbon intensity, how much carbon you burn for each dollar of value you produce.