Environmental Research Questions - China in 2030
Below are the short answers for each question. For more information on these answers please select the following link: Environmental Research Questions - China in 2030
What are the key drivers behind China's current environmental state?
The driving factors behind China’s environmental problems include an increase in the number of households, increased urbanization, explosive economic growth, failure to execute environmental policy, lack of public awareness and prioritization of economic growth over sustainability. For more information select the following link: Key Environmental Drivers - China in 2030.
What impact have these poor environmental conditions had on China?
China's current poor environmental situation causes great socioeconomic loss, increases the nation's health costs, and causes more frequent and damaging natural disasters. For example, the losses from pollution and ecological damage ranged from 7% to 20% of GDP every year in the past two decades. From 1996 to 2001, China's spending on public health increased by 80%, or more than 13% per year in part to cope with environmental problems. Finally, droughts, floods, and other natural disasters have become increasingly frequent and damaging causing great financial losses as well as that of human life. For more information select the following link: Poor Environmental Condition and Impact on China - China in 2030.
Socioeconomic losses: The losses from pollution and ecological damage ranged from 7% to 20% of GDP every year in the past two decades. Besides heavy economic losses, pollution and resource competition have triggered numerous social clashes in China, including 18 conflicts over forest resource management in southwestern China. Similarly, water shortages in the Yellow River have triggered ‘water wars’ between people on the river’s upper and lower reaches, between people on opposite sides of the river, and between backers of industrial, agricultural and ecological needs.
Health Costs: Environmental pollution imposes further costs through its impact on human health. From 1996 to 2001, China’s spending on public health increased by 80%, or more than 13% per year (from $35 billion in 1996 to $63 billion in 2001), in part to cope with environmental problems. About 300,000 deaths per year are attributed to air pollution. Average blood lead levels in Chinese city dwellers are nearly double those considered to be dangerously high and to endanger childrens’ mental development. The risk of respiratory disease increases with the outdoor concentration of total suspended particles. Even short-term exposure to air pollution can result in low infant weight and increased morbidity and mortality.
Natural Disasters: China is noted for the frequency, number, extent and impact of its natural disasters. Human actions have made some of these more frequent, especially dust storms, landslides, droughts and floods. Overgrazing, erosion, grassland degradation, desertification and partly human-caused droughts have led to more frequent, and more severe, dust storms. From AD 300 to 1949, dust storms struck northwestern China on average once every 31 years; since 1990 there has been one almost every year. The huge dust storm of 5 May 1993 killed a hundred people. Recent increases in droughts are believed to be due to deforestation that has interrupted the water cycle, and perhaps also due to the decrease in surface water resulting from draining and overuse of lakes and wetlands. Droughts damage about 160,000 km2 of cropland each year, double the area damaged in the 1950s. Flooding has greatly increased because of deforestation; the 1996 and 1998 floods were the worst in recent memory. Alternating droughts and floods have become more frequent and are more damaging than either disaster alone, because droughts destroy vegetation, and then flooding of bare ground produces worse erosion.
What are China's most significant environmental obstacles going forward?
China's largest obstacles to improve the environment lie in the failure to execute environmental policies, prioritizing economic growth over environmental protection, a lack of public awareness, and its continued economic growth. China has developed numerous environmental laws and policies, but most of them are just on paper. Chinese environmental laws and regulations were written largely piecemeal, lack effective implementation and evaluation of long-term consequences, and need a systems approach. Environmental protection agencies lack sufficient authority, financial resources and manpower. Environmental awareness is also low among the general public, government officials and business people. Most people think that environmental protection harms economic growth and do not recognize that environmental problems have already caused huge economic losses, severe social conflicts, enormous health costs and increased "natural" disasters (such as dust storms, floods, droughts). Furthermore, many technologies in China are outdated, inefficient and highly polluting. Finally, China's continued economic growth and changing lifestyles will continue to be a large obstacle in improving the environment. Although per capita consumption in China is still much less than that in developed countries, increases in consumption are accelerating. Diet is shifting more toward meat and away from grain. More cars are pouring into newly constructed and rapidly expanding highways. Divorce has become increasingly common, resulting in more and smaller households and thus lower efficiency of resource use. In 2004 alone, over 1.6 million couples split up. (PBS, 2006)
How will the state of China's environment affect the country's future?
If economic growth, rather than environmental protection or sustainability, continues to be a priority for China then the future looks bleak. Despite a fall in population growth rate, the number of Chinese is projected to reach almost 1.5 billion by 2030. The projected drop in household size to 2.2 people by the year 2030 alone would add over 250 million new households — more than the total in the entire Western Hemisphere in 2000 — even if China’s population size remained constant. These additional households will add to the inefficient use of energy and continue degradation of the environment.
The Chinese environment also faces many specific dangers. The number of cars is rising, and croplands and natural wetlands are disappearing. The harmful consequences of this will accumulate. With rising affluence, and hence meat and fish consumption, environmental problems from meat production and aquaculture, such as pollution from animal and fish droppings and eutrophication from uneaten fish food, will increase.
Potentially more important than all of these other impacts is a further consequence of China’s having the world’s largest population and fastest-growing economy. Total production or consumption is the product of population size times per capita production or consumption rate. China’s total production and consumption are already high, because of its huge population, despite its per capita rates still being very low. But China is rapidly becoming a developed-world economy. If China’s per capita consumption rates do reach such levels, and even if populations, production and consumption rates everywhere else remained unchanged, those rate increases alone would translate into a 94% increase in total world production or consumption in industrial metals, and a 106% increase in the case of oil. In other words, China’s achievement of developed-world consumption standards will approximately double the world’s human resource use and environmental impact. But it is doubtful whether even the current human resource use and impact on the world can be sustained. Something has to give, or change. This is why China’s environmental problems are the world’s.
What will China's environmental policy be going forward?
Recognizing the environmental challenges the country faces, the Chinese government is hoping to build an environmentally-friendly society, and has set very ambitious environmental goals. By 2010, China aims to basically control the trend of environmental deterioration, improve environmental quality in some key regions and key cities, reduce the total emission of major pollutants by 10 percent, lower energy consumption per unit GDP output by 20 percent from the 2005 level, maintain cropland and increase forest cover from 18 percent to 20 percent. By 2020, China plans to significantly improve environmental quality and ecological conditions. Still, China's economic goal is to double its GDP by 2020, and we've seen from the past two decades that economic goals tend to be well surpassed while environmental goals are left largely unattended to. (PBS, 2006)
China is increasingly assuming responsibilities on the world stage by participating in environmental treaties. Many environmental laws, policies and regulations are being developed or improved. The Chinese public’s environmental awareness is rising. China has been pushing hard for cleaner production and sustainable development. Some environmental and product standards have reached developed-world levels. Energy intensity is declining. Technologies for production and for treating environmental waste are improving. To reduce air pollution in Beijing, the city government ordered that vehicles be converted to allow the use of natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. China has phased out leaded petrol in little more than a year, something that took Europe and America many years to achieve. New cars must meet the exacting emissions standards prevailing in Europe. Since 1990, China has combated desertification on 24,000 km2 of land by reforestation and fixation of sand dunes. The Grain-to-Green program, begun in 2000, gives grain and cash subsidies to farmers who convert cropland to forest or grassland, and is reducing the use of environmentally sensitive steep hillsides for agriculture. By the end of 2003, 79,000 km2 of cropland had been returned to forest or grassland. By the end of this program in 2010, approximately 130,000 km2 of cropland are expected to be converted, making it one of the largest conservation programs in the world. China is also designing and adopting a green accounting system that includes environmental costs in the calculation of gross domestic product (or Green GDP).