Increased Pollution in China

Description:

China is currently suffering from a number of poor environmental conditions including air pollution, acid rain, loss of agricultural land, forest deficiency, poor water quality, water scarcity, ocean coastline pollution, and loss in biodiversity. For example three out of four city dwellers live below China’s air-quality standard. Acid rain fell on a quarter of its cities for more than 60% of rainy days per year in the 1990s and now affects a quarter of China’s area, making it among the world’s most severely affected countries. Water quality in most Chinese rivers and groundwater sources is poor and declining. About 75% of lakes are polluted. The percentage of industrial waste water treated has been increasing, but only 20% of domestic waste water is treated, compared with 80% in the developed world. Almost all coastal seas are polluted, mainly by pollutants from the land, plus oil spills and other marine activities. These environmental problems have been caused by explosive economic growth, an increase the number of households, increased urbanization, increased affluence and consumption, failure to execute environmental policy, lack of public awareness and prioritization of economic growth over sustainability.

Potentially more important then the aforementioned environmental impacts is a further consequence of what China's continued economic growth and subsequent increase in consumption means for the rest of the world. China currently has the world's largest population. 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. This is why China’s environmental problems are the world’s.

Enablers:

• The World Bank estimates that environmental degradation costs China between 8 percent and 12 percent of its Gross Domestic Product(GDP).
  

• Chinese planners worry that environmental degradation ultimately will serve as a source of social instability.China’s accelerating reliance on coal carries other costs, too. Coal mining causes extremely high mortality rates among Chinese miners. More than 4,000 were killed in the first nine months of 2004, making the nation’s mining industry the world’s most dangerous.
  

• China produces about 13 percent of the world’s total CO2, making it the second largest emitter after the United States, which accounts for close to one-quarter of the world’s total.
  

• In 2004, Chinese demand grew by 850,000 barrels per day and was the largest contributor to the surge in the world’s consumption. Crude oil prices have nearly doubled in the past two years as the strong growth in consumption has made it hard for the industry to keep up. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) lifted its output to a 25-year high last year in a bid to put as much oil on the market as possible and meet a surge in demand that few had anticipated. Yet, crude oil prices remained persistently high.
  

Inhibitors:

• China increasingly is looking to add emission-free energy sources such as nuclear power and hydropower.
  

• Kyoto Protocol contains a provision that allows companies in developed countries to meet their emissions limits by investing in new, clean factories in developing countries. As a result in Kyoto's implementation, China take the chance of the huge investments and their business.
  

Paradigms:

The government official stressed that China does not yet regularly monitor and report some important classes of pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and air toxics. He called attention to the country’s increasing desertification problem and said that China’s deserts and desertified areas cover 2.42 million square kilometers, with an annual expansion of more than 3,000 km2. More than 90% of usable natural grasslands in China, a total area of 135 million hectares, suffered varying degrees of degradation last year. China has managed to bring some sources of pollution, particularly coal smoke from power plants and industrial boilers, fairly well under control in areas such as Beijing and Shanghai. And, China has to meet the Kyoto Protocol that requires companies in developed countries to meet their emissions limits by investing in new, clean factories in developing countries.

Experts:

• http://www.zhb.gov.cn/english
  
• http://www.cleanairnet.org
  
• International Energy Agency(IEA)
  

Timing:

• Adopting the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997.
  
• The Kyoto Protocol had gone into effect from Feburary 2005.
  
• The first phase of Kyoto's implementation which runs through 2012.
  

Web Resources:

1. Liu, J. & Diamond, J.. (2005). China's Place in the World: Environmental Impact of a Giant.
2. “China Country Analysis Briefs 2004,” http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/china.html.
   
3. “Domestic Oil and Gas Production: Pursuing a Principled Approach,” http://www.ppionline.org.