 Global
Connections
with David Suzuki
Helping China's environment will help the world
I don't know about you, but China scares me. It's the most populous nation
on the planet - home to 1.3 billion souls - yet, economically, it's just waking
up. How China handles its burgeoning economy and how the developed world deals
with China's rapid industrialisation will have a profound impact on the planet.
China's population has more than doubled over the past 50 years. Although population
growth has now slowed, economic growth has exploded to more than three times the
global average. China now has the world's third largest economy - huge, but nothing
compared to what it would be if China's rate of resource consumption reaches the
level of industrialised nations.
As it is, China's economy is pushing the country to its ecological limits.
According to a recent article in the journal Nature, the impacts of pollution,
desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems are starting to
become acute. For example, 75 per cent of China's urban citizens breathe air that
does not meet the country's air-quality standards. It's estimated that every year
more than 300,000 people in China die prematurely due to air pollution.
Three quarters of China's lakes are also polluted and more than 100 of its
cities suffer from severe water shortages that at times shut down industrial production.
In the city of Xian alone, it's estimated that water shortages result in $250
million US in lost production. Two-thirds of China's freshwater comes from underground
aquifers, which are fast becoming depleted and polluted.
China's ocean resources aren't faring any better. Almost all of its coastal
waters are polluted from sewage, toxins, and oil spills. Fish harvests have declined
sharply. Meanwhile, widespread deforestation is thought to be responsible for
increased flooding, and more than a quarter of the country is affected by desertification,
leading to dust storms and the loss of farmland.
Those dust storms are a good example of how China's environmental problems
are really the world's. They don't just affect China, but other countries throughout
Asia. In recent years, plumes of dust, along with soot from China's coal-fired
power plants, have even made their way across the Pacific Ocean to North America.
It's easy to say that the developed world has its own problems, so we should
let China develop without our help. But such an attitude would be short-sighted
and unfair. Many of the cheap goods we buy in North America are made in China,
from Chinese natural resources, leaving much of the pollution behind. And the
energy needed to power the factories to make those goods comes from Chinese coal
mines, where some 6000 workers die every year according to conservative government
estimates.
Global climate change is another looming problem the world must face, and China
will play a key role. Right now, China's per capita emission of heat-trapping
gases is roughly half the world average and barely a tenth of the United States'.
But China's vast population and exploding economy means that it is already responsible
for 12 per cent of the world's total emissions and could soon rival the United
States unless it rapidly embraces cleaner and more efficient technologies.
China has recently taken a number of steps in the right direction - such as
committing to European vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. But the country's reliance
on coal and its inefficient rural industries will continue to push pollution levels
up unless significant investment is made in clean technologies and renewable energy.
Helping China improve its efficiency and, in some ways, its competitive edge,
may seem strange. But in the long run, it's in the best interests of developed
countries to ensure that China's growing economy is as efficient and environmentally
friendly as possible. Because when it comes to pollution, what happens in China
doesn't stay in China any more.
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