China this week released its first national climate change strategy. In the 62-page action plan, China promises to join the international effort to control global warming by improving energy efficiency, increasing its use of renewable energy, developing drought-resistant crops, and expanding forests that absorb carbon dioxide. According to Chinese officials, China’s goal is to improve the environment without sacrificing economic growth. The plan states that the country’s first priority remains "sustainable development and poverty eradication."
Photo of the Forbidden City in Beijing courtesy of Kevin Connors
"We must reconcile the need for development with the need for environmental protection," said Ma Kai, head of the National Development and Reform Commission. "In its course of modernization, China will not tread the traditional path of industrialization, featuring high consumption and high emissions. In fact, we want to blaze a new path to industrialization."
The Environmental Cost of China's Economic Growth
Achieving that goal would require a turnaround nearly as remarkable as China’s rapid economic growth over the past two decades, which has come at a high environmental cost. China’s rivers are heavily polluted and the air quality in many of its cities is so hazardous that the health of millions of people is being undermined daily. Currently, Chinese industries are energy hogs, using seven times as much energy as those of its neighbor Japan for every dollar of gross domestic product.
China’s relies on coal for 70 percent of its energy needs, which is one reason it is expected to surpass the United States as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases. In China, the average citizen has a carbon footprint less than one-fifth the size of the average American’s and just over a third the size of the average European’s. But with a population of 1.3 billion people, it adds up fast.
China Says Industrialized Nations Responsible for Global Warming
Despite China’s own environmental problems and its obvious contributions to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, Ma said that industrialized nations are primarily responsible for global warming because they have been pumping heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution. He said that industrialized nations like the United States have an “unshirkable responsibility” to solve the problem they created and should not try to shift that responsibility to developing countries.
The international community should respect the developing countries' right to develop," Ma said.
China Rejects Binding Commitments
In unveiling the plan, Ma rejected the idea that China would accept any binding commitments like those spelled out in the Kyoto Protocol or proposed by Germany as a leading agenda item at the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations meeting that begins today [June 6, 2007].
Ma also objected to a European Union proposal to limit average global temperature increases to about 2 degrees Celsius, saying it did not have scientific backing and needed further study—even though the goal was based on recent reports by the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Meanwhile, Ma gave only qualified support to President Bush’s proposal for a process that would seek an international agreement on global warming outside the framework established by the United Nations. He said that any new efforts or regional cooperation on climate change should complement the UN framework and the Kyoto Protocol rather than replacing or weakening them.
Although China’s new plan primarily pulls together existing goals policies, it does outline strategies for achieving those goals. And China has already started making seriouis efforts to address its environmental problems. In July 2006, for example, China announced that by 2010 it would invest $175 billion--about 1.5 percent of its annual GDP--to control water pollution, improve air quality in China’s cities, increase solid waste disposal, and reduce soil erosion in rural areas.
Internationally, the new climate change plan is being welcomed as an important step forward by a nation whose environmental policies and achievements will have a profound effect on the rest of the world.
Media coverage:
- China Unveils Climate Change Plan -- BBC
- China Says Climate Policy Must Make Room for Growth -- Reuters
- China Unveils Climate Change Plan -- The Guardian
- China Says Its Pollution to Reach Turning Point This Year -- Forbes.com
- Bush Announces U.S. Plan to Tackle Global Warming
- U.S. Pressures G8 Nations to Weaken Stance on Global Warming
- Should the United States Ratify the Kyoto Protocol?
- All About Global Warming
- Global Warming: Causes, Effects and Solutions
- What is the Greenhouse Effect?
- Top 10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming
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