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Development in defiance of the Washington consensus
Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian
China has carried off the world’s largest reduction in poverty by grasping that market economies cannot be left on autopilot
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China is about to adopt its 11th five-year plan, setting the stage for the continuation of probably the most remarkable economic transformation in history, while improving the wellbeing of almost a quarter of the world’s population. Never before has the world seen such sustained growth; never before has there been so much poverty reduction.
Part of the key to China’s long-run success has been its almost unique combination of pragmatism and vision. While much of the rest of the developing world, following the Washington consensus, has been directed at a quixotic quest for higher GDP, China has again made clear that it seeks sustainable and more equitable increases in real living standards. China realises that it has entered a phase of economic growth that is imposing enormous – and unsustainable – demands on the environment. Unless there is a change in course, living standards will eventually be compromised. That is why the new plan places great emphasis on the environment.
…China is a large country, and it could not have succeeded as it has without widespread decentralisation. But decentralisation raises problems of its own.
Greenhouse gases, for example, are global problems. While America says that it cannot afford to do anything about it, China’s senior officials have acted more responsibly. Within a month of the adoption of the plan, new environmental taxes on cars, petrol and wood products were imposed: China was using market-based mechanisms to address its and the world’s environmental problems. But the pressures on local government officials to deliver economic growth and jobs will be enormous. They will be sorely tempted to argue that if America cannot afford to produce in a way that preserves our planet, how can they?
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, is professor of economics at Columbia University and the World Bank’s former chief economist
(13 April 2006)
China: the sky darkens
Agnès Sinai, Le Monde Diplomatique
The Chinese government made it clear at the UN climate change conference in Montreal last December that it was aware of the extreme dangers that China faces from both immediate and long-term climate change.
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Every spring, fierce winds, sweeping across the arid landscape of Inner Mongolia, blow walls of sand hundreds of kilometres eastwards, periodically enveloping Beijing and turning day to night. The authorities have planted thousands of hedges in the path of these dry whirlwinds, but the long green line is powerless against the force of the wind and the advance of the dunes. Sandstorms could well disrupt the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The rise in temperatures is more pronounced in the great loess plains of the north than in the south of the country. According to predictions for the 21st century drawn up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rainfall will continue to increase in the south and decline in the north, where drought, which is already reducing yields, will directly threaten agriculture and undermine economic development. China’s glaciers retreated by 21% during the 20th century. A doubling in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would affect the distribution of major crops. China’s food-producing potential will be reduced by 10% as a result of climate change and extreme climatic events (1).
…But all this is just a drop in that rising ocean unless the rise in temperatures across the region can be countered by a global policy to combat climate change. According to Anja Köhne, project manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s European policy office, “the Chinese government realises that climate change is a serious problem threatening food supplies and national stability. China has 200 million poor whose living conditions could be made even worse by rising temperatures. This is a potential cause of political destabilisation.”
This awareness has concentrated the minds of the authorities and led to the emergence of ecological movements. “There are more and more environmental NGOs,” said Yu Jie, Greenpeace’s representative in Beijing, “a hundred now. The government tolerates them, indeed it sees them as a sort of social safety valve since China is a society in transition.
…Thanks to high energy consumption, Chinese greenhouse gas emissions are increasing at the highest rate of any country, rising by 16% during the year 2002-03 to reach 512m tonnes of CO2, compared with a US total of 64m tonnes (8). Although China has become the world’s second largest greenhouse gas producer behind the US, it does not accept that it must make reductions.
… China is trying to guarantee secure energy supplies without worsening the climate warming whose effects it is already experiencing. Hence the government’s interest in the Kyoto Protocol and its clean development mechanism (CDM) which encourages industrialised countries to invest in “depollution” in developing countries in exchange for greenhouse gas emission quotas that can be traded on the future international carbon market.
…According to Lester Brown of the US research organisation the Earth Policy Institute, over the next 25 years the planet will suffer an ecological catastrophe if China’s population adopts current US lifestyles.
(13 April 2006)
Also posted at Znet.
China’s Hu heads to US on energy efficiency wave
Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters via AlertNet
BEIJING – Chinese President Hu Jintao may find his energy saving initiatives an unlikely source of pride during a visit next week to the United States, where he faces criticism over human rights and Beijing’s currency policy.
The two countries are the world’s top oil consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases, but Hu has turned away from China’s previous mantra of economic growth at almost any cost to spearhead a huge drive to cut wasteful energy use.
A hike in taxes on gas-guzzling cars, some of the world’s strictest fuel economy targets and a new round of ambitious energy-efficiency goals are among the initiatives that have impressed environmentalists and energy analysts alike.
In contrast, U.S. counterpart George W. Bush has drawn flak for his reluctance to tighten efficiency standards or raise fuel taxes, despite a pledge to tackle the country’s addiction to oil.
(13 April 2006)
