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A canary in the Chinese coal mine
Geoffrey York, Globe & Mail
…Carbon dioxide is responsible for about 80 per cent of the world’s human-generated emissions of greenhouse gases. Most of this comes from coal, and China is responsible for 90 per cent of the rise in world coal consumption in recent years. This country is hooked on coal. With 21,000 coal mines across the country, it is cheaper and more easily available than any other form of energy in China. It is the lifeblood of its booming economy, producing 70 per cent of the energy that fuels its dramatic growth.
Coal is the biggest reason for China’s rapid climb to the top ranks of the world’s worst contributors to global warming. The latest projections show that China will overtake the United States to become the world’s top producer of carbon dioxide by 2009, nearly a decade quicker than projected in previous studies. China will soon produce 20 per cent of all the carbon dioxide on the planet.
Yet China’s impact on the global environment is rarely debated here.
“In China, global warming is not under discussion at all,” says James Brock, an energy analyst and consultant in Beijing. “China is 10 to 15 years behind the United States on this issue.”
Of course, the West has been guilty of many of China’s bad environmental habits, too. The average Canadian, for example, consumes far more energy than the average Chinese and is responsible for releasing far more carbon dioxide. But with China’s massive population, and its reluctance to enforce the use of modern anti-pollution equipment, China is quickly catching up to the industrialized world as a cause of global warming.
(3 Feb 2007)
China to keep relying on coal
AFP
China has no plans to radically change its reliance on coal and other dirty fuels despite already feeling the impacts of global warming, according to a leading Chinese meteorologist.
In the first official Chinese response to a stark UN report issued last week on climate change, Qin Dahe said China lacked the technology and financial resources for a wholesale conversion to cleaner energy sources.
“To replace 70 percent of China’s energy consumption really takes a lot of money,” Qin, who was one of the main authors of the report, told a press conference.
(6 Feb 2007)
Carbon-free living: China’s green leap forward
Clifford Coonan, The Independent
The world’s largest building project is a revolutionary eco-city of electric cars and zero emissions near Shanghai
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…Grim apocalyptic nightmares tend to characterise the usual environmental reports from China, but that is about to change as British engineers prepare to turn this vision of Dongtan into a reality. By 2030, 60 per cent of the world’s population will be urban dwellers, and environmentalists insist that a radical programme of making our cities greener places to live is the only sustainable way to allow us to keep living in cities.
The good news is that in Dongtan, on Chongming island near Shanghai, half a million people will live in a car-free, zero-emission, recycling city with an ecological footprint one-third that of people in Shanghai. Environmentally sustainable city living is possible, its planners say, and is within our grasp. The Dongtan project could be the solution to the demands of city-living – combining the need to be environmentally sustainable with being extremely cool. The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is reportedly interested in Dongtan as a possible blueprint for development in London.
This is the biggest single building project in the world, and it’s taking place in a country many see as the biggest risk to the planet’s green future. The urbanisation process in China is astonishing – there are already 90 cities with more than a million residents, and 400 million people are expected to move from the countryside to cities in the next 30 years.
(6 Feb 2007)
