Chinese pollution in pictures by Lu Guang

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by tigger

China needs to accept responsibility for this themselves. Forcing western companies to obey their home nation's environmental laws would be a joke. I mean it's a nice idea, but it would be ineffective. Even if the companies did obey (and not just move their headquarters or production elsewhere) the gains wouldn't be that great. Those companies would still be pulling their power from the relatively unregulated Chinese grid and their own domestic industry (which by your statistics accounts for as much as 75% of their emissions) would still be in the same state.

You misunderstood?; the EU and US to regulate EU and US investment abroad. Just like child sex protection laws now cover citizens abroad, environmental protection laws would cover firms abroad. Not difficult to implement.

The second part about the power grid is true, but doing something positive is better than doing nothing and my last suggestion covered the power grid.

Also the same factories can produce good for export as well as domestic use, I think you may be underestimating the impact.

Originally Posted by tigger

Restrictions on imports might be a little better, but I think that would still be extremely difficult to enforce.

No more difficult than any other regulations on imports. In fact, it could be quite simple.

Originally Posted by tigger

My main problem is that China is very publicly pursuing green energy. They just finalized a deal to build a large wind farm in western Texas. They want to corner the world market on solar panels. And yet at home they continue to implement destructive environmental policies.

So they are developing green technologies and that upsets you? Wow. In your own words, the US is 40 years ahead. Give them a little time.


I know I said I was done, but the thing is this whole thread is one big finger-pointing exercise at "big bad China", mainly by the people in the worst position to be finger-pointing in the first place. It's one big, hypocritical cheap-shot.

Although China has been taking action on climate change for some years, with the publication on Monday 4 June 2007 of China's first National Action Plan on Climate Change, China became the first developing country to publish a national strategy addressing global warming.

In addition, the one child policy in China has successfully slowed down the population increase, preventing 300 million births, which is equal to 1.3 billion tons of CO2 emission based on average world per capita emissions of 4.2 tons at 2005 level.

China is the world leading renewable energy producer, with an installed capacity of 152 GW. China has been invested heavily in renewable energy field in recent years. In 2007, the total renewable energy investment is $12 billion USD, second only to Germany, and expected to be the world No 1 by 2009. Approximately 7% of China's energy was from renewable sources in 2006, a figure targeted to rise to 10% by 2010 and to 16% by 2020. China is already the country with the most hydro-electric capacity in the world, and the Three Gorges Dam is projected to be the largest hydro-electric power station in the world with a total capacity of 22.5 GW.

China has become the world largest consumer of solar energy. It is the largest producer of solar water heaters, accounting for 60 percent of the world’s solar hot water heating capacity, and the total installed heaters is estimated at 30 million households. Solar PV production in China is also in rapid development. In 2007, 0.82 GW Solar PV is produced, second only to Japan.

China's total wind power capacity is at 2.67 gigawatts (GW) in 2006. China government had planned 5 GW of wind generation capacity by 2010, and 30 GW capacity by 2020. But the 5 GW goal was met as early as in 2007. By the end of 2007, China's 202 wind projects had a total capacity of 6.05 GW, with an annual growth rate of 95%. The 2010 goal was then revised to 10 GW and 2020 goal to 100 GW. However, by 2008, the wind power capacity in China already reached 12.2 GW, which ranks 4th in the world, only after U.S., Germany, and Spain. Experts estimated that China's wind capacity may reach the 20 GW landmark by 2010, which is called the "Wind Three Gorges".

The effort to drive the renewable energy use in China was further assured after the speech of the Chinese President given at the UN climate summit on 22 Sept 2009 in New York, pledging that China will adopt plans targeting to use 15% of its energy from renewable sources within a decade.

The General Work Plan for Energy Conservation and Pollutant Discharge Reduction aims to cut energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (energy intensity) by 20% over the course of the 11th five-year plan which ends in 2010, as well as cutting the discharge of major pollutants by 10%. The plan was issued in 2007 after the 4% reduction in energy intensity targeted for 2006 was missed, and all companies and local and national government have been asked to submit detailed plans for compliance before June 30, 2007. In 2006 the reduction achieved was 1.23%.

Implementation will involve a variety of measures, including increased use of renewable energy, revised pricing for primary energy sources and electricity, export restrictions on energy intensive and highly polluting products, and tax incentives for pollution-reduction projects. Central and local government will switch to low-energy lighting, and will be compelled to purchase only the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly electrical products.

Officials have been warned that violating energy conservation and environmental protection laws will lead to criminal proceedings, while failure to achieve targets will be taken into account in the performance assessment of officials and business leaders.