China's environmental growth pains

I continue to do a lot of work on China and its environment because "this is where the action is" and where academic work had have a greater impact.

The news from PlanetArk this morning comes as no surprise.

As I have posted before, growth comes first and central to that growth is the burning of fossil fuels and most importantly coal. Whilst China has the will and the funds to make changes it is fighting against a tide of growth that will overwhelm any investment in wind (currently has the largest installed base of wind) and other green investments.

China Says Environment Still Suffering Growth Pains [PlanetArk]

China's fight against chronic pollution is faltering in the face of urbanization and rapid growth, though the last five years have seen some progress, the country's environment ministry said on Saturday.

China was still producing more "traditional pollutants" than it could bear, but new industries were also creating torrents of dangerous chemicals and mountains of electronic waste, said Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of environmental protection.

"We're still a developing country -- the standard of living is still not high, employment trends are serious and each level of government is paying attention to economic growth," he said.

China's consumption of coal -- the dirtiest of fossil fuels and a major source of acid rain, water pollution and climate change -- rose around 1 billion tons in the five years from 2006, and could rise another billion in the next five, he said.

"In this kind of territory, if we add emissions from another 1 billion tons of coal, how big will the impact be on our environment?" Zhang told reporters.

TACKLING CARBON

China plans to cut its levels of carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon dioxide produced per unit of GDP -- by 17 percent by the end of 2015. Zhang said individual regions had already been set targets.

China's climate change measures have normally been the responsibility of the growth-focused National Development and Reform Commission, with the environment ministry taking on more immediate threats such as acid rain-inducing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as water and soil contamination.

But environment minister Zhou Shengxian said last month the ministry would include CO2 emissions in the environmental impact assessments of major projects.

Zhang said the ministry would only approve individual projects that fit in with regional greenhouse gas targets, and the NDRC would still play the leading role in China's climate change efforts.

GROWTH VS POLLUTION

The ministry was upgraded from a lower-level "bureau" just three years ago, and fears remain that China will continue to give priority to economic growth, especially in poorer regions.

The ministry has not been involved in climate change discussions, and environmental activists say it has been frozen out of policy debates about the development of hydropower -- seen as a key part of China's "low-carbon" strategy over the next decade.

Zhang said it would be "very easy" to sacrifice the economy for the environment, but the crucial issue for local governments was greener growth, and China already had systems to ensure regions meet their duty to both create jobs and protect health.

China aims to keep annual growth at around 7 percent in the next five years, but Zhao Hualin, head of the ministry's pollution control office, told reporters the GDP target was only for "guidance" and would not supersede environmental goals.

China will publish its detailed "five-year plan" for the environment after it has been approved by the State Council, the country's cabinet. It has already announced that sulphur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand will be cut by a further 8 percent in the next five years, and nitrogen oxide and ammonium nitrate will also be cut by 8 to 10 percent.

Zhang said nitrogen oxide represented the biggest challenge, and China should consider imposing car ownership curbs in its largest cities and also cap coal consumption in built-up regions such as the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas.

Responding to the closure of three nuclear power plants in Japan following the country's biggest ever earthquake on Friday, Zhang said Beijing would keep a close eye on the situation.

"We have already begun monitoring coastal cities to test whether Japan's nuclear leaks will affect China but up to now everything is normal."

He said radioactive emissions standards around China's 13 existing reactors were actually higher than international norms.

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Water and CO2 - the future for China's 5-year plan

In what appears to be great timing the Chinese government has just announced that water and CO2 will be priorities for the next 5 year plan.

This matches perfectly with news this week that a one-day workshop sponsored by EDF on "The Global Impact of China's Energy Demand" has been confirmed to be run in Paris in June.

More details to come but it promises to be an interesting session.

Apologies for posting the whole article but (1) it is an excellent summary and (2) I will need to refer to it on a regular basis and what better way to record the text than to blog it here.

Water, CO2 The Priorities For China's 5-Year Plan [Planet Ark]

Tackling environmental problems from carbon emissions to water pollution will be a key focus of a new five-year plan that China will launch during its annual parliament session starting on Saturday.

The plan for 2011-2015 will include new directives aimed at reversing the damage done by 30 years of untrammeled growth, and it will also aim to give a fillip to clean and renewable energy.

The challenges were put in stark focus in an essay by environment minister Zhou Shengxian on Monday.

"The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the deterioration of the environment have become serious bottlenecks constraining economic and social development," he wrote.

China, the world's biggest source of climate change-inducing greenhouse gases, will put the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions at the top of its agenda.

But those same commitments could also spell bad news for China's vulnerable river systems with hydropower capacity set to surge by 140 gigawatts by 2015. That's nearly three times Australia's total power generation capacity.

Beijing has already pledged to reduce carbon intensity -- the amount of CO2 produced per unit of economic growth -- by 40-45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

It also aims to raise the share of renewables to 15 percent of the country's total energy mix.

"The targets will not be as ambitious as we hoped, because the 2020 targets aren't that ambitious," said Ailun Yang, China campaign manager with Greenpeace.

"I would put much more emphasis on the detailed measures, which are much more important than the targets themselves."

Detailed targets will emerge in the coming months as individual industries issue their own five-year plans.

The government wants to clean up heavy industries such as steel and aluminum, encourage non-fossil fuels, cut nitrogen oxide emissions and improve water and air quality.

BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Enforcing new restrictions and targets, especially for CO2 emissions, will test the central government's clout.

Premier Wen Jiabao said last month China would cut energy and carbon intensity by 16-17 percent over the 2011-2015 period, less of a challenge than the 17.3 percent figure suggested last year.

Experts say energy intensity -- the amount used per unit of GDP -- needs to fall by 20 percent to achieve an 18 percent cut in CO2 intensity, but Wen did not make the distinction.

Yang Fuqiang, director of global climate solutions at the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said cutting CO2 intensity by less than 17 percent was little more than "business as usual."

"There is a game being played by the central and local governments, and if the central government adopts 16 percent they will lose their authority because it shows that 'government orders don't go beyond Zhongnanhai'," he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

Yang said a 16 percent cut could allow China to hit the 40 percent carbon intensity goal by 2020, while an 18 percent cut would take it toward the higher 45 percent target.

A commitment to use market mechanisms in the fight against climate change is also expected, with a number of provinces keen to launch pilot emissions trading programs. Detailed plans will emerge later this year.

Analysts have said China might consider an absolute energy consumption cap over the 2011-2015 period, and draft policies to restrict coal production to 3.6-3.8 billion tons by 2015 have also been leaked to the local press. Provinces such as Guangdong might impose their own energy caps to stimulate city-to-city emission trading, but government researchers have dismissed the idea of a national limit.

"There are no such plans," said Zheng Shuai, researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, but added some academics have proposed Beijing implement a limit on fossil fuel use without imposing an overall cap on energy use.

"This is more realistic because it will allow and encourage the use of renewable energy," Zheng said.

DAM NATION

China is desperate to improve its depleted, contaminated rivers, which have been blighted by a spate of burst tailings dams, untreated chemical discharges and plant explosions in the past five years.

In 2009, nearly 20 percent of the length of China's major rivers and lakes were judged unfit even for irrigating crops, according to government figures.

Environment minister Zhou said Beijing will aim to cut 2007 levels of heavy metal discharges in key regions and industries by 15 percent in the next five years.

"We understand thousands of key heavy metal polluters will be put under tightened monitoring and this is important," said Ma Jun of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-government organization that monitors water pollution.

"But there is a lack of transparency and we believe public scrutiny could generate the motivation to cut their emissions."

China will also push for more water conservation, imposing stricter water consumption standards heavy industry.

"We expect to see more action on that but I still believe that the first step is pollution," said Ma.

"The huge volume of wastewater discharge is destroying our very limited clean water resources and if we continue to allow that we cannot talk about recycling and conservation."

But the commitment to cleaning up rivers could be undermined if binding carbon targets lead to a renewed drive for large hydropower dams and reservoirs throughout China.

The five-year energy sector plan is expected to back controversial hydropower plants on China's Nu River, also known as the Salween. Previously untouched rivers in Tibet may be next.

"We need to realize that large hydro by itself has such a large environmental impact that it shouldn't be considered a renewable energy," said Ma.

"In 2004, China overtook the United States as the world's largest hydropower capacity but the plan is to more than triple that by 2020 -- that means in many of our rivers there won't be running water.

New Book: "Foreign Firms, Investment, and Environmental Regulation in the People's Republic of China"

From the inbox:

An interesting new book has just been released by Phillip Stalley (Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePaul University in Chicago) looking at environmental regulations and industry location in China.

Without knowing the content I am unable to provide a full review but it should link in with a number of my recent papers looking at China and the environment. In my opinion China is where all the action is. I look forward to reading this book.















Some of my recent papers in this area include:

Cole, M.A., Elliott, R.J.R. and Zhang, J. (forthcoming). Growth, FDI and the Environment: Evidence from Chinese Cities. Journal of Regional Science.

Cole, M., Elliott, R.J.R. and Zhang, J. (2009), Corruption, Governance and FDI Location in China: A Province-level Analysis, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 45, 9, 1494-1513.

Cole, M.A., Elliott, R.J.R. and Wu, S. (2008), Industrial Activity and the Environment in China: An Industry Level Analysis, China Economic Review, Vol. 19, 3, pp.393-408

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China seeks binding deal "with principles"

China was unhappy with the post-Copenhagen reviews some of which squarely blamed China for the failure to come up with a deal that could be considered anywhere close to a "good deal for the climate".

China will not attempt to take the moral high ground and to put the pressure back on the US. My understanding is that China does accept its obligations and is making considerable progress to reduce per-capita emissions even in the face of continued economic growth.

Of course China has a strong incentive with China likely to experience significant discomfort from climate change induced whether events and rising sea levels.

What is interesting is China is blaming US politics for the failure at Copenhagen. It is hard to argue against this claim. Obama is well meaning but will find it hard to fight against the lobbying powers of big industry in the US.

What is more interesting from this small news item is the following quote:

Li Gao, a senior Chinese negotiator on climate change, said his government would remain unyielding on issues of "principle" in the talks aimed at forging a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

What this means is that China will require a deal along the lines of the 80:20 that has been previously mooted. The West reduces emissions by 80% and the developing world by 20%. After all, the vast majority of CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by us.

What does this posturing really mean? It means that chances of a deal are close to zero and our expectations for Cancun should be low. Mine never got off "low" before Copenhagen and are certainly no higher. Chinese "principles" are hard to change.


China Seeks Binding Climate Treaty Late 2011: Report [Planet Ark]

China wants the world to seal a binding climate change treaty by late 2011, a Chinese negotiator said in a newspaper on Friday, blaming U.S. politics for impeding talks and making a deal on global warming impossible this year.

Li Gao, a senior Chinese negotiator on climate change, said his government would remain unyielding on issues of "principle" in the talks aimed at forging a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The first period of that key treaty on fighting global warming expires at the end of 2012.

Li also vowed to keep pressing rich countries to promise deeper cuts to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activity that are stoking global warming, said the China Economic Times, which reported his comments.

Many governments and experts have already dismissed hopes for a full climate change treaty at the next major negotiation meeting, to be held in Cancun, Mexico at the end of this year.

Li underscored that gloom, but also said his government hoped Cancun could be a stepping stone to negotiations next year that will culminate in a meeting in South Africa in November.

"China hopes that based on the outcomes from Cancun, we'll be able to settle on a legally binding document at the meeting in South Africa," Li said, according to the Chinese-language newspaper.

"After the South Africa meeting, we'll move to concrete implementation."

Li oversees the international climate change negotiations office at China's National Development and Reform Commission, a sprawling agency that steers economy policy.

The deadline for a new binding global pact was originally set for late 2009, but a final round of negotiations in Copenhagen ended in acrimonious failure, with some Western politicians saying China was not willing to compromise.

China will be a crucial player in the follow-up talks.

With its 1.3 billion people, it is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, but is also a developing country with average emissions per capita well below those of wealthy economies.

The United States, European Union and other governments want China to take on stronger commitments to control and eventually cut its emissions.

But Li said it was U.S. political uncertainty that had stymied any hope of the Cancun meeting agreeing on a treaty to succeed Kyoto.

"The biggest obstacle comes from the United States," he said. "Without any (climate change) legislation, it can't possibly join in a legally binding international document."

The U.S. Senate has dropped efforts to put emissions curbs in an energy bill now focused on reforming offshore drilling.

Negotiators from nearly 200 nations are haggling over a complex draft accord on climate change, and a further round of talks at the northern Chinese port of Tianjin opens on October 4.

Li said Beijing would keep pressing for certain principles, including that developing countries like China should not shoulder the same absolute caps on emissions that rich countries must take on.

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