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China and India Join Climate Accord

Three months after the conference, both India and China have agreed to formally sign onto the climate change agreement reached at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. From the New York Times:

The two countries, among the largest and fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, submitted letters to the United Nations agreeing to be included on a list of countries covered by the Copenhagen Accord, a three-page nonbinding statement reached at the end of the contentious and chaotic 10-day conference.

China and India join nearly 200 countries that have signed up under the accord, which calls for limiting the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond pre-industrial levels.

The agreement also calls for spending as much as $100 billion a year to help emerging countries adapt to climate change and develop low-carbon energy systems, to bring energy technology more quickly to the developing world and to take steps to protect tropical forests from destruction.
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- March 9, 2010 1:44 PM
Officials in China at Odds Over Food Scandal

The New York Times reports on a food safety scandal which has caused a rare public tussle between officials in Wuhan and Hainan:

Since late February, batches of cowpeas from the lush Sanya area of the island of Hainan have tested positive for a highly toxic pesticide, isocarbophos, that is banned from use on fruits and vegetables, according to a report on Tuesday in China Daily, the official English-language newspaper. Tainted cowpeas from here have been found in the provinces of Hubei, Guangdong, Anhui and Jiangsu.

The pesticide was banned in Hainan in 2004 but can still be found in remote parts of the island, China Daily reported. Some farmers still use it because it is much cheaper than legal pesticides. Though Hainan is well known among Chinese for its sweeping beaches and five-star resorts, it also has a mountainous interior with rich farmland, much of it on terraced hillsides.

The outrage over the Hainan cowpeas, the latest in a series of Chinese food safety scandals in recent years, erupted on Feb. 21, when the agriculture bureau of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, announced that it had destroyed 3.5 tons of toxic cowpeas from Hainan. An urgent nationwide warning was issued by the central government’s Ministry of Agriculture, and within days, cowpeas tainted with the banned pesticide were discovered in the three other provinces.

Officials here in Sanya have criticized the Wuhan officials for breaking an “unspoken rule” that officials in different cities and provinces report problems to one another rather than telling the public, China Daily reported.
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- March 2, 2010 9:16 PM
In China, Wal-Mart Presses Suppliers on Labor, Environmental Standards

Wal-Mart, one of China’s biggest customers, has asked its thousands of suppliers to tighten their environmental standards. From the Washington Post:

Wal-Mart has more than 10,000 suppliers in China. In addition, about a million farmers supply produce to the company’s 281 stores in China. If Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation, it would be China’s fifth- or sixth-largest export market. So the company hopes that small measures taken by all suppliers start to add up. Its 200 biggest suppliers in China have already trimmed 5 percent of their energy use.

In the past, environmental concerns have taken a back seat to growth in China and to costs for Wal-Mart. And China and Wal-Mart have come under sharp criticism for conditions in factories. Yet pollution now threatens China’s growth; as a result, awareness of climate change and energy security has spread in China. Likewise, as consumers grow more environmentally aware, Wal-Mart’s executives have responded. On Thursday, the company pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.

In October 2008, Wal-Mart held a conference in Beijing for a thousand of its biggest suppliers to urge them to pay attention not only to price but also to “sustainability,” which has become a touchstone for many companies.
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- February 27, 2010 9:51 PM
China’s Golf Obsession

In Foreign Policy, Dan Washburn writes about golf in China, and a massive new course currently being built on Hainan Island and its impact on local ecology and culture. His brief essay accompanies a slideshow by Ryan Pyle:

The future of golf has shifted to a most unlikely place: China, where statistically 0 percent of the population plays, where up until the mid-1980s the sport was banned by the communists for being too bourgeois, and where the construction of new courses is still technically illegal. It has been said about China, however, that while nothing is allowed there, everything is possible. So even during its supposed moratorium on golf course construction, China has managed to emerge as the only country in the world in the midst of a “golf boom”: Hundreds, some say thousands, of courses are expected to open in the next several years.

The epicenter of this growth is China’s tropical island province of Hainan, not long ago a lawless place with an economy built largely on smuggling, prostitution, and unchecked property speculation. Beijing is now determined to transform Hainan into a tourist paradise, with golf expected to play a major role (so much so that many joke Hainan is now a “special golf development zone” where mainland restrictions don’t apply). While between 100 and 300 courses are expected to be built here, the most mysterious project — and by far the most audacious — is the latest offering from Hong Kong’s Mission Hills Group, already owners of a 12-course resort in southern China’s Guangdong province. Its Hainan club, when completed, will be the world’s largest, with some 22 courses covering an area nearly 1.5 times the size of Manhattan. But the highly secretive Mission Hills development, a behemoth undertaking that displaced thousands of villagers, is also the most controversial, so controversial that it required a code name: Project 791.

With the central government guaranteeing a “top international tourism destination” by 2020, Hainan’s destiny appears predetermined. No one disputes the poor province’s many infrastructure needs, but the prospect of another decade of furious growth has some on the island concerned for its already fragile ecology and centuries-old ways of rural life.

Read more on this subject on Dan Washburn’s blog Par for China. Last month, the Financial Times Magazine ran a lengthy cover article by Washburn and Pyle.
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- February 25, 2010 12:06 PM
China’s Fears of Rich Nation ‘Climate Conspiracy’ at Copenhagen Revealed

Jonathan Watts, Damian Carrington and Suzanne Goldenberg report in the Guardian:

Rich nations furthered their “conspiracy to divide the developing world” at December’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen, while Canada “connived” and the EU acted “to please the United States”, according to an internal document from a Chinese government thinktank obtained by the Guardian.

The document, which was written in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen but has only now come to light, provides the most candid insight yet into Chinese thinking on the fraught summit.

“It was unprecedented for a conference negotiating process to be so complicated, for the arguments to be so intense, for the disputes to be so wide and for progress to be so slow,” notes the special report. “There was criticism and praise from all sides, but future negotiations will be more difficult.”

The authors – all members of a government environmental research institute – were not part of the Chinese negotiating team, but their paper was commissioned by the environment ministry and circulated internally to the minister, vice-ministers and department chiefs in the days after the conference. The ministry currently plays only a marginal role in climate policy making but many of the paper’s observations were echoed by China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, in a recent speech given at Beijing University.
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- February 11, 2010 3:23 PM
China’s Year of the (Endangered) Tiger

Illegal hunting and habitat loss has reduced the number of wild tigers in China to fewer than 50. From The Star:

China ushers in the Year of the Tiger on Sunday, kicking off a week-long celebration marked by festive fireworks and family gatherings.

But conservationists warn that unless China and a dozen other countries act urgently, wild tigers will vanish from the planet by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger.

A century ago, more than 100,000 big cats roamed the Earth, but stocks have plummeted: scientists say there are now just 3,200.

China, once home to thousands of wild tigers, has fewer than 50.
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- February 9, 2010 2:36 PM
Chinese Farms Cause More Pollution than Factories, Says Official Survey

The first Chinese census on pollution has revealed that fertilizers and pesticides, and not smokestacks, are the country’s biggest sources of water pollution. From The Guardian:

Senior officials said the disclosure, after a two-year study involving 570,000 people, would require a partial realignment of environmental policy from smoke stacks to chicken coops, cow sheds and fruit orchards.

Despite the sharp upward revision of figures on rural contamination, the government suggested the country’s pollution problem may be close to – or even past – a peak. That claim is likely to prompt scepticism among environmental groups.

According to insiders, the release of the groundbreaking report was delayed by resistance from the agriculture ministry, which had previously insisted that farms contributed only a tiny fraction of pollution in China.

The census disproves these claims completely. According to the study, agriculture is responsible for 43.7% of the nation’s chemical oxygen demand (the main measure of organic compounds in water), 67% of phosphorus and 57% of nitrogen discharges.

See also “China Report Shows More Pollution in Waterways” from the New York Times and “Why do lakes in China turn green? Report finds surprising new culprit” from the Christian Science Monitor.
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- February 9, 2010 2:26 PM
Beijing Air: Better?

Asia Society’s China Green project has posted a slideshow of images of Beijing’s air pollution, which gives a dramatic visualization of good and bad air days in Beijing. After monitoring the air quality for three years, they conclude that there have been minimal improvements. On Twitter, China Green is posting daily comparisons of air quality in Beijing and New York.
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- February 2, 2010 9:55 PM
China Renews Its Commitment to Renewable Energy

On the NRDC blog, lawyer Sara Schuman analyzes China’s Renewable Energy Law, which has just been amended:

The original Renewable Energy Law created an umbrella framework for regulating renewable energy in China. (Here is the text of the original law in English and Chinese). Like many laws enacted in China, the Renewable Energy Law left many of the important details to be determined later by various government agencies through regulation. Since the Renewable Energy Law went into effect on January 1, 2006, numerous regulations have been issued to fill in some of these details. Although the amendments do not alter the underlying policy goals of the original law, they do add additional detail to the existing framework to improve implementation of the law’s underlying goals.

In this blog post, I’ll focus on two significant changes: (1) the addition of measures intended to better implement the Mandatory Connection Policy and (2) the streamlining of the renewable energy fund that provides the financial incentives for the renewable energy industry.
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- February 2, 2010 2:51 PM
China’s Yangtze Dam Displaced

For Al Jazeera, Melissa Chan looks at the impact of 12 planned dam projects along the Yangtze on local residents:

The government says that the local economy has been boosted by the first dam project.

Residents in the area have seen their annual incomes more than double, the government says.

Melissa Chan visits the river communities who say the dam has, in fact, had the opposite affect.

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- February 1, 2010 10:25 PM
Jacqui Dixon: The International Expansion of Chinese Dam Builders

From Probe International:

Historically, Western countries have provided the technology for the bulk of China’s hydropower dams. The first turbines to be installed on a river in China was under the Qing Dynasty in 1909, by German company Siemens. But when the Chinese government decided to build the giant Three Gorges and Ertan dams in the early 1990s, it decided to do things differently.

Western equipment suppliers were still needed, yet this time, the rules were that the leading hydropower companies of the time, including ABB, Alstom, General Electric and Siemens, had to manufacture half of the turbines and generators on Chinese soil in co-operation with Chinese partners. As in the case of other manufacturing sector players entering joint ventures with Chinese suppliers, technology and knowledge of dam building were transferred in the process. From that point on, China became one of the biggest players in the international dam market in the 21st century.

Chinese firms are now building 19 of the 24 largest hydropower plants currently under construction worldwide. Roughly half of all the world’s large dams are within China’s borders. With a capacity of more than 170,000 megawatts, China is now the world’s largest producer of hydropower. Chinese manufacturers had been involved in small dam building in countries such as Burma and Nepal for several decades but it was only in 2003 that they entered the exclusive market for large hydropower projects. Three companies which had picked up the latest technology in the Three Gorges and Ertan projects and soon managed to underprice and outpace their Western competitors were Dongfang Electrical Machinery, Harbin Power Equipment and Sinohydro, China’s leading Beijing-based hydropower contractor. Adapting Western technology to poor-country needs, China’s hydropower companies have ventured into foreign markets en masse.
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- January 31, 2010 11:14 PM
Interview with Liu Jianqiang: Environmental Journalism and Censorship in China

Asia Society interviewed environmental journalist Liu Jianqiang about journalism, new media, and the environmental movement in China. A former investigative reporter for Southern Weekend, Liu is now a columnist and associate editor for China Dialogue:

NS: What are the various impediments to environmental journalism in China and how has this changed over time?

LJ: The environment in China is not politics; politics is very sensitive. Journalists do find it easier to report about the environment. But my question has always been who is really harming China’s environment? It’s not you, me or the common people. It’s the huge interest groups out there. From local governments to companies and corporations, there are huge stakes in maximizing profit.

When we highlight these stories, journalists are threatened by companies and local governments. This one instance, when a colleague and I were reporting about the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam in Yunnan province – my colleague was detained for four hours and when we did publish the article, the hydropower company called us and told me that the report was false and asked us to issue a public apology.
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- January 14, 2010 4:06 PM
Coal Is Linked to Cancer in China Province

Nonsmoking women in one region of Yunnan Province die from lung cancer at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world. The New York Times reports:

A group of scientists now say they have a possible explanation: the burning of coal formed during volcanic eruptions hundreds of millions of years ago.

Coal in that part of China contains high concentrations of silica, a suspected carcinogen, the scientists reported in a recent edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Like others in rural China, the families of Xuanwei County use coal for heat and for cooking. As the coal burns, particles of silica are released with the vapor and inhaled. Women, who do the cooking, face the greatest exposure.
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- January 12, 2010 11:47 AM
China Tries a New Tack to Go Solar

Though China is becoming a leader in renewable energy, its future solar power efforts may see some obstacles in the future. A look at what lies ahead for China’s renewable energy sector, from Keith Bradsher of the New York Times:

As it moves rapidly to become the world’s leader in nuclear power, wind energy and photovoltaic solar panels, China is taking tentative steps to master another alternative energy industry: using mirrors to capture sunlight, produce steam and generate electricity.

So-called concentrating solar power uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors to turn water into steam. The steam turns a conventional turbine similar to those in coal-fired power plants. The technology, which is potentially cheaper than most types of renewable power, has captivated many engineers and financiers in the last two years, with an abrupt surge in new patents and plans for large power operations in Europe and the United States.

This year may be China’s turn. China is starting to build its own concentrating solar power plants, a technology more associated with California deserts than China’s countryside. And Chinese manufacturers are starting to think about exports, part of China’s effort to become the world’s main provider of alternative energy power equipment.

Yet concentrating solar power still faces formidable obstacles here, including government officials who are skeptical that the technology will be useful on a large scale in China.
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- January 8, 2010 8:59 PM
China Oil Spill Reaches Key Water Source

VOA gives an update on the recent massive oil spill, which has now reached the Yellow River, which provides drinking water to millions of Chinese:

State media say the spill in an upstream tributary reached the massive river Monday. Thousands of people in northern China have been told to stop using water from the Yellow River.

The diesel oil spilled last Wednesday from a ruptured pipeline into the Wei River. That pipeline in Shaanxi province is owned by China National Petroleum Corporation. China’s official news agency, Xinhua, says the company immediately closed the pipeline when the leak was discovered, but not before about 150,000 liters had spilled out.

See also a report from BBC.
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- January 4, 2010 10:22 PM