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China Proposes Emission Limits on Richer Nations

From the Wall Street Journal:

China said developed nations must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels, according to a document outlining its stance ahead of December climate talks in Copenhagen.

China is also asking rich countries to donate at least 0.5% to 1% of their annual gross domestic product to help poorer countries cope with climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, it said in the document, which was posted on the Web site of the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic policy-making body that governs China’s greenhouse gas emissions policy.

International negotiators are hoping to conclude a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012, in an effort to limit the growth of global-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The 40% target represents the high end of cuts in emissions mentioned in the 2007 Bali roadmap, which stopped short of endorsing a specific target.
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- May 21, 2009 2:10 PM
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Halts Construction of Power Plant on Nu River

Premier Wen Jiabao has again suspended construction on the Liuku power station on the Nu River until after a thorough study of the hydroelectric dam’s potential environmental impact. Work on damming the Nu River has proceeded in fits and starts since 2004 in a tug of war between environmental activists and the power industry. Jane Macartney reports for the Times Online:

The Prime Minister of China has ordered a halt to construction of a hydroelectric plant on one of the country’s most remote and beautiful rivers. He has demanded an in-depth study of the likely impact on the local ecology and communities.

The decision, which will enrage power companies as well as local vested interests, was welcomed by China’s increasingly vocal environmental campaigners.

[...]One campaigner said that the importance of the Premier’s decision should not be underestimated. “The Nu River is one of only two rivers in China that have not yet been dammed. There has been no research on the biodiversity of the river where there may be many valuable and endangered animals and plants. If they are overwhelmed the losses can never be reversed,” she said.
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- May 21, 2009 12:04 PM
Guardian: China’s Water Crisis

As part of their China at the Crossroads series, the Guardian looks at China’s water crisis. One article visits eco-refugees in Gansu:

Huang is one of millions of Chinese eco-refugees who have been resettled because their home environments degraded to the point where they were no longer fit for human habitation. The government says more than 150 million people will have to be moved. Water shortages exacerbated by over-irrigation and climate change are the main cause.

The problem is most severe in the north-west, where desert sands are swallowing up farmland, homes and towns. Huang lives in Mingqin, a shrinking oasis area that government advisers privately describe as an “ecological disaster area”.

The Yellow river is diverted more than 62 miles (100km) to replenish dried-up reservoirs and aquifers in Minqin, where the population has swollen from 860,000 to 2.3 million over the last 60 years, even as water supplies have declined.

It is not enough. The Tengger desert is encroaching from the south-east and the Badain Jaran desert from the north-west. Since 1950 the oasis has shrunk by 111 square miles (288 sq km), while the number of annual superdust storms has increased more than fourfold. In Liangzhou district, 240 of the 291 springs have dried up.

Watch the video report.

Another report (and video) looks at critics of the south-north water diversion project:

The Guardian was the first foreign news organisation to enter the pits and tunnels at Jiaozuo in Henan province, which are at the centre of China’s latest, greatest engineering project, the South-North Water Diversion Scheme. In the spirit of President Hu Jintao’s drive for “scientific development”, the aim is to engineer a solution to the most pressing environmental problem – the alarming depletion of water resources in the arid, heavily populated north.

More than twice as expensive as the Three Gorges Dam and three times longer than the railway to Tibet, the 50-year, $62bn (£40.67bn) project aims to channel a greater volume than the Thames along three channels – each more than 600 miles long – from the moist Yangtze basin up to the dry lands above the Yellow river.

[...] The project has sparked so many ecological, financial and political concerns that government advisers are calling for the plan to be delayed and, possibly, curtailed, raising the possibility that this could prove a mega-project too far even for China. First proposed in 1962, the scheme was approved by Mao Zedong, who said it was fine for the south to “lend a little water”, but until recently the government has not had the money or technical ability to go ahead.

Read more from the Guardian’s China at the Crossroads series.
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- May 20, 2009 10:46 AM
Paul Krugman: Empire of Carbon

From the New York Times:

Like every visitor to China, I was awed by the scale of the country’s development. Even the annoying aspects — much of my time was spent viewing the Great Wall of Traffic — are byproducts of the nation’s economic success.

But China cannot continue along its current path because the planet can’t handle the strain.

The scientific consensus on prospects for global warming has become much more pessimistic over the last few years. Indeed, the latest projections from reputable climate scientists border on the apocalyptic. Why? Because the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios.

And the growth of emissions from China — already the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide — is one main reason for this new pessimism.
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- May 15, 2009 4:53 PM
Video: Guanzhou Modernized

China Green, a multimedia venture of the Asia Society that focuses on China’s environmental challenges, has posted a new video about Guanzhou Island, off of Guangzhou:

Guanzhou Modernized explores the development of Guanzhou Island, a pocket of untouched farmland in the center of Guangzhou, south China’s metropolis of light industry.

Guanzhou sits to the southeast of the Guangzhou economic machine. It’s a place that was simply leapfrogged by development. Further south, beyond University City, is Panyu, a suburban area now boasting Asia’s largest water park. To the north and west is the dense urban network of buildings and streets of a massive city on the make. Once you zoom out a bit, the wresting of land from villagers not too far from some of the most expensive land in China seems not only inevitable but long overdue.
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- May 15, 2009 1:44 PM
China Emerges as a Leader in Cleaner Coal Technology

Despite China’s abundant use of coal which worries environmentalists around the world, the country is also at the forefront of developing cleaner coal power plants, the New York Times reports:

While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.

Construction has stalled in the United States on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it, although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday that the Obama administration might revive one power plant of this type. But China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant, to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin.

“The steps they’ve taken are probably as fast and as serious as anywhere in power-generation history,” said Hal Harvey, president of ClimateWorks, a group in San Francisco that helps finance projects to limit global warming.
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- May 10, 2009 8:25 PM
The Green Dawn in U.S.-China Relations

China is making progress in its environmental practices, according to a Xinhua article by Lucy-Claire Saunders:

In 2006, Forbes magazine named Shi Zhengrong, a little-known Chinese scientist, one of the world’s billionaires. Three years later, his company, Suntech Power Holdings Ltd, is worth an estimated 6 billion U.S. dollars and stands as the world’s fourth largest producer of solar panels.

It is no coincidence that China is home to one of the world’s leading solar energy companies. Recent legislation like the country’s landmark 2005 Renewable Energy Law has contributed to China’s rapid success in emerging renewable energy markets, Christopher Flavin, president of World Watch Institute, a think tank on sustainability based in Washington D.C., said in a recent phone interview with Xinhua.

In fact, it is hard for environmental experts like Flavin not to be optimistic about China’s initiative in combating climate change. The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s top economic planning agency, said in early December that about 40 percent of China’s 586-billion-U.S.-dollar stimulus package is allocated to “green” themes such as biological conservation, environmental protection, and transportation infrastructure, including rail and power grids.
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- May 9, 2009 4:08 PM
A Map of China’s Cancer Villages

Chinese reporter Deng Fei and Doubleaf have Google Mapped China’s cancer villages. A screenshot is below. See the Google Map here.
The map also provides news report details on each of the listed villages. The following is a portion of that list, translated by CDT:

(1) Yancheng City, Funing County, Guhe Township, Yangqiao Village
Jiangnan Times: 2004 report

Due to its proximity to an agricultural chemical plant and two chemical factories, this village saw 20 people die of cancer (primarily lung cancer and esophageal cancer) between 2001-2004. Because the air and water were polluted, villagers would cover their mouths with a moist towel while sleeping. Ducks were raised not by the waterside, but rather in pig pens.

盐城市阜宁县古河镇洋桥村
（《江南时报》2004年报道）

因为靠近一家农药厂、两家化工厂，该村于2001—2004年有20多人死于癌症（以肺癌、食道癌为主）。因空气和水污染，村民睡觉时以湿毛巾捂口鼻，鸭子不在水边而在猪圈里放养。

(2) Yancheng City, Funing County, Yangji Township, Dongjin Village
China Business Report: 2008 report

After receiving heavy pollution from the Julong chemical factory, 100 villagers died of cancer between 2001-2006 (mainly esophageal cancer and lung cancer). Villagers would eat liver tablets every day. Villagers brought a lawsuit against the chemical factory, but each person would only receive a 70 yuan subsidy.

盐城市阜宁县杨集镇东进村
（《中国经营报》2008年报道）

受巨龙化工厂严重污染，2001—2006年5年间死于癌症（以食道癌、肺癌为主）的村民近100人，村民每天吃护肝片。化工厂曾被村民起诉，只开出每人70块钱的补助条件。

(3-4) Zhenjiang City, Dantu Region, Gaoqiao Township, Gaoqiao Village
Zhenjiang City, Dantu Region, Huangxu Township, Shimen Village
China Environmental News: 2004 report

Due to the pollution of the drainage network, treatments for malignancies at the regional hospital began to increase in 1997. 71% of those treated came from southeast village townships that were fairly economically developed.

镇江市丹徒区高桥镇高桥村
镇江市丹徒区黄墟镇土门村
（《中国环境报》2004年报道）

因水系污染，仅在区医院收治的恶性肿瘤病人从1997年起呈显著上升趋势，71％是来自本区经济比较发达的东南部乡镇。

(5) Nanchang City, Xinjian County, Wangcheng Township, *****
Jiangnan Metropolis Paper: 2004 report

When a chemical factory’s polluted water flowed into rice paddies, the paddies’ seedlings were all blackened. In 2004, in 80 households, nearly 20 people contracted cancer. Laryngeal cancer and lung cancer were the main types of cancer.

南昌市新建县望城镇璜溪垦殖场

（《江南都市报》2004年报道）

从化工厂里外漏的污水流进水稻田，将田里的水稻苗全部染黑。2004年，80户人家近20人患癌，以喉癌、肺癌为主。

(6) Yushan County, Yanrui Township, Guanshan Qiao Village
People’s Daily: 2006 report

Six limekilns near the village emitted fine coal ash throughout the year, leading to a decrease in production for over 100 acres of food provision fields. Even when it rained, the tops of leaves would retain a layer of white ash. In recent years, over 60 household groups had over 10 people die of cancer.

玉山县岩瑞镇关山桥村
（《人民日报》2006年报道）

村子附近的6个石灰窑常年外喷灰粉末、煤烟，导致关山桥村100多亩粮田减产，即使在下雨天，菜叶上也一层白灰。近年60余户的小组有10多人死于癌症。

(7) Deyang Shifang Shuangsheng Township, Tingjiang Village
China Economic Times: 2008 report

This village evaded the earthquake, but couldn’t escape pollution. In 2008, the number of people who died of cancer numbered at 50 to 60 people. Yang Jia was a young person of this village who helped with disaster relief efforts after the Wenchuan earthquake. His mother contracted oral cancer and then commited suicide by imbibing agricultural chemicals.

德阳什邡市双盛镇亭江村
（《中国经济时报》2008年报道）

该村躲过了地震却难逃污染，至2008年，癌症致死者达五六十人。该村在汶川地震中的抗震救灾英雄少年杨佳，其母于3年前因患口腔癌而喝下农药自尽。

(8) Shenqiu County, Zhouying Village (Huangmengying Village and 21 other villages)
Xi’An Evening News: 2004 report

For 14 years (1990-2004), over 100 people died of cancer in Shenqiu’s Huangmengying village, accounting for nearly half of all total deaths. Cancer developed as a result of industry on the waterfront, and uncontrolled discharge of sewage was caused by heavy water pollution. In all of Shenqiu County, 21 townships were contaminated. Villagers had to use credit to buy purified water.

沈丘县周营乡（黄孟营村等21个村庄）
（《西安晚报》2004年报道）

沈丘黄孟营村14年（1990-2004）间因癌死亡逾百人，占死亡总人数近半。癌症源于沙颍河上游工业、生活污水任意排放所造成的严重水污染。沈丘全县21个乡镇全部被污染，村民只得赊账买纯净水。

(9) Shaoguan, Wengyuan Counties; Xinjiang Township, Shangba village and 5 other villages.
Legal Daily: 2001 report

A large amount of mining waste water flowed into Shangba village. The little “village of fish and rice,” saw its arable land take on a brownish-red color. According to reports, an increasing number of villagers are contracting skin disease, liver disease, and cancer. As for ducks that go into the water, the fastest death happens within 4 to 5 hours, and the slowest occurs within 3 to 4 days.

韶关翁源县新江镇5个村庄
韶关翁源县新江镇（上坝村等5个村庄）
（《法制日报》2001年报道）

矿山开采产生的大量废水流入上坝村、小镇村，曾为“鱼米之乡”的小村，耕地变成了棕红色。至报道时，该村皮肤病、肝病、癌症患者越来越多，鸭子下水后，最快四五个小时就会死掉，最慢三四天也会死掉。

(10) Xiangfan City, Zhuji Township, Diwan Village
Changjiang Industry Paper: 2006 report

Within 3 years, a village of 3000 had over 100 people die of cancer. Among those, most were laborers between their thirties and fifties, in the prime of their lives. Villagers blame the nearby polluted river.

襄樊市朱集镇翟湾村

（《长江商报》2006年报道）

3年内3000人的村庄里100多人死于癌症，其中大多是30到50岁的青壮年劳力。村民认为这些是因为流经村旁的那条他们赖以生存的小河受到了严重污染。

Read more about China’s cancer villages, here.
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- May 8, 2009 9:39 PM
‘Green’ Lightbulbs Poison Workers

As governments and environmental advocates are increasingly encouraging citizens to use compact fluorescent lightbulbs to decrease the emission of carbon dioxide, a toll is being paid by Chinese workers who produce the mercury-filled bulbs. From The Times:

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China - which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain - are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.

Making the bulbs requires workers to handle mercury in either solid or liquid form because a small amount of the metal is put into each bulb to start the chemical reaction that creates light.
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- May 5, 2009 5:10 PM
China Triples Wind Power Capacity Goal: Report

From AFP:

China has more than tripled its target for wind power capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2020, likely making it the world’s fastest growing market for wind energy technology, state press said.

China is aiming for an annual wind power growth rate of 20 percent for the foreseeable future, Feng Junshi, an official with the National Energy Administration, told a Beijing conference, according to the China Daily.

The new target for 2020 is up from a goal of 30 gigawatts announced by the government 18 months ago, the report said.

China currently has 12 gigawatts of installed wind power, but that is set to grow to 20 gigawatts by next year, the newspaper said.
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- May 4, 2009 5:31 AM
Three Gorges To-Do List: Mudslides to Jobs

Caijing has translated their report on the myriad of challenges facing the Three Gorges Dam, including a slew of “dangerous geological events” in the central Yangtze River area around the dam:

About 9,000 people have been affected and 133 hectares of land destroyed, the official said. Economic losses so far have totaled 500 million yuan. And farmers are among the hardest hit. “More than 2,000 farmers have been deprived of their livelihoods,” the official said.

Against the backdrop of these messy and sometimes tragic events, disputes over the Three Gorges project were voiced by legislators in Beijing for the first time at this year’s spring sessions of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Delegates from Chongqing Municipality and Hubei Province advanced combined 18 suggestions, proposals and motions at the March sessions. They called for reallocating the shares of water, electricity and income from the Three Gorges Hydropower Complex, the world’s largest water conservancy project. They also urged all parties involved to share responsibility for resettling people displaced by the dam, environmental protection, and controlling geological hazards.

These issues are not new. Indeed, the debates often have been heard outside Beijing throughout a long construction period that officially began in December 1994 — two years after relocation and resettlement of residents in affected areas began – and is expected to end this year.
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- April 29, 2009 11:36 AM
Energy Retrofitting: The Story of Sohota

The Asia Society’s China Green project has produced a new documentary about an energy retrofitting firm. Watch it below:

China’s economic boom has fueled a flurry of real estate construction, but the growth has also exacerbated the nation’s growing energy crisis. While millions of Chinese have seen their standard of living increase, if the government fails to enforce building and energy efficiency standards, China will soon be unable to power itself as a nation. Despite some progress made between 1980 and 2000, energy intensity, a measure for the energy efficiency of a nation’s economy, has dropped dramatically.

The Chinese government has responded by setting a five-year plan to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent by 2010. The plan calls for buildings in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin to implement energy savings by about 65 percent. Despite such government support, improvement has been slow. Nevertheless, experts agree China may be on the cusp of a green building boom due to a growing number of private energy service companies (ESCOS) nationwide.

Sohota Electric, an energy savings company in Zhuhai, Guangdong is one of those firms. Twelve years ago, company President Chen Xiaogang began selling energy efficient appliances and products, though demand for them was nowhere near it is today. He remembers trying to pitch the idea of energy retrofitting to oil refineries and other state-owned enterprises. Nobody bought it. Now, a decade later, Chen’s clientele includes state television broadcaster CCTV, whose energy bill Sohota has cut by 16 percent.

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- April 24, 2009 9:36 AM
China’s Forests Have Role in Soaking Up CO2 - Study

Alister Doyle of Reuters reports on the role of Chinese forests in carbon dioxide absorption:

A study by Peking University said that increased summer rains, efforts to plant forests, an expansion of shrubland, shifts in crop use and higher bamboo mass soaked up between 28 and 37 percent of industrial emissions in the 1980s and 1990s.

The study gave the first estimate of the impact of plants in offsetting carbon dioxide emissions in China, which has recently overtaken the United States as top emitter. Plants soak up carbon as they grow and release it when they burn or rot.

The report, in the journal Nature, also said that China’s plants and soils soaked up more carbon per square metre than in Europe but less than in the United States.

But a U.S. scientist said the percentage of emissions absorbed by plants was falling because a surge in economic growth in recent years meant China’s industrial emissions were expanding faster than vegetation.
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- April 22, 2009 9:08 PM
China to Build 20 Hydro Dams on Yangtze River

In order to harness more of its potential hydropower resources, China will build 20 hydro dams along its Yangtze River. From People’s Daily Online:

China will boost the use of the hydroelectric resources along the Yangtze River in the coming decades despite increasing oppositions, according to a strategic development plan of the river unveiled by the Ministry of Water Resources yesterday.

By 2020, about 50 percent of the hydropower resources of China’s longest river will be utilized.

The ratio is expected to reach 60 percent by 2030, Cai Qihua, director of the Yangtze Water Resources Committee, affiliated with the ministry, told the 3rd Yangtze Forum opened in Shanghai yesterday.

Not everyone is looking forward to the dam creation. From the Associated Press:

But environmentalists and scientists have questioned the effect of big dams on the environment, with some reporting problems.

A recent Chinese Academy of Sciences report said the Three Gorges Dam is harming water quality and ecosystems of the wetlands as well as fish stocks, the official China Daily newspaper reported Monday.

Climate change is also likely to reduce the river’s water supply because rainfall has decreased every year since 2006, it said.
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- April 21, 2009 10:12 PM
Slump Tilts Priorities of Industry in China

Environmental concerns have taken a backseat to economic interests in the global financial crisis. From Jonathan Ansfield of the New York Times:

A year ago, pollution was a top issue around Duanjialing.

Now, amid the global economic downturn, priorities have shifted.

Cumbersome environmental reviews have been accelerated, state bank loans are flowing freely again and workers are welding the grinding mills of Sanhe Yongsheng Cement, one of the new cement plants under construction not far from China’s capital.

[...] In the rush to invest $585 billion in stimulus spending and revive flagging industrial production, China has at least temporarily backpedaled on some environmental restraints imposed, though with limited impact, during the country’s long boom.
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- April 18, 2009 1:15 PM