China Digital Times

China news tagged with: environmental protection (112)

• News and Video: U.S. and China to Focus on Environmental Cooperation

  

  According to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, China exceeds the U.S. as the world’s largest energy user and leading emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One of Hillary Clinton’s missions during her visit in Asia is to reach an agreement with China to fight together against the environmental crisis, as the New York Times reported.

  An article in USA Today also reports that climate change is on the table for Clinton in China:

  “The new team in Washington, D.C., is really starting to give the international community some hope in dealing with climate change challenges,” says Wu Changhua, the China director for The Climate Group, an independent advisory group. “It’s crucial for the U.S. to start to demonstrate the leadership that’s been missing for the past eight years.” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu co-produced a study released this month that urges Washington and Beijing to collaborate on climate change. “If these two countries cannot find ways to bridge the long-standing divide on this issue, there will literally be no solution,” the report said.

  The Brookings Institution carries a summary of a past event “U.S.-China Climate Change Cooperation: Overcoming Obstacles” and a transcript of chair of the Brookings board John Thornton’s speech during the event, via brookings.edu:

  China and the United States have many shared interests and extensive area for cooperation on energy and climate change. China is the biggest developing country in the world. The United States is the biggest developed country with advanced technologies and the rich experience in energy efficiency and the clean energy. (Inaudible) cooperation between all two countries, energy and environmental issues will enable China to respond to energy and the climate change issues more effectively while at the same time offering enormous business opportunities and a considerable return to American investors. There has been effective cooperation between China and the United States under the mechanisms of the strategic, economic dialog, the (inaudible) Science and Technology Commission, and other climate change-related dialogs, and within the frameworks of the China-U.S. energy efficiency and the renewable energy protocol and the fossil energy protocol…

  China Dialogue posted an open letter from Greenpeace to urge the two countries to “cooperate on reviving the global economy without sacrificing human health or the environment.”

  Most importantly, it is the year in which the international community, meeting in Copenhagen in December, must agree on urgent and dramatic action to avert the looming climate disaster and define the path toward a more sustainable, more survivable future. Strong leadership from the US and China, acting together, is essential to reaching an agreement in Copenhagen. We are writing to respectfully urge you to demonstrate that leadership. Already, we have seen positive signs. In recent weeks, the US has developed an economic stimulus package that includes substantial investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, demonstrating that economic recovery and environmental sustainability are mutually supportive goals. At the same time, China has begun work on a new energy law that places strong emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, demonstrating that greener development is not only possible but also desirable.

  In the Chinese media, Xinhua News Agency reports on the issue with confidence in the cooperation between the two countries:

  Zhang Haibin noted that the governments of the two countries can establish a sustainable dialogue mechanism on energy and climate change. The United States should provide related Official Development Assistance as well as preferential treatment on loans, financing and technology transfer to China.

  “At the early stage, it is important to launch some large pilot projects. The experience of successful cases can be drawn upon and introduced gradually. Both determination and patience are essential for bilateral cooperation,” he stressed.

  The video clip below is a discussion about China’s growing impact on the global environment during Aspen Idea Festival 2007, between James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly National Correspondent and Orville Shell, China expert and former Dean of Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, via Youtube:

  Another video carried by Youtube with the title “China’s Environmental Crisis Is Spreading” tells that about 30 percent of China’s land mass is covered by desert, and the desert is growing. See more video introduction here.

  - Please also see James Fallows’ comment on this issue yesterday posting on theatlantic.com, along with an introductory video from Asia Society “A Roadmap for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change.”

  » Read more
  • February 21, 2009 12:02 PM

• China Earmarks 73 mln USD for Rural Environment Protection

  

  According to Xinhua:

  China has decided to allocate 500 million yuan (US$73 million) from the central fiscal for rural environment treatment, the Ministry of Environment Protection said Friday.

  The fund would help save 600 villages out of severe environment problems and award 100 others which play exemplary roles in ecology. The program would directly benefit 4 million people, the ministry said.

  The money would be mainly used to address problems of drinking water contamination in rural areas and pollution arising from household livestock raising, and to build polluted water treatment facilities.

  » Read more

  • November 29, 2008 11:15 AM

• China’s Environmental Retreat

  

  From Washington Post:

  In February, the Fuan textile factory became one of the first major casualties of China’s anti-pollution campaign when the multimillion-dollar company was shut down for dumping waste from dyes into a neighboring river and turning it red.

  But as the country’s economy began to cool this fall and job losses mounted, the company was resurrected. Encouraged by the government, Fuan changed its name, moved to a new location and quietly reopened.

  With the global economy at the edge of recession, China appears to be turning away from previous pledges to improve its record on environmental protection. In this, China is hardly alone: A climate-change proposal in Europe that a few months ago seemed like a sure thing has now divided the continent because of its anticipated expense, and worldwide, money for the development of renewable energy sources has been drying up.

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 4:01 AM

• Under a Sooty Exterior, A Green China Emerges

  

  An analysis in Environment 360, a publication of Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, gives an optimistic picture of China’s environmental record and efforts to go green:

  So China is not responsible for where we are today on climate change. And I doubt that either its cumulative or its its per-capita emissions will ever approach those of the U.S. Why? Because, believe it or not, China is going green.

  We hear a lot about China building a new coal-fired power station every week. I checked the stats. It’s worse. It has recently been building two new 1000-megawatt plants each week. But last year, China also built more wind turbines than any other country. And its biogas and solar power industries are also growing fast.

  China’s green credentials are surprisingly good in many respects. China has long led the world in aquaculture. By raising most of its fish in artificial ponds it has done a huge good turn for the world’s ocean fisheries.

  » Read more
  • November 13, 2008 11:18 AM

• After Popular Blue Skies During Olympics, Beijing Brings Back Pollution Controls

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  Wednesday was a “blue sky day” in the Chinese capital.

  But whether that has anything at all to do with the new traffic restrictions that the Beijing government imposed this week seems highly doubtful. There may be less smoke, but there are just as many mirrors when it comes to presenting pollution statistics in China.

  A “blue sky day” in official parlance means a day when the Air Pollution Index is below 100, indicating that the air quality is “excellent” or “good.” It doesn’t necessarily mean you can see the sky, or even the clouds; nor do Chinese definitions of “excellent” and “good” match international ones, but you can’t be picky when you live in Beijing.

  » Read more
  • October 15, 2008 7:49 PM

• Rural Areas Facing an Environmental Crisis

  

  In his interview with People’s Daily, Professor Chen Changhong, director of Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences and Atmospheric Environment Institute, said:

  [...] over the past 16 years, China has constantly explored a way of avoiding the old way of industrialization by polluting first and then treating. With more exchanges with the outside world, China has gradually realized the gap in air quality and environment compared with Europe and other western countries. Because nearly 70% of China’s energy comes from coal, air pollution has been serious.

  Yet, he also pointed out that:

  Of course there are still big challenges for integrating the policies at all levels across the country, improving people’s awareness in saving energy at all levels and how to get the good central policies be implemented effectively at the grassroot level.

  The areas that are facing an environmental crisis, according to China.org.cn’s report, are the rural areas:

  While some progress has been made in combating pollution in urban areas, China’s rural areas are facing an environmental crisis and the government urgently needs to crack down on rural pollution, according to a report in the People’s Daily.

  The Chinese Environmental Aspect Bulletin says that during 2007 rural areas suffered non-stop ecological degradation caused by both domestic waste and industrial pollution.

  China has no national system to monitor the rural environment and protection work depends on the patchy efforts of local governments. The first ever national survey of pollution sources and soil contamination is only now getting under way. Meanwhile the booming economy continues to inflict damage on the rural environment.

  » Read more
  • September 24, 2008 6:02 PM

• Chinese Eco-detective Treads Lightly

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  “Can you smell something?”

  Zhang Yadong stands on the banks of a murky stream and wrinkles his nose at the salty odor.

  The Chinese government has promised for years to clean up this section of the Songhua River, known as the He Jia Gou stream. But it’s unclear what progress has been made.

  Mr. Zhang is using old-fashioned shoe leather to find out.

  The stream flows into the main river right before it reaches Harbin, a city of 10 million people in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

  Zhang takes in the scene: Across the river, dust swirls around a construction site. Nearby, a rust-colored pipe empties into the stream. On the banks, a few small vegetable plots are nestled against the brown water.

  » Read more
  • September 2, 2008 6:31 PM

• China’s New Environmental Advocates

  

  From Yale Environment 360:

  Down a dark corridor of a university campus in Beijing, a gold plaque on a wall of peeling paint marks the home of the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, a small office that is arguably the epicenter of public-interest law in China.

  Inside the cramped suite, shelves buckle under the weight of binders stuffed with thousands of hand-written accounts of polluted rivers and contaminated fields across China. Embroidered gold and maroon tapestries adorn the walls, gifts from the villages whose legal cases the center has helped win.

  Xu Kezhu is the center’s deputy director and an environmental law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, where its offices are housed. Unlike most of her academic colleagues, she is interested in the law not only as theory, but in practice. “China has many good environmental laws,” she told me. “The problem is enforcement.”

  Read also Environmental Hero: Xu Kezhu from China Environmental Law.

  » Read more
  • July 22, 2008 3:02 AM

• Beijing Lawyer Fights For Pollution Victims

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  The moment she stepped onto the grounds of the factory, Xu Kezhu knew that something was wrong.

  The walls of the plant, which makes agricultural chemicals in China’s southern Hunan province, were black with soot. Doors hung crooked on their hinges, broken windows had not been repaired, and the equipment looked badly rusted.

  Bags of pig-feed additive – the factory’s main product – were stacked beside barrels that oozed dark liquid onto the floor. Everywhere, neglect and disrepair were evident.

  “It did not look like all the rules were being followed,” Ms. Xu observes.

  » Read more
  • July 19, 2008 3:01 AM

• China’s New Ministry of Environmental Protection Begins to Bark, but Still Lacks in Bite

  

  From EarthTrends:

  March 28, 2008, saw the launch of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). As stated in its mission, this new cabinet-level ministry will take responsibility for China’s environmental governance. MEP is tasked to develop and organize the implementation of environmental protection; to manage all related planning, policy and standards; and to coordinate across jurisdictions and levels of government to solve the country’s major environmental problems.

  The creation of the MEP is an example of the widespread reforms that have been transforming China’s government in the past decades. Since 1982, five waves of major reforms have reduced the number of government ministries from 52 to 27. The latest round of these has aimed to create a “small government in a big society” (小政府,大社会), as public-sector priorities have shifted from economic development to regulation and public service. However, such a bold long-term transformation will only be possible by maintaining current rates of economic growth while simultaneously reducing inflation pressure and preserving central government macroeconomic performance. The Chinese government will also need to strike the dedicate balance between development, environment and social stability.

  » Read more
  • July 16, 2008 8:38 AM

• China, US to Sign Landmark Environment Pact

  

  From China Daily:

  China and the United States will sign a landmark pact this month, charting the course of environmental and energy cooperation between two of the world’s major economies for the next decade.

  A senior environmental official involved in the negotiations said on Friday that the signing ceremony will take place during the fourth round of the Sino-US Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Maryland on June 17-18.

  “State-of-the-art ideas and technologies to clean the air and water will be major aspects in which China will benefit from environmental cooperation with the United States,” said Li Xinmin, deputy director of the pollution control department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

  » Read more
  • June 6, 2008 8:55 PM

• China Reports Some Progress on Pollution

  

  From New York Times:

  After rising steeply for many years, emissions of three important pollutants began to decline last year, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection announced Thursday as part of an annual report.

  Total levels of pollution in China’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters still rose, however, as more pollutants continued to flow into them, the ministry said. And the air in many Chinese cities remained severely polluted.

  The ministry said that emissions of sulfur dioxide, mainly from coal-fired power plants and the primary cause of acid rain, declined 4.66 percent last year. The Chinese government has pursued a stringent program that requires power plants to cleanse most of the sulfur dioxide from their flue gases before they are released into the atmosphere. Environmentalists had expected the program to show success.

  » Read more
  • June 5, 2008 8:06 PM

• China Struggles To Enforce Ban On Plastic Bags

  

  From The Times:

  Strolling along a Beijing street, a young couple paused to buy a bag of fried pork dumplings. The stallholder picked up half a dozen in the filmiest of plastic bags, rolled a couple of steamed buns into another and popped the lot into yet another plastic bag.

  It would be hard to tell that new nationwide limits on such packaging took effect on Sunday.

  China is almost suffocating under plastic bags. Its 1.3 billion people use three billion bags every day. That’s about 1.6 million tonnes of the items each year, and the Government wants to reduce that to 1.1 million tonnes.

  Increasingly aware of the rapid and widespread degradation of the environment in China’s headlong race to industrialisation and modernisation, Beijing is trying to reverse the damage.

  Read also Plastic bag plan takes effect in China from Global Voices.

  » Read more
  • June 1, 2008 10:01 PM

• Wild Times in Changing China

  

  The BBC introduces a program airing this weekend called Wild China, which introduces the country’s diverse natural landscape and the threats it faces:

  The Chinese are proud of their natural riches, and many notable plants and animals are officially protected in national parks and wildlife reserves.

  But official protection is no guarantee of safety.

  In recent decades conservation has been poorly funded and protection has been weak.

  Many reserves, especially locally designated ones, have been under-staffed.

  And many workers have had little specialist training, and are ill-equipped to deal with well-organised groups of outsiders who come to hunt animals, mine minerals or collect plants in nominally protected areas.

  Watch the video here.

  » Read more
  • May 8, 2008 5:12 PM

• China Sacrifices Rain Forests in Yunnan Province to Produce More Rubber

  

  From Reuters via International Herald Tribune:

  On a map on the ecologist Liu Wenjie’s computer, the subtropical southern tip of Yunnan Province is slowly turning from green to red.

  Rubber plantations, shown in red on Liu’s computer screen, have supplanted nearly all the low-lying forest in the prefecture of Xishuangbanna and are now starting to encroach on the highlands.

  Liu and other scientists are worried that the expansion of rubber plantations to feed China’s voracious tire industry, the world’s largest, will destroy the ecosystem of Xishuangbanna. Yunnan Province is home to China’s richest variety of flora and fauna.

  Three decades ago, jungles and high mountain forests covered about 70 percent of Xishuangbanna, tucked between China’s borders with Laos and Myanmar. By 2003, that proportion had shrunk to less than 50 percent.

  » Read more
  • April 7, 2008 10:31 AM

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