From The Guardian Unlimited: For the first time in her life Mrs Li is thinking of splashing out on a bottle of water. It may only cost 7p, but for the migrant mother living in one of the city of Harbin’s poorest neighbourhoods, anything but tap water has, until now, been an unthinkable extravagance. Decision […]
Read MoreFrom The South China Morning Post, via A Glimpse of the World: The central government’s admission yesterday that the Songhua river was severely polluted in a chemical factory explosion last week confirmed what many people had suspected. A statement issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration explained how the pollution had spread and did not […]
Read MoreFrom One is always nearer by not keeping still blog: One significant thought has been rolling around my head lately. As I read more about the tragedies, poor governance, security threat, poverty, and failed states of Africa and the Middle East, I cannot help but notice the imbalance of criticism of Africa (and Middle East […]
Read MoreFrom Reuters, via CNN: China is struggling to overcome what a minister called the world’s worst water crisis caused by widespread drought, pollution, rapid economic growth and waste, the China Daily has said. Per capita water availability in China was about a quarter of the world average and expected to fall further, the report said. […]
Read MoreFrom Reuters: China is to blacklist cities that fail to reach national air quality standards and penalise them by warning off investors, state media quoted environment officials as saying on Monday. The State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) will also control construction projects that could worsen air pollution in the worst-offending cities. More on this topic, […]
Read MoreFrom The Economist: China is investigating whether its rigid system for assessing the performance of party leaders and civil servants can be used to tackle pollution. An elaborate points system that determines the careers of officials is often blamed for many of China’s problems. In their drive to meet targets for economic growth, local mandarins […]
Read MoreFrom New Straits Times : IN the 1980s, when I was a Beijing-based correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, I had occasion to interview an official in Shanghai. How much of China’s trade, I asked, was through Shanghai? The official responded: “I don’t think that figure has appeared in the newspapers.” That official was keeping […]
Read MoreFrom Xinhua: The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), China’s environment watchdog, vowed to take into account environmental elements when assessing its economic growth, the head of SEPA said here Wednesday… The World Bank estimates 400,000 people in China die each year from air pollution-related illnesses, mainly lung and heart diseases. It says direct damage costs […]
Read MoreWorldchanging.com has posted a comprehensive overview of their writing on China’s environment: To a very great degree, whether or not we as a planet manage to win the Great Wager depends upon China. The combination of its size, course of economic growth, and existing reliance on pollution- (and carbon-) intensive industries and energy sources lead […]
Read MoreFrom CRI English: Beijing is attempting to calculate the city’s “green” gross domestic product (GDP), the Beijing News reported Friday. The experiment is scheduled to figure out the “green” GDP of 2004 by the end of next year based on the formula of “conventional GDP minus environmental losses”… The report lists the ten fields that […]
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