The East is grey

The East is grey

China

is

the

world’s

worst

polluter

but

largest

investor

in

green

energy.

Its rise will have as big an impact on the environment as on the world

economy or politics

Aug 10th 2013 | BEIJING |

From the print edition

ALL industrial nations one day hit an environmental turning- point, an event that dramatises to

the

population

the

ecological

consequences

of

growth.

In

America

that

event

occurred

in

1969

when

the Cuyahoga river in Ohio, thick with pollutants and bereft of fish, caught fire. America’s

Environmental Protection Agency was founded the next year. Strict environmental laws passed by

Japan

in

the

1970s

followed

the

realisation

that

poisonous

mercury

spilled

from

a

plastics

factory

was claiming thousands of lives around the bay of Minamata.

The

fetid

smog

that

settled

on

Beijing

in

January

2013

could

join

the

ranks

of

these

game-changing

environmental

disruptions.

For

several

weeks

the

air

was

worse

than

in

an

airport

smoking

lounge.

A swathe of warm air in the atmosphere settled over the Chinese capital like a duvet and trapped

beneath

it

pollution

from

the

region’s

200

coal

-fired

power

plants

and

5m

cars.

The

concentration

of

particles

with

a

diameter

of

2.5

microns

or

less,

hit

900

parts

per

million

—

40

times

the

level

the World Health Organisation deems safe. You could smell, taste and choke on it.

Related topics

?

?

?

?

?

Beijing

Japan

Climatology

Climate change

Earth science

Public

concern

exploded.

China’s

hyperactive

microblogs

logged

2.5m

posts

on

“smog”

in

January

alone. The dean of a business school said thousands of Chinese and expatriate businessmen were

packing their bags because of the pollution. Beijin

g is one of China’s richest cities. Before

the 2008 Olympic games it had relocated its smelliest industries to surrounding provinces. If

anywhere should be cleaning itself up, it is the capital. Yet even Communist bigwigs, opening

their curtains each morning near the Forbidden City, could not avoid the toxic fog.

Journey to the West

The

“airpocalypse”

injected

a

new

urgency

into

local

debate

about

the

environment—

and

produced

a green-policy frenzy

a few

months

later.

In three

weeks from

the

middle

of

June, the government

unveiled a series of reforms to restrict air pollution. It started the country’s first carbon

market, made prosecuting environmental crimes easier and made local officials more accountable

for air-quality problems in their areas. It also said China

—

meaning companies as well as

government

—

would

spend

$$275

billion

over

the

next

five

years

cleaning

up

the

air.

Even

by

Chinese

standards that is serious money, equivalent to Hong Kong’s GDP or twice the size of the annual

defence budget.

Is this Ch

ina’s turning

-point? Many environmentalists, both in the country and outside, fear

it is too little, too late. A study released by America’s National Academy of Sciences in July

found

that

air

pollution

in

the

north

of

China

reduces

life

expectancy

by

five-and-a-half

years.

The rivers are filthy, the soil contaminated. The government has long known this and attempted

to clean things up. Yet still the smog comes.

And there is something else in the air, less immediately damaging but with a far bigger global

i

mpact.

China’s

greenhouse

-

gas

emissions

were

about

10%

of

the

world’s

total

in

1990.

Now

they

are nearer 30%. Since 2000 China alone has accounted for two-thirds of the global growth in

carbon-dioxide

emissions.

This

will

be

very

hard

to

reverse.

While

America

and

Europe

are

cutting

their emissions by 60m tonnes a year combined, China is increasing its own by over 500m tonnes.

This makes it a unique global threat.

Nonsense, say Chinese officials. China is not responsible for the build-up of greenhouse gases.

The

West

is.

There are environmental problems, true,

but China

is simply following a pattern

set

by Britain, America and Japan: “grow first, clean up later”. China grew unusually fast but it

is now cleaning up unusually fast, too. Its efforts to rein in pollution are undervalued; its

investments in wind and solar power put others to shame; its carbon emissions will peak sooner

than people expect. China will one day do for zero-carbon energy what it has already done for

consumer

electronics

—

put

it within reach of everyone.

It

will

not

be

a threat

to

the

planet

but

the model for how to clean it up.

China

is

broadly

right

about

one

thing:

its

environmental

problems

do

have

historical

parallels.

With

the

exception

of

Chongqing,

the

largest

municipality,

most

Chinese

cities

are

no

more

polluted

than Japan’s were in 1960 (see chart 1). Excluding spikes l

ike that in Beijing this year, air

quality is improving at about the same rate as Japan’s did in the 1970s.

Other

environmental

indicators

are

worse,

however,

and

it

is

not

clear

whether

they

are

improving

as

fast.

A

2006

survey

found

that

almost

10%

of

farmland

was

contaminated

with

heavy

metals,

such

as

cadmium.

Whether

a recent nationwide

soil survey showed

an

improvement

is

hard

to say,

as the

Ministry

of

Environmental

Protection

promptly

declared

the

findings

a

state

secret.

The

discovery

of rice tainted with cadmium in Guangdong this year triggered panic buying of Thai rice.

China’s wildlife is under particular threat. The China Species Red List, an official document,

classified

almost

40%

of

the

country’s

mammals

as

“threatened”

in

2004.

An

unusually

wide

range

of habitats

—

China is exceptionally diverse in this respect

—

is being degraded by industrial

development.

The Water Margin

The worst problem is water. Pictures of China often show green and watery landscapes. But most

of northern China is as dry as straw. “Severe water stress” is usually defined as access to

less

than

1,000

cubic

metres

of

water

per

person

per

year.

For

China the

figure

is

just

450

cubic

metres.

The

national

average

is

bad

enough

but

it

hides

an

even

more

alarming

regional

disparity.

Four-fifths of the water is in the south

—

mainly in the Yangzi river basin (see map). Half the

people and two-thirds of the countr

y’s farmland are in the parched north—

mainly in the Yellow

river

basin.

In

Beijing

there

is

just

100

cubic

metres

per

person

per

year.

The

water

table

there

has fallen by 300 metres in two decades. Wen Jiabao, a former prime minister, was barely

exaggerati

ng when he said water shortages “threaten the very survival of the Chinese nation”.

Such

shortages

have

been

a

problem

for

centuries

but

they

are

being

exacerbated

now

by

pollution.

The

Yellow

River

Conservancy

Commission,

a

government

body,

surveyed

the

“mother

river”

of

China

and found that for a third of its length the water was too polluted for use in agriculture. The

housing ministry’s chief engineer for water safety says only half the water sources in urban

areas are fit to drink.

Don’t drink the water; don’t even touch the water

Severe

though

China’s

problems

with

water,

soil

and

air

are,

they

are

not

different

in

kind

from

those

of

other

nations

in

the

past.

As

Pan

Jiahua

of

the

Chinese

Academy

of

Social

Sciences

(CASS)

puts

it,

“We’re

following

the

US,

Japan

and

UK

and

because

of

inertia

we

don’t

have

the

capacity

to stop quickly.”

China’s impact on the climate, though, is unique. Its economy is not only large but also

resource-hungry. It accounts for 16% of world output but consumes between 40% and 50% of the

world’s coal, copper, steel, nickel, aluminium and zinc. It also imports half the planet’s

tropical logs and raises half its pigs.

The country’s energy use is similarly gargantuan. This is in part because, under Mao, the use

of energy was reckle

ssly profligate. China’s consumption of energy per unit of GDP tripled in

1950-78

—an unprecedented “achievement”. In the early 1990s, at the start of its period of

greatest growth, China was still using 800 tonnes of coal equivalent (tce, a unit of energy) to

produce $$1m of output, far more than other developing countries. Energy efficiency has since

improved; China used 390tce per $$1m in 2009. But that was still more than the global average of

300tce and far more than Germany, which used only 173tce.

Despite a huge hydroelectric programme, most of this energy comes from burning coal on a vast

scale. China currently burns about half the world’s supplies. In 2006 it surpassed America in

carbon-dioxide

emissions

from

energy

(see

chart

2).

By

2014

or

2015

it

will

emit

twice

America’s

total.

Between

1990

and

2050

its

cumulative

emissions

from

energy

will

amount

to

some

500

billion

tonnes

—

roughly the same as those of the whole world from the beginning of the industrial

revolution to 1970. And the total is what matters. The climate reacts to the stock of carbon,

not to annual rises.

These emissions are adding to a build-up of carbon already pushed to unprecedented heights by

earlier

industrialisations.

When

Britain

began

the

process

in

the

18th

century,

the

atmosp

here’s

carbon-dioxide level was 280 parts per million (ppm). When Japan was industrialising fastest in

the

late

1950s,

it

had

risen

a

bit,

to

315ppm.

This

year

the

level

hit

400ppm.

Avoiding

dangerous