Latest Articles by Wang Dongying

China's green province

Dongying Wang — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:02:00 +0000

For much of China, economic development means ecological disaster. But the coastal province of Jiangsu may be a rare success story, says Wang Dongying. Can the country learn from Jiangsu's example?

Three decades of economic growth have significantly boosted China's international standing. The country now boasts the world's fastest growing economy, expanding by 10.7% in 2006, its fourth consecutive year of double-figure growth.

China's rapid industrialisation has attracted the attention of the west. But over time, some of this focus has shifted to the impact that this growth is having on the environment. Both Chinese and international media increasingly view China as a classic example of failure in balancing the country’s economy and environment; a story seen repeated in other large developing countries such as Brazil and India.

But something different is happening in Jiangsu province. Situated on China's east coast, the province has been described as the flagship of the country’s green development, and is now attracting international attention in its own right.

A leader in sustainable development

Located on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Huai River, and with a coastline on the Yellow Sea, Jiangsu is less than half the size of the UK, at 100,000 square kilometres, but has a population of 75 million – much higher than Britain's 60 million.

Jiangsu’s contribution to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has consistently ranked among the country’s top three provinces. The province’s economic growth in 2006 was 14.9%, China’s highest. Last year, it was also one of only two provinces that met national targets on pollution reduction and energy efficiency.

In 2006, emissions of major pollutants in Jiangsu province dropped by 3.3%, far surpassing the national target of 2%. Jiangsu’s power consumption per unit of GPD also fell by 4.02%, just over the target of 4%.

Four of the six cities that were first awarded the title of “Ecological City” by China’s State Council are in Jiangsu province. All four – Zhangjiagang, Changshu, Kunshang and Jiangyin – are among China's ten richest city and county-level economies.

Eighteen cities in Jiangsu have been designated “Environmental Protection Cities”, one-fifth of the nationwide total and more than any other single province. Yangzhou was given the UN-HABITAT Scroll of Honour Award in 2006.

On March 21, Jiangsu Party Secretary Li Yuanchao spoke at a meeting held in the UK's House of Commons, where he described the province as a role model for the country’s efforts to achieve a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. But in interviews he also pointed out that the province's double-digit GDP growth has incurred heavy environmental costs.

Li discussed China's most recent thinking on development. He explained how the country is seeking comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable growth; he also emphasised how the conservation of resources and environmental protection will allow growth that is both rapid and sustainable. In particular, Li stressed the importance of “four priorities”: wealth creation, science and education, environmental protection and conservation of resources.

Market forces

Of particular interest are Jiangsu's environmental pricing reforms, which include emissions trading and emissions pricing policies.

The concept of emissions trading was first put into practice in the US to control atmospheric and water pollution. It has since been adopted in Germany, Australia and the UK. The system aims to encourage companies to reduce their overall pollution emissions, either by cleaning up the local environment or adopting more efficient production processes. They can then sell any surplus emissions allowances. On the whole, this has proved more effective than traditional government curbs on pollution. Jiangsu’s city of Nantong was the first place in China to adopt an emissions trading scheme; and in 2002, the system was rolled out across the entire province.

Jiangsu’s experience in ensuring that polluters pay and that businesses can benefit from cleaning up their act is now being applied nationwide. Shi Zhenhua, head of Jiangsu's Environmental Protection Office, speaking at the recent National Peoples' Congress in Beijing, said that many companies are now “making money from environmental protection.” He pointed out that in the last five years, not one manufacturer of environmental protection equipment or sewage treatment equipment in China has made a loss.

The province now hopes to raise the cost of emissions further, to dissuade those companies who would sooner pay for their emissions than reduce their pollution. According to reports, companies that continue to pollute can still end up paying a tenth of what it would cost to cut their emissions, and only one-fifth of the losses caused by the resulting environmental damage.

Despite the province’s outstanding record, a recent opinion poll in Jiangsu found that only 56.5% of respondents were “satisfied” or “basically satisfied” with pollution control; in contrast, the national average last year was 60.2%.

Towards the end of his speech, Li Yuanchao said he believes that all of China's provinces will achieve the binding targets specified in the 11^th Five Year Plan – to reduce power consumption per unit of GDP by 20%, and emissions of pollutants by 10% by 2010.

A Herculean task

But despite Li's optimism, the overall situation does not look good. Power consumption per unit of GDP fell by only 1.23% last year, and emissions actually rose. State media recently reported the World Bank and China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) as saying that the annual losses caused by environmental pollution may be equivalent to around 10% of GDP.

Speaking at the National People's Congress earlier this month, premier Wen Jiabao stressed that China's economy still faces problems caused by high power consumption and pollution. The latest figures show that in 2007, the continuing growth of power-hungry industries may have caused China's electricity consumption to jump by as much as 20%.

In comparison with most of China's provinces, Jiangsu has unmatched advantages. And it is those regional differences which make the goal of repeating Jiangsu's successes elsewhere in the country such a formidable task.

Jiangsu is known as China's land of rice and fish, with ideal conditions for agriculture and a solid economic, technical and educational base. GDP per capita is US$3,500, a good deal higher than the nationwide average of US$2,500. The total value of imports and exports last year was US$284 billion, almost one-sixth of the national total.

One in four of every dollars of China’s inward investment ends up in Jiangsu province. In 2006, around US$16 billion of overseas investment was put to work in Jiangsu, the nation’s highest for the fifth year running. Fortune 500 companies have started 685 firms in the province.

There are more port berths and greater port capacity here than anywhere else in China, and three of the country's 10 ports that have shipped more than a billion tonnes are in Jiangsu.

Such advantages are little more than dreams for many of China's provinces, particularly those that have less-developed productive capabilities, a lack of funds and of technology and that still rely on heavy industry.

China's scarce resources, its lack of environmental awareness and undeveloped environmental laws continue to hold back the country's progress towards sustainable development.

The green dragon?

A survey published earlier this year identified the environmental issues that Chinese people identify as most worrying: food safety, drinking water contamination and air pollution.

For most Chinese people today, climate change is little more than a scientific discussion, but they know first-hand the environmental pollution that economic growth has brought.

This has also brought both domestic and international pressure to bear on the Chinese government; many are urging China to move faster towards green development.

But we should not forget that western countries only started to control their pollution after 200 years of industrialisation. For instance, it was only in 1956 that the UK, the home of the Industrial Revolution, introduced the Clean Air Act. Thirty years after China’s economy opened up to the world, the country is now realising the importance of environmental protection, and is putting measures in place accordingly.

China has already achieved its first miracle – the country has managed to lift 200 million people out of poverty. Now it needs another miracle to save 1.3 billion people from the effects of a worsening environment. But to know how long this will take, we must wait and see.

Homepage picture by Marc van der Chijs

Dongying Wang worked for Xinhua News Agency as an editor in Beijing and correspondent in Egypt, before joining chinadialogue in 2006 as managing editor.

Learning from the Thames

Dongying Wang — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:08:00 +0000

At one time, London’s River Thames was disease-ridden and devoid of fish. Now it is one of the cleanest rivers in Europe. Wang Dongying asks what lessons the Thames has for China.

The UK government recently gave the go-ahead for Thames Water, the country’s biggest water company, to build the Tideway Tunnel: 32-kilometre-long sewer costing £2 billion (around US$3.96 billion), which will run from west to east, 80 metres underneath the capital’s streets.

London's sewers carry both rainwater and untreated sewage, and present limited capacity means that when heavy rains overwhelm the system, the overflow discharges into the River Thames. In increasing the sewage-treatment capacity, the new tunnel is designed to reduce the amount of untreated sewage that ends up in the river.

London's sewers were built in the second half of the nineteenth century, and are regarded as one of Britain's major engineering successes. But the growth of the city and worsening droughts mean that the system is now overloaded; every year up to 32 million cubic metres of sewage and rainwater discharge into the River Thames and Lee from sewage network overflows.

Experts describe London's sewers as one of the main threats to the health of the Thames. If this cannot be changed, efforts to control pollution in the river will be wasted.

The new tunnel – an unprecedented project – is due to be completed by 2020 and will improve the water quality of the River Thames, hopefully restoring London's pride in the world's busiest river.

Untreated sewage in the river is killing fish and harming the tourist industry, according to the UK department of the environment.

The most serious incident occurred in 2004, when a series of downpours overwhelmed the system, causing localised flooding and a large overflow of polluted water into the Thames, killing off large numbers of fish and threatening a recovering ecosystem.

According to reports, 52 million cubic metres of untreated sewage and rainwater pollute the Thames and Lee every year. But perhaps to the surprise of Londoners, 129 species of fish and 250 invertebrates still survive in the Thames, and the river is cleaner and healthier than it has been for two centuries.

In fact, the Thames is acknowledged to be one of the world's cleanest urban rivers. But like many of China's rivers today, at one time urban and industrial growth threatened its ecosystem – almost to the point of collapse.

photo by apuls

Pollution

In the nineteenth century, the River Thames went into decline. In 1800, records show that London's fish markets still sold 3,000 salmon caught in the River Thames. But in 1805, the capital's population reached one million. And as the city grew, more waste from London's cesspits – and from newly-designed flushing toilets – flowed into the river. The river started to stink – and to die.

Greater industrialisation also saw slaughterhouses and tanneries built alongside the river, polluting the river even further. There were repeated cholera outbreaks, the worst of these in 1849, which killed thousands of people.

Only when cholera was identified as a water-borne disease – and the River Thames as an important source of the outbreaks – did the UK's efforts to clean up the river begin in earnest, helped in large part by public reactions to the “Great Stink” of 1858. The new sewer system was finished in 1874, and is still in use today.

To safeguard the water supply, London also started to monitor the quality of the river’s water, and improve sewage treatment – greatly improving the quality of the city's drinking water supply.

Privatisation

The UK privatised the water industry at the end of the 1980s, and London’s water supply and treatment was taken on by Thames Water.

photo by Bobcatnorth

The company made massive investments in services and infrastructure, spending US$400 million on the Thames Water Ring Main in 1994 – the city's largest tunneling project since the London Underground.

Thames Water is investing £3.1 billion (US$6.15 billion) in renewing and developing infrastructure from 2005 to 2010, including an expansion of the Thames Water Ring Main, due to be completed by 2010.

It has also invested U$500 million in the UK Advanced Water Treatment Program, bringing ozone and active carbon water treatment methods to its UK plants in 1997.

There are 845 waste management sites within the Thames basin. These, along with the closure of harbours and the removal of heavy industry have made the Thames one of the world's cleanest urban rivers.

However, the Thames Explorer Trust – an educational charity – points out that the river environment is threatened by overcrowding, and pollution from traffic and industry. Building on the river’s shallows, banks and flood plains and rubbish tipping also threaten the river. Moreover, statistics reveal that 946 million litres a day are still lost through leaks from London’s aging water infrastructure.

The Thames region covers 13,000 square kilometres – only 10% of the total land area of England and Wales. However, it is home to one quarter of the population, and accounts for over one quarter of the UK's gross national product. It also covers 896 square kilometres of flood plains, one of the UK's most important wildlife habitats.

Lessons for China

China’s rapid industrialisation has seen many rivers repeat the same tragedy that happened to the Thames in the nineteenth century. In the 1830s, salmon disappeared from the Thames, not to return until the 1970s.

The 2006 Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition failed to find a single trace of the baiji; it is almost certain the “goddess of the Yangtze River” is now extinct. Numbers of the finless porpoise, a species unique to China, are also plummeting, and it may soon follow in the baiji's wake.

photo by yarder

Industrial and domestic waste is killing the Yangtze River. Half of China's petrochemical companies are located in the Yangtze River basin. The area has only 280 water treatment plants, and only 30% of sewage is treated.

The WWF recently identified the Yangtze River as one of the world's 10 most endangered rivers, warning of the dangers posed by dams, shipping, pollution and climate change.

The situation across China is no better. Seventy percent of rivers are polluted to varying degrees, as is 90% of urban groundwater.

Government figures show that although water treatment rates in relatively developed cities reach 80%. Beijing achieved 90% in 2006, but half of the nation's 600 cities do not have a single water treatment plant.

As of the end of last year, the national rate of urban sewage treatment was 56%, four percentage points higher than the previous year. China aims to raise this figure to 70% by 2010.

Pan Yue, deputy director of China’s State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), has said that since the 2005 pollution accident in the Songhua River, there has been a water-related pollution incident every two to three days on average.

China is currently facing a water shortage crisis, made worse by water pollution. Does the country have a century to solve these problems? Without any doubt, we do not.

Dongying Wang is the managing editor of chinadialogue.

Homepage photo by wallyg

France and the ecological new deal

Dongying Wang — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:14:00 +0000

France's president has urged China to commit to sustainable development. Wang Dongying talked to Brice Lalonde, the French climate-change ambassador, and asked him what China can learn from France's new green initiatives.

With its per capita greenhouse-gas emissions 21% below the European average, France is aiming high in its hopes for green growth. The country has recently pledged to play a leading role in the EU in tackling climate change, and expressed its hopes for an ecological “New Deal” in China. Dongying Wang caught up with France's climate change ambassador, Brice Lalonde, and asked him about trade, energy and the low-carbon economy.

Dongying Wang: France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, revealed a series of national environmental policies in late October, resulting from the Grenelle Environment Forum, a five-way dialogue involving trade unions, businesses, NGOs, elected representatives and the administration. France expects this to usher in greater transparency of environmental information, principles which have also been urged in countries like China to tackle worsening environmental issues. Why has made France adopted this new approach to government decision-making?

Brice Lalonde: As soon as he was elected, the Nicolas Sarkozy said that combating climate change was his priority. He wanted to discuss the best way to implement this priority with major stakeholders, including a very popular NGO leader named Nicolas Hulot, who had been lobbying all the candidates during the presidential election. This lead to the “Grenelle” process.

DW: Carbon-cost consideration and a range of ecological solutions are being discussed as key principles on which France is pursuing its climate-change policy. How do you think this will transform the way in which France grows? And what challenges will France face during this transformation?

BL: France has already experienced a set of policies to reduce the share of fossil fuels in its energy mix. Eighty percent of our electricity is produced by nuclear power. We have designed fast trains to avoid using too many domestic flights and we produce small and efficient cars.

We have now decided on major programmes to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, increase public transportation in our cities and expand the use of renewable energy. We shall modify our tax system to favor low-carbon activities.

DW: France’s has great ambitions for organic agriculture, intending to expand its share of land use to 20% by 2020, from the current 2%. Can France really develop organic agriculture within the EU when it takes over its presidency in the second half of 2008?

BL: France has a strong agriculture and believes it can produce in a more environmentally friendly way without reducing yields. At the same time, the European Union is moving its common agriculture policy in the same direction.

DW: What is your vision of a “zero-carbon economy”? What do you think are the main obstacles to such development?

BL: We all have to invent it. On the supply side, we shall probably have an array of different solutions – either decentralised or on the grid. Perhaps hydrogen, or a similar gas, will be our main energy vector. On the demand side, we shall have to find a low-carbon way of living, which will probably mean less energy intensive.

DW: France recently called for a worldwide economic and ecological “New Deal” at the United Nations. What did this mean?

BL: President Sarkozy believes sustainable development is the goal. He thinks the idea is not to stay with end-of-pipe solutions, or incremental reductions of carbon dioxide emissions, but to reinvent economic growth on an environment-friendly manner, and that this requires a strong international cooperation.

DW: Sarkozy has also suggested that imports from abroad should comply with French environmental regulations. (An international approach such as this might have helped prevent some of the recent recalls of Chinese-made products.) In China, over 70% of overseas investment in the country is in the manufacturing industry, and this must be partly due to the country’s weak environmental regulations. What kind of international policies would you suggest to ensure a greener system of global trade? Could carbon-labelling be an option?

BL: Business goes to China much more because it has become a huge market, and the cost of labour is lower than in Europe, rather than to avoid environmental regulations. But it is true that the issue of fair competition is becoming central, and we must find a way of addressing it. France is in favour of carbon labeling.

DW: In October, the EU extended anti-dumping duties on imports of energy-saving light bulbs from China. At a time when the EU is chasing ambitious energy-saving targets to fight climate change, how should it balance its use of trade barriers to protect regional industrial production and its need to import greener products?

BL: The anti-dumping duty on exports of Chinese energy-saving bulbs to Europe is due to the fact that these bulbs are produced with a rare – which means expensive – material that one can find in China. On the one hand, China refuses to sell this material to European bulb producers, and on the other hand, it does not incorporate the real price of this material into the bulbs it exports to Europe.

But you are right, it would be better to have a free trade of environmentally friendly products.

DW: As a former French minister for the environment, you were instrumental in designing and implementing French laws on water and waste. What suggestions can you give China in dealing with its worsening water scarcity and pollution?

BL: I think China should create river basins authorities, which bring all water users of a river around the same table to ensure that the water is properly used, equitably shared and cleaned up before discharge.

When water is scarce, it is important to increase water efficiency (“more crop per drop”), and to clean and recycle the waste water.

DW: President Sarkozy recently reiterated France’s commitment to nuclear power, saying: “The idea that we can meet the climate challenge in France without nuclear energy is an illusion. Today we have no choice, unless we give up growth.” Using this same logic, shouldn’t China continue to rely on fossil fuels for its growth? Should China perhaps prioritise clean coal technology, rather than developing renewable energy?

BL: Clean coal technology is crucial for countries like China or the United States, who rely heavily on coal. The trouble is that clean coal technologies are still fairly expensive and in the pilot phase. I believe China is bound to use them, though they need quite a lot of extra energy to be implemented.

DW: As France’s ambassador for climate change negotiations, how would you comment on China’s climate-change efforts, with its expected overall energy efficiency likely to increase by 20% by 2010 from the 2005 level?

BL: I appreciate China’s policies and measures to combat climate change. The main points of our climate talks would be to assess the outcome of these policies and to include them in an international regime. Everybody knows we have to reduce greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. So what are we all aiming at? We need to fix a common goal.

DW: China is now the world’s leading provider of carbon credits through Clean Development Mechanism projects under the Kyoto Protocol, but the up-to-date technology China has received only accounts for a very small proportion of expertise given by developed countries. How could this issue be fixed to ensure a really successful arrangement under Kyoto?

BL: I think CDM projects in China are successful because they really reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. China would probably benefit from greater technology if it allowed foreign-owned companies to use CDM. For the time being, only Chinese companies are eligible.

Dongying Wang is managing editor of chinadialogue

Brice Lalonde is France's ambassador for climate change. He chairs the Sustainable Development Roundtable for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and was the French minister for the environment from 1988 to 1992.