when smog forces schools, roads, and airports to

Inside China's Desperate Effort To Control Pollution

If James Carville was giving the Chinese government public relations advice, he might say something like, the pollution, stupid. But this wouldn be anything the Chinese government doesn already know. When eight year olds start getting lung cancer that can be attributed to air pollution, you got a problem. When smog forces schools, roads, and airports to shut down because visibility is less than 50 yards, you got a problem. When a study finds that severe pollution is slashing an average of five and a half years from the life expectancy in northern China, you got a problem.

Such a visible problem, literally, can lead to myopic responses in a frantic effort to make it appear that the problem is being confronted. For instance, last month the Chinese central government announced it will start publishing a list of its 10 worst and best cities for air pollution each month. But underneath all the haze, the seeds of a real transition are taking root. In July, the government said it would spend $275 billion through 2018 to reduce pollution levels around Beijing. Last month Shanghai released its Clean Air Action Plan in an effort to rapidly and substantially improve the air quality in China most populous city of nearly 24 million residents.

The Chinese government is not stupid and neither are China 1.35 billion residents they can all see that pollution is a real problem. Earlier this month, Chinese communist party leaders convened a major plenary meeting to discuss economic reform, with over 200 party members gathering at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing, or third plenum. Plenums are significant because every member of the party must be present and this year, energy and environmental issues were on the agenda. Third plenary sessions have been met with high anticipation ever since the 11th Third Plenary Session in 1978 led to the structural reforms ushered in by Deng Xiaoping and the ensuing three decades of rapid growth that have turned China into the export driven, world power it is today.

The economy has slowed, and China is confronting the cumulative consequences of its three decade focus on economic expansion with little attention paid to mounting ecological and social costs.

But that sustained economic boom also led to a bust for the environment. R. Edward Grumbine, a senior international scientist in the Key Lab of Biodiversity and Biogeography at Kunming Institute of Botany, wrote in Yale360 that as the 18th Plenum ended, China new President, Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister aaa replica designer handbags Li Keqiang find their country at a critical crossroads.

economy has slowed, and China is confronting the cumulative consequences of its three decade focus on economic expansion with little attention paid to mounting ecological and social costs, Grumbine wrote.

Grumbine thinks that the plenum may one day be seen as the turning point marking China shift away from unbridled economic growth to a more balanced form of development.

fake designer bags thing is certain: China leadership is now feeling intensifying public pressure to do something about the environment. A growing number of China 1.35 billion people especially those in the rapidly expanding middle class are fed up with government inaction on environmental issues, Grumbine wrote.

Take water for instance. Half of China rivers about 28,000 have vanished since 1990. China also has about 1,730 cubic meters of fresh water per person, just above the 1,700 cubic meter level the UN deems In the north, where half of China people, most of its coal, and only 20 percent of its water are located, the situation is even more dire. About 300 million rural residents do not have access to safe drinking water, and 57 percent of urban groundwater, a primary source of drinking water, is also polluted.

Coal industries and power stations use as much as 17 percent of China water, and by 2020 the government plans to boost coal fired power by twice the total generating capacity of India. According to British Petroleum (BP), China will account for 25 percent of global growth in energy demand through 2030. China 2012 energy mix was comprised of 68 percent coal, 18 percent oil and five percent natural gas.

In the past, China has been able to get away with ignoring environmental concerns to achieve economic gain. But going forward, even as energy demand grows along with the growing middle class, it becoming increasingly clear that a more holistic approach will be necessary. Not only because of public opinion, but because of real environmental constraints, such as the water needed to produce coal fired power. And that before even considering the impact of climate change, in which higher temperatures, sea level rise, and more intense natural disasters make everything that much worse. China is also the world biggest greenhouse gas emitter putting it again at the fulcrum replica designer handbags of high quality replica handbags china economic and environmental concerns, in this case not only domestically, but internationally, as well.

According to the International Energy Agency recently released World Energy Outlook report, current projections show that energy related carbon dioxide emissions will rise 20 percent by 2035. Setting the world on a trajectory consistent with a long term average temperature increase of 3.4 degrees Celsius, far above the internationally agreed upon 2 degrees Celsius target. China has vowed to reduce its carbon emissions per capita of GDP, known replica louis vuitton as emissions intensity, by 40 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. and China make up more than 40 percent of global CO2 emissions.

A lot of consumers are saying, cares if I have a great job? Who cares if I can buy a Louis Vuitton bag, if the air and water are killing my family? on Marketplace Morning Report, Shaun Rein, Managing Director of the China Market Research Group, spelled out in simple terms why pollution is currently the biggest problem to the Chinese economy.

biggest fear or frustration in life today is the pollution levels in China. A lot of consumers are saying, cares if I have a great job? Who cares if I can buy a Louis Vuitton bag, if the air and water are killing my family? Rein said. is the biggest problem that facing China government today, and they really need to do a better crackdown on it, otherwise they going to face serious social instability going forward. Nielsen, executive director of the China Project at Harvard University, told Climate Progress in an email that the Chinese government has not simply ignored its environmental concerns and focused only on economic growth.

According to Nielsen, one famous indicator of China progress is the almost constantly improving energy efficiency of China economy since 1949. path is partly due to modernization of its energy economy, but since 2006 in particular, it has been supported by very aggressive, target driven policies to engender improved energy efficiency, especially in industrial enterprises, Nielsen said.

China has also built the world biggest installed capacity of wind power in the last decade and solar is now on a similar trajectory. Additionally, it has the largest hydropower capacity in the world and has dramatically increased imports and production of natural gas to substitute for coal in key sectors such as household use.

positive changes have been overwhelmed by negative changes in many respects, Nielsen said. far the most important of the negative changes is a tremendous concomitant rise in the consumption of coal to fuel the economy, which by itself cancels many of these gains. noted that it important to understand that the Chinese government is not monolithic there are advocates for sacrificing economic growth for environmental protection and there are powerful government actors opposed to it. He thinks that the government is committed to real change on environmental issues, and that the balance is probably gradually tipping towards stronger environmental protection.

a time replica louis vuitton handbags of slowing economic growth may not be the most hopeful time for transformative changes high quality designer replica handbags to limit environmental damage, Nielsen said. about unemployment may limit the political willingness to go that far. The entrenched power of state owned enterprises, which the Third Plenary appears to have addressed only weakly, will likely Fake Louis Vuitton Replica Bags continue to serve as a counterweight favoring economic growth over aggressive environmental progress. Economic incentives drive local government decisions even when the top down leadership is pushing for reform.

On top of developing specific mandates and implementation procedures to help shift local government incentives, a crucial part of the ecological red line will be public oversight and awareness otherwise, promises could end replica louis vuitton bags up being empty words, lip service to an eager public.

real number one barrier to environmental protection in China Discount Replica Louis Vuitton Bags is not lack of money or technology, Ma Jun, one of the country best known environmental activists told the Christian Science Monitor last year. is lack of motivation. We need the public high quality replica handbags china to provide that motivation. But they must be informed before they can participate in any meaningful way. agencies in China are hamstrung by local officials who put economic growth ahead of environmental protection.

have the laws and regulations, but enforcement remains very weak, Ma continued. agencies in China are hamstrung by local officials who put economic growth ahead of environmental protection; even the courts are beholden to local officials, and they are not open to environmental litigation. of this can be accomplished though incentives or punitive actions, such as with a carbon trading scheme. This week, in the midst of the 19th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate fake designer bags Change (UNFCCC), China top climate official made the well timed announcement that Beijing and Shanghai will launch emissions trading markets later this month. The Chinese government has approved seven pilot carbon trading exchanges in total, with Shenzhen being the first to launch in June. climate conference.

As for public oversight, China has also recently made strides in this direction with the announcement that the government will begin measuring not just PM2.5 concentrations, but also the long term impacts of chronic air pollution on human health. This is important because, much like the government has announced plans to shame the most polluted cities by listing them every month, the public can shame the government if the data doesn show improvements in air quality, making it harder for the powers that be to hide behind a veil of smoke.

How Will China Find The Energy?

Addressing environmental concerns would be much easier if they weren so closely tied not only to economic growth but also energy consumption. Going into the plenum, expectations were high that President Xi, in office for just under a year, would be a reformer and usher in major changes, including how China gets its energy.

China relies on coal for nearly 70 percent of its energy production, but is currently aggressively pursuing natural gas based on increased availability and improved environmental sustainability over coal fired power plants, especially in regard to local air pollution. General Electric stated in a white paper that China could save $820 billion in environmental costs by 2025 by doubling its current natural gas consumption at the expense of coal.