China’s Coming Environmental Renaissance

Below, Worldwatch China Program Manager Yingling Liu responds to a recent essay on China’s environment published in Foreign Affairs, a journal of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations. She discusses China’s looming ecological challenges and points to some of the more promising developments in the country’s environmental movement.

In her essay, “The Great Leap Backward?” (Foreign Affairs, September/October 2007), author Elisabeth Economy offers valuable insights into the unprecedented scale of environmental problems China now faces. However, Economy underestimates the level of efforts now under way to address these problems, both in the Chinese government and in the growing private sector, as well as the degree to which the United States and other industrial countries are complicit in China’s environmental woes. As a Chinese citizen and researcher who has followed these developments for many years, I am more optimistic that China is beginning to turn the corner on its monumental environmental challenges.

Economy provides a rich and disturbing account of the massive environmental degradation plaguing China today. The country has recently entered into the most resource- and energy-intensive phase of its development, as it builds the roads, buildings, power plants, and other infrastructure needed to support an urban industrial economy. China’s problems are larger than those of other developing countries for two main reasons: its economy is growing much faster than most (which has helped to reduce poverty rates substantially over the last two decades) and its human population is massive, with most of its 1.3 billion people squeezed into an area the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River.

As Economy demonstrates, pollution not only damages the health of China’s people and undermines the national economy, it also affects the air and water of neighboring regions and adds to the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. China’s relentless search for raw materials to feed its economic miracle threatens forests and other ecosystems from Southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America.

The Global Hand Behind a National Problem

What is missing from Economy’s analysis, however, is the fact that China’s environmental problems are global not only in their effects, but also in their origin. It is true that many of the country’s environmental problems stem from efforts to meet the needs of a growing middle class. But China also serves as factory to the world, working aggressively to meet rising global demand for a wide array of manufactured products, from laptop computers to industrial chemicals. According to one recent estimate, more than 20 percent of China’s energy consumption is used to produce goods for export; even after subtracting the energy embodied in Chinese imports, the figure is still 15 percent.

Economy is correct in pointing out that China is now the world’s largest importer of illegally logged timber. Certainly the country’s demand for wood is soaring, exerting enormous pressure on the world’s remaining intact natural forests and putting tropical rainforests in particular jeopardy. According to a 2006 report from Greenpeace, for every two trees felled worldwide, one is consumed in China. But most of this timber is not being consumed by the Chinese, who are busy saving for their own futures; it is sought by consumers in developed countries who are able to afford elegant and expensive furnishings.

Between 1995 and 2004, timber consumption in China increased 70 percent, both for domestic consumption and for export; meanwhile, Chinese exports of timber products more than tripled. Timber from overseas is often processed in China and then shipped to the United States, Europe, and Japan in the form of hardwood flooring, furniture, and plywood. Those products typically use tropical woods such as merbau, jatoba, and teak—threatened species that often come from countries where illegal logging is rampant.

Translating Words Into Actions

It is true, as Economy notes, that China has had difficulty enforcing its environmental laws and that pollution is increasing despite the proliferation of new policies. The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has inadequate resources (as do most Chinese ministries), and local officials have in many cases failed to protect citizens from environmental harm. It is also notable—and encouraging—that Chinese officials, especially in the central government, have openly acknowledged these problems and permitted widespread reporting of them in the Chinese media. The government has also given more freedom to non-governmental environmental organizations and tolerated the growing number of environmental protests. As in other countries in the past, the environment has become a leading field for open discussion and government reform, with potentially far-reaching benefits for Chinese citizens.

Economy appears suspicious of the new urgency that China’s leaders have expressed in tackling the country’s environmental problems. She is doubtful whether the strong words will be followed by strong actions. I find this perspective unduly pessimistic. It is true that the Chinese government is still largely top down, controlled by a relatively small group of senior leaders. This mode of governance excels when the helmsman is good, and is capable of getting things done swiftly if the leaders are determined to do so. This was true when Deng Xiaoping and his supporters launched the ambitious economic reforms of the late 1970s. And it was demonstrated more recently when the central government took action to address the contamination of the Songhua River in 2005. Albeit a bit late, they took control swiftly, replaced the environment minister, and delivered effective remedial measures.

From the start of this millennium, China’s central government has stepped up its commitment to the environment and resource conservation. The country’s top leaders have changed their rhetoric, no longer stating that economic growth is the paramount priority. Instead, they are giving equal weighting to the environment and resource conservation. They have not only set ambitious targets for energy savings and pollution control, but they have labeled these efforts as two paramount tasks for the government. Meeting these goals will naturally take time. It took nearly three decades after Deng’s economic reforms for China to get where it is today. It will similarly take more than a few years for the country to achieve its goal of achieving a harmonious and sustainable economy.

Changes have already taken place. Growing political determination has begun to translate into legislation and macro-level industrial restructuring as well as into the empowerment of key government administrative agencies. Environmental improvement has been granted a central role in the 11th Five-Year Plan, and a new Environmental Impact Assessment Law recently entered into force. China now boasts auto emissions standards that are comparable to the European level, fuel economy standards that exceed those in the United States, and a national renewable energy law that has proven far more effective than any similar legislation passed by the U.S. Congress to date. However imperfect some of these laws may be—and no government policies are ever perfect—it is clear that environmental policy is advancing rapidly in China and that the nation’s leaders are working hard to learn from the successes and failures of other countries.

China’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), is taking action to adjust the country’s industrial structure, aiming for more balance and less energy use and pollution. It has mandated the shutdown of thousands of small, inefficient coal-fired power plants and heavily polluting industrial furnaces and boilers in favor of larger, more efficient plants. The ruling is being implemented effectively nationwide. Energy efficiency is advancing with the adoption of new technologies and the development of less energy-intensive light industries and services. China’s energy intensity (the amount of energy required to produce one yuan of national income) fell by 30 percent between 1995 and 2004. Without this improvement, the nation’s energy consumption would be 30 percent higher today—equivalent to Japan’s total energy use.

It is true that China has failed to achieve targets for energy savings and pollution control set at the beginning of the millennium. Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged and criticized this failure early this year in his annual report to the National People’s Congress, the equivalent of a U.S. State of the Union speech. The unprecedented public acknowledgement from the state head sent another unmistakable message to unyielding industry leaders and local governments, who had become used to the environmental inertia accumulated during the two-decade-long rush for economic development.

In the first half of 2007, the reduction in China’s energy intensity accelerated, dropping to 2.8 percent below the same period the previous year, due mainly to industrial efficiency improvements. These achievements gave the central government renewed confidence to propose specific targets for energy conservation and pollution control in China’s national climate change action plan, released in June, which will likely provide the framework for the country’s stance in future climate change negotiations.

The country’s environmental agency is also being strengthened. SEPA has gained significant power in recent years and has shaken off its moniker as a “rubber stamp” agency. In 2005 and 2006, it launched several rounds of crackdowns against giant industrial polluters. And early this year, it issued a strong measure that suspends or restricts the environmental impact assessment permitting process for certain construction projects until the companies comply with pollution regulations. The agency is also partnering with the Ministry of Supervision on environmental investigation, the People’s Bank of China, and the China Banking Regulatory Commission on initiating a “green banking” mechanism, and plans to work with other ministries and departments on regulating polluters.