Posted on 10/25/2005 8:20:07 AM PDT by cogitator
China's rapid economic growth and industrialization is posing a major challenge to the environment with air pollution likely to rise five-fold in 15 years, officials warned Monday.
"In the future 15 years, the population of China will reach 1.46 billion and the GDP will double, the pollution load will increase by four to five times according to the present resource consumption rate and pollution control level," said Zhang Lijun, vice minister of China's environmental agency SEPA.
Zhang was speaking at an air pollution conference organized by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the US Environmental Protection Agency, the environmental directorate of the European Commission and the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Territory.
China's GDP growth of more than nine percent is causing more pollutants to be emitted, as more coal is burned for energy and more polluting factories are built, experts at the conference said.
A list of the world's most polluted cities includes several in China. Thirty percent of China is polluted by acid rain, Zhang said in a speech, while one fifth of the population is living in areas seriously polluted, including by dust, acid rain, smog and fine particles.
"The major challenge in China is that they have a fast growing economy, a lot of construction of power plants and use of energy," said Matti Vainio, deputy head of the European Commission's clean air and transport unit.
"Because of this, the emissions, potential emissions are huge," he said.
"In just five years, the emissions of one type of pollutant, sulfur dioxide, rose from about 20 million tons a year in 2000 to the current 26 million tons." Worsening air in China, especially in major cities, is leading to "more and more serious" health problems, including respiratory and lung illnesses, Zhang said.
"It's very important to get those numbers down," Vainio said.
"So the challenge is basically how to manage this prosperous economic growth, and at the same time reduce the environmental impact of the growth," he said.
China has already taken steps to reduce this future impact with a plan for economic growth between 2006-2010 placing a strong emphasis on minimal harm to the environment, a SEPA official said.
"There will be significant changes because of the five-year plan," Li Xinmin, deputy director-general of SEPA's pollution control department told AFP adding that the country could not continue down the path of "polluting first and cleaning up later". Chinese officials said China was toughening laws and adopting measures to reduce factory and vehicle pollution while SEPA planned to publish a list of cities that did not meet national air quality standards.
Apparently they don't need the gypsum (byproduct of coal stack S02 scrubbers).
Japan does, though!
Worth a repeat.
Was it Maurice Strong - a world class shill for the international ecofascists.
And China being exempt from most of the requirements of Kyoto that the Euro-jerks want us to sign on to. China already FAR exceeds the US emissions-and are the fastest growing consumer of petrolium.
Just another example of the international double standard.
"It Bush Fault!"
Might be. The article I refer to was quite specific about dates, objectives and total lack of a need for the process to have been started. The Kyoto Protocols, in essence is 100% a solution in need of a problem, combined with an innovative way to redistribute world wealth, or/and a Macchiavellian means of allowing Communism to overpower the west economically by the simple expedient of inventing "Carbon" sales, which the Soviets will have an excess of indefinitely, and the U.S. will not.
I am still digging.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover010405.htm
LOL, thats a great idea!
This is a serious problem that China will have to address. I hope they succeed in addressing it and provide a healthier environment for their own people.
Reportedly they're going to close down industrial production around Beijing for the 2008 Olympics so that the air will be somewhat breathable.
Yes, that's their plan. The Olympics are very important to China. They will want to showcase Beijing during that time and are doing everything they can to make the city green.
The air from Asia comes right through the valley here, has been visible most days for the past twenty years, and sometimes gets downright thick. Sometimes it makes the eyes and throat burn. In the summer it is hard to tell if it is local wildfires, but in winter when the air is moving so local woodstoves and powerplants aren't a factor, there it is, the valley smoked out. It's going to get five times thicker in fifteen years. Great.
Yep, same problem occurred for the Fox River in Wisconsin (near where I grew up in New London). But they've apparently done a decent job of cleaning that river up.
Thank you. It turned out to be a browser misconfiguration here. ...and a little opinion commentary on what I've seen.
A principled small group in NASA was the first, as far as I know, to find and show that our world's leaders are mainly harming arable lowlands (lack of runoff and filtering) around our large cities by concentrating populations in them. A generation before mine--a generation with more common sense--knew that "urban sprawl" was the enlargement of our cities and not movement into rural areas. For example, about a 100 years ago, there were a couple of communities in the Rockies of more than 60,000 people each. Now each of those areas are hardly populated at all.
Most environmental concerns about residential areas are improperly, IMO, focused on sterile but pretty places (mountains, deserts). Isn't it nice to have no near neighbors (little sarcasm there) where so many lowlanders love vacation (money and exclusivity). Corporations that use natural resources have fronted greenie relatives and other associates to push small competition out of the way (saw it here in the lumber industry and housing developments).
So China has built its factories and other plants in the lowlands (no runoff for filtering) and is inviting tourists to its mountains (pretty but naturally sterile). And the world is pushing schemes like the hypocritical Kyoto Accord with a blind eye toward smoky China.
China is the first "developing nation" to launch two manned space flights. When will we wake up?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.