China: number one climate polluter?

By our executive director John Sauven, for Comment is Free.

The news today that China is maybe the world's number one CO2 polluter should come as no surprise. But responsibility for China's soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo. All we've done is export a great slice of the West's carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result. But let us not also forget that the average Chinese emits just 3.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, whereas Britons emit nearly 10 tonnes and North Americans 20 tonnes.

The West moved its manufacturing base to China over the last decade or two knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US. No environmental conditions were attached to this manufacturing move. In fact, the only thing corporations were interested in was the price of labour. This trend kept the price of our products and inflation down, but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions in China.

In the long term, this policy has been a climate disaster. It's the downside of globalisation, where the environmental consequences were never taken into account. We have in effect bankrolled China's industrialisation with no regard for the climate.

Coal accounts for 69 per cent of the primary energy in China - 42 per cent higher than the world's average. Economic development which relies on massive coal consumption and extensive growth has created huge environmental and social challenges for any kind of sustainable development in China.

China is beginning to realise the consequences of this policy, not least because it is suffering serious impacts from climate change including strengthening typhoons, desertification and melting glaciers. At the beginning of June, China's National Climate Change Programme outlined measures China would take to combat climate change. This at least shows that the Chinese government acknowledges the problems of climate change as well as the responsibility of China to help tackling these problems.

However, the biggest problem with the National Programme, as with government programmes everywhere, is the actual implementation of its targets. Plus, it also needs to massively increase its ambitions for the development of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar photovoltaic and introduce concrete measures to reform the pricing of fossil fuels, especially coal, based on their impacts on the environment - a principle at least outlined in the Chinese National Programme.

The programme does not include a mandatory cap for China's total greenhouse gas emissions. China should take up some form of obligation to cap emissions under the Kyoto framework. However, a cap will only work if developed countries seriously commit themselves to help developing countries in areas such as clean technology transfer.

Renewable energy currently takes up about 20 per cent of the primary energy demand in China. About 13 per cent is the traditional use of biomass. About 6.7 per cent is generated by hydro energy power plants, which includes a few large hydro dams such as the Three Gorges dam. Only 0.1 per cent of the primary energy demand is generated by ‘new' renewables like wind, solar PV, solar thermal and modern biomass.

If we are to protect the global climate every help must be given to assist China to clean up its act. They have the cash. We have the technology. The two must be put together. But we also have to examine our consumption binge of cheap Chinese products made in factories dependent on very polluting forms of energy.