Center for Ecozoic Studies

The Situation in China Is Critical for the Entire Earth

On the issue of the need for ecological civilization, China deserves special consideration.[1] Over the last 25 years China has been the world’s fastest growing economy, and it is now the second largest, after the United States, when measured on the basis of purchasing power parity.[2] In this period, China’s GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 10% (which means it has doubled every seven years) and on a per capita basis its GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 8% (which means it has doubled every nine years).[3] On a per capita income basis, however, China is still “classified in the lower middle category by world standards, at about $3,180 (nominal, 104th of 178 countries/economies), and $5,943 (purchasing power parity, 97th of 178 countries/economies) in 2008, according to the IMF.”[4] So, it is understandable that the Chinese people and its leaders feel that still more growth is needed.

While an economic “miracle,” China’s growth is resulting in ecological disaster. Here are some things we know:

• China has now surpassed the United States as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases.[5]
• Coal provides 70% of China’s energy needs.[6] Its use of coal has doubled since the year 2000. Two new coal plants are put in service in China every week.[7] “It not only leads the world in coal consumption, with 2.5 billion tons in 2006, but uses more than the next three highest-ranked nations—the United States, Russia, and India—combined.”[8]
• China is home to 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.[9]
• 14,000 new cars are put in service every day in China,[10] with 1,000 new cars a day in Beijing.[11] In the first three months of 2009, China surpassed the United State as the world’s largest auto market with 1,000,000 new cars sold in March alone.[12] In 2030, China is expected to have 20 times more cars than at present and have a greater quantity of automobiles (390 million) than the United States (314 million).[13]
• “China’s farm produce growing areas are suffering from water, soil and atmospheric pollution which reduce the nation’s grain output by approximately 40 billion kilograms every year . . . .”[14]
• About one-quarter of China is now desert. The Gobi desert is spreading by 1,900 square miles each year[15] and extends to within 150 miles of Beijing.[16] Dust storms from the desert have become more severe and frequent and now regularly reach Korea, Japan and beyond.[17]
• Approximately 660 cities have water shortages and 110 severely so. Pumping of underground water is causing cities to sink—”in the case of Shanghai and Tianjin, by more than six feet during the last [15 years]. In Beijing, subsidence has destroyed factories, buildings, and underground pipelines and is threatening the city’s main international airport.”[18] The water table under the North China plain is falling, in Hebei province by 10 feet per year. In Beijing deep wells have to reach 1,000 meters to reach fresh water.”[19]
• While pollution laws are on the books, they are often not enforced. “Today one-third of all industrial wastewater in China and two-thirds of household sewage are released untreated.”[20]
• China plans “to relocate 400 million people—[more than] the entire population of the United States—to newly developed urban centers between 2000 and 2030.[21] The ecological impact of urban dwellers exceeds that of rural dwellers.[22]

China’s ecological impact is not only a problem for China itself, it affects China’s neighbors and the world. For example:

• China’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to double by 2030 threatening the entire world’s ability to address global warming even if the industrialized nations meet their emissions targets.[23]
• “China is [the world’s] leading importer of [many] commodities, including iron ore, steel, copper, tin, zinc, aluminum, and nickel. It is the world’s biggest consumer of coal, refrigerators, grain, cell phones, fertilizer, and television sets. . . . China uses half the world’s steel and concrete and will probably construct half the world’s new buildings over the next decade.”[24]
• “The surge in untreated waste and agricultural runoff pouring into the Yellow and China Seas has caused frequent fish die-offs and red-tide outbreaks, and overfishing is endangering many ocean species.”[25]
• “The growing Chinese taste for furs and exotic foods and pets is devastating neighboring countries’ populations of gazelles, marmots, foxes, wolves, snow leopards, ibexes, turtles, snakes, egrets, and parrots, while its appetite for shark fin soup is causing drastic declines in shark populations throughout the oceans.”[26]
• The release of sulfur dioxide from the burning of coal is a major pollutant in China. “Acid rain now falls on 30 percent of China. . . . Sulfur and ash that make breathing a hazard are being carried by the wind to South Korea[, Japan and beyond]. . . . In the mountains in West Coast states (of the United States) Chinese pollution averages 10 to 15 percent of allowable levels of particles [under the latest United States air quality standards].”[27]
• “The residents of China currently consume more than twice the capacity that China’s own ecosystems can provide.”[28]

Environmental disturbances are causing human suffering and civil unrest in China.

• “China’s State Forestry Administration estimates that desertification has hurt some 400 million Chinese, turning tens of millions of them into environmental refugees, in search of new homes and jobs.”[29]
• Millions of other people are being displaced by urban expansion, industrial and water projects (such as the Three Gorges Dam), water contamination or shortage, degradation of cropland and fisheries, deforestation and other causes.[30]
• “Nearly 700 million people drink water contaminated with animal and human waste.”[31]
• There is a rising tide of cancer. Over 100,000 people per year are affected by pesticide poisoning. There are 300,000 people who die prematurely from air pollution each year. “Zinc Mines in southern China have reportedly contaminated rice and shellfish with cadmium, contributing to high rates of anemia and kidney and bone disorders.”[32]
• “In the spring of 2006, China’s top environmental official, Zhou Shengxian, announced that there had been 51,000 pollution-related protests in 2005, which amounts to almost 1,000 protests per week.”[33]

[1] China should not, however, be singled out for blame. The International Energy Agency notes that China, India, the European Union, the United States and Russia account for two-thirds of the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions, so each of these countries deserves special consideration. If any country other than China is to be singled out, it is the United States. Ibid., 12.

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Economy of the People’s Republic of China,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economy_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China&oldid=285538893 (accessed April 25, 2009).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] China’s greenhouse gas emissions have caught up with the United States and will not fall any time soon, a top Chinese official said on Wednesday, while warning of a huge economic blow from global warming.

The comments from Xie Zhenhua, a deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission who steers climate change policy, marked China’s first official acknowledgement that it could already be the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter.

Emma Graham-Harrison and Chris Buckley, “China Says Greenhouse Gas Emissions Catch up with U.S,” Insurance Journal (October 29, 2008), http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2008/10/29/95073.htm (accessed April 15, 2009).

[6] Elizabeth C. Economy, “The Great Leap Backward?,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2007), 39-40

[7] Alexis Madrigal “China’s 2030 CO2 Emissions Could Equal the Entire World’s Today” Wired Science, February 8, 2008, http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/chinas-2030-co2.html (March 16, 2009).

[8] Jacques Leslie, “The Last Empire: China’s Pollution Problem Goes Global.” Mother Jones December 10, 2007, http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2007/12/last-empire-chinas-pollution-problem-goes-global (accessed April 25, 2009).

[9] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 40.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “Autos to Total 3 Million in Beijing in June,” Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2007 http://www.china.org.cn/english/environment/212058.htm (accessed April 15, 2009)

[12] “China Auto Sales Surge,” CNNMoney.com April 9, 2009 http://money.cnn.com/video/markets/2009/04/09/markets.asia.040909.cnnmoney/ (accessed April 15, 2009).

[13] Joyce Dargay, Dermot Gately and Martin Sommer, “Vehicle Ownership and Income Growth, Worldwide: 1960-2030” (January 2007), http://www.econ.nyu.edu/dept/courses/gately/DGS_Vehicle%20Ownership_2007.pdf (accessed May 12, 2009). Total car ownership worldwide is projected to exceed 2 billion, up from 812 million in 2002. Ibid.

[14] “Farm Land Pollution Decreases China’s Grain Production By 40 Billion Kg.” RedOrbit.com (source Xinhua News Agency—CEIS) December 9, 2005, http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/325641/farm_land_pollution_
decreases_chinas_grain_production_by_40_billion/index.html# (accessed April 17, 2009).

Zhang Lijian, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, said pollution that threatens agricultural production comes mainly from long-term unreasonable use of such chemical compounds as fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and growth modifiers, from improper disposal of animal excrement, and from waste from the farm land.

Other pollutant sources include irrigation with industrial and domestic sewage, discharge of extra solid, liquid and gasiform wastes and acid rain, Zhang added.

Currently, China’s arable land is beset with degradation and a decline in fertility, of which farm land with low yield accounts for 40 percent. Of total land that has been polluted, farmland accounts for one sixth, with a high content of organic farm chemical residues, said Zhang.

According to the State Administration of Environmental Protection, approximately 6.5-7 million hectares of farm land were irrigated with industrial and domestic sewage.

Surveys by the Ministry of Water Resources show that areas with soil erosion have amounted to 3.67 million square kilometers in China, or more than one third of the country’s total land area. Moreover, 40 percent of land nationwide is ravaged by acid rain.

Ibid.

[15] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 41.

[16] Lester Brown, “China Losing War with Advancing Deserts” Eco-Economy Updates, August 5, 2003-6, http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update26.htm (accessed April 25, 2009).

[17] Ron Gluckman, “Beijing’s Desert Storm,” October 2000, http://www.gluckman.com/ChinaDesert.html

[18] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 42.

[19] Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), 70.

[20] Ibid., 43.

[21] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 40.

[22] Justin Kitzes et al., Ecological Footprint in China (Beijing: China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development and World Wildlife Fund—China, 2008), http://www.wwfchina.org/english/downloads/China%20Footprint/chna_footprint_report_final.pdf (accessed April 25, 2009), 26-27.

[23] Volker Mrasek, “China’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Threaten to Double,” Der Spiegel (March 6, 2009) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,611818,00.html (accessed April 15, 2009).

[24] Leslie.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Keith Bradsher and David Barboza, “Pollution from Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow,” New York Times, June 11, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html?ex=1307678400en=e9ac1f6255a24fd8ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss (accessed April 25, 2009).

[28] Kitzes et al., 5.

[29] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 41.

[30] Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2004), 81-83.

[31] Ibid. An article posted on the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China gives this additional information:

[At a national meeting on pollution control held in Shanghai, Zhang Lijun, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection, said,] “The general situation of environmental pollution does not allow us to be optimistic,”

. . . .

China classifies water quality in major rivers and lakes into six levels, ranging from level I, which is good enough to be used as a source of drinking water, to level VI, which is too polluted to be used even for farm irrigation.

The quality of the water sampled in almost a quarter of the monitoring stations set up along major rivers such as the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers averaged at level VI, according to a document circulated at the said meeting.

For monitoring particulate matter and sulfur dioxide as major air pollutants, the China Environmental Monitoring Center classifies air quality in urban areas into five levels, ranging from level I or excellent, level III or slightly polluted, to level V or hazardous.

A national report on China’s environment, issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in November last year, said the air quality of 39.5 percent of 320 cities of prefecture level and above averaged level III or worse.

Pollution in 28 major lakes remained serious, with the quality of almost 40 percent of the water at level VI.

Water in urban regions also faced serious pollution, with 90 percent of river water and about half of underground water polluted.

“Official Acknowledges Serious Pollution in China” Xinhua News Agency (February 24, 2009), http://english.mep.gov.cn/News_service/media_news/200902/t20090226_134667.htm (accessed April 25, 2009).

[32] Economy, River Runs Black, 84-85.

[33] Economy, “Great Leap Backward?,” 47.

The following two quotes draw attention to the larger rise in protests in China:

In recent years, group protests in China have risen at a rate of at least 17% a year in response to land expropriation disputes, election embezzlement, state-owned enterprise reforms, environmental pollution, and denial of justice. Official records for 2005 put the number of protests involving more than 15 people at 87,000—an average of 241 group protests a day.

“Sharp Rise in Group Protests in China,” The Epoch Times, October 16, 2006, http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-10-16/47044.html.

There has been a clear increase in protests over the last decade. In 1994, there were 10,000 protests, according to China’s Public Security Ministry; by 2003, there were some 58,000; and in 2004 there were 74,000 incidents involving some 3.76 million people. Even these figures are “probably underreported,” Segal says. Cohen says the 2004 figure has probably doubled in the last year, putting the number of 2005 protests at over 150,000.

Esther Penn, “China’s Angry Peasants,” Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder (December 15, 2005), http://www.cfr.org/publication/9425/#6 (accessed April 25, 2009).