Its economy is growing at a staggering rate and its people are beginning to enjoy a better diet as well as a taste of Western-style consumerism. But the head of the United Nations’s environment programme has warned that China’s growth — and ambitious plans for the future — are unsustainable.
Klaus Toepfer warned that so-called developed countries will be forced to tighten their belts under China’s plan to expand its economy fourfold within the next 20 years.
Take the Chinese government’s attempts to get its people to eat more healthily. Beijing has been aiming to encourage every Chinese person to eat 200 eggs a year — a total of 260-billion eggs. To produce that many eggs, a flock of 1,3-billion chickens is needed. To keep the chickens fed, a grain crop bigger than Australia’s is necessary.
The Chinese are also developing a taste for seafood. Should they begin eating fish at the same rate as the Japanese, they would consume the world’s entire catch.
No wonder Toepfer sounded worried when he addressed young environmentalists in Sydney this week.
”Quadrupling the gross domestic product of a country of 1,3-billion — can you imagine?” he asked them.
He considered the example of cars. The number on China’s roads rose by almost 40% last year. The country’s flagship car manufacturer, First Automotive Works, aims to increase its output fivefold in the next few years.
The Institute of Petroleum believes the demand for oil will rise in China by 500% in the next 25 years. Toepfer said that, if China had the same density of private cars as Germany, it would have to produce 650-million vehicles.
”It’s not a question of whether you are devoted to nature or whether this is an emotional topic. This is the rationality of economics,” Toepfer said.
China’s growth in the past 10 years has been phenomenal. While many still live in poverty, an increasing minority can now afford luxury goods. According to the Worldwatch Institute, China has already overtaken the United States, which uses a third of the planet’s natural resources, as the leading consumer of meat, fertiliser, steel and coal.
The adage used to be ”all the tea in China”. In the future, it may just be ”all the chickens” or ”all the cars”. — Â