How is it, ask the cynics in Beijing, that the Chinese government can pass some of the most beautiful laws in the world yet end up with one of the ugliest environments?
It is a question that has haunted leaders since Mao Zedong, who wrote poems as well as legislation in defence of a glorious natural landscape that he then went on to defile in a race towards industrialisation.
The current generation of communist technocrats are from a more prosaic background — many of them graduated as engineers — but they are hoping to avoid a similar ethical challenge with the enactment last week of arguably the greenest legislation in the country’s history.
The renewable energy law, which was approved by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress on 28 February, is — on paper at least — an impressively ambitious attempt to tackle some of the planet’s worst problems of acid rain, greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Its central pledge is that China — the world’s second biggest producer of carbon dioxide after the United States — will increase its use of renewables, such as solar, wind, biomass, tidal and hydropower, to 10% of its total energy supply by 2010.
Achieving this goal will require a dramatic change of attitudes and infrastructure. Currently the country relies on coal for about 75% of its power and hundreds of new coke-fired plants are now under construction. Wind power, by contrast, accounts for 0,01% of the national energy supply.
Politically, economically and environmentally there are good reasons for a shift. China’s spectacular economic growth, which has averaged over 9% for 26 years, has pushed up the global price for fossil fuels, particularly oil. The world’s most populous country is more dependent than most on imports. According to recent government figures, China has only 20% of the forests, 11% of the oil and 5% of the gas of the global per capita average.
In terms of the ”soft power” of the country’s global image, Chinese president Hu Jintao also has a lot to gain by presenting himself as an environmental good guy compared to the petro-driven policies of his United States counterpart, George Bush. Beijing’s decision to enact a law to cut the country’s dependence on fossil fuels even though it is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol has won lavish praise from environmental groups such as Greenpeace, which played a role in advising on the new legislation.
Eco-concern is long overdue in China, where decades of poorly regulated economic growth have left more than two-thirds of cities plagued by acid rain. Most rivers are heavily polluted and the urban air quality has become so bad that respiratory diseases are now the leading cause of death.
But it is still far from certain that the new law, well-intentioned as it sounds, will make much of a difference. Critics say its targets are unrealistic, its aims vague and its existence easy to ignore because of a lack of punishments and incentives.
The legislation provides funds for research into renewables and seeks to create a market for this relatively expensive source of energy by fixing prices and encouraging power grid operators to sign deals with providers of alternative means of electricity generation. But the law looks certain to run into the same wall of provincial non-cooperation that has stymied numerous other fine-sounding central government policies.
As in many countries, the problem is compounded by the weakness of the environment agency relative to economic and industrial ministries. China’s state environmental planning agency is under no illusions about its clout. Earlier this year, it revealed that barely a third of the 586 plans for new power plants had been submitted to the agency for environmental assessments as stipulated by government guidelines.
To its credit, the agency has fought back with a surprisingly forceful campaign to halt the 20 most wasteful and environmentally risky projects. The Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, has given strong backing to such moves and the government has committed itself to introduce ”green-weighted GDP” figures, which would deduct environmental costs from output figures.
These are potentially huge steps in the right direction. But it is still too early to feel optimistic. It is just as possible that these fine sounding policies will go the same ugly way as so many of their predecessors. – Guardian Unlimited Â