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CHINESE Scapegoat
three false assumptions about china's environmental problems
Although the environmental shuōhuà of many governments can be seen as little more than an intensive PR workout, it seems that the policy makers in China may actually be on the right track with their environmental crackdown. Comparatively speaking, at least. However, the words of Maria van der Hoeven, Director of the International Energy Agency, seemed to fall on deaf ears as she praised the People’s Republic of China for being the world’s most committed spender in terms of renewable energy conversion.
The Great Chinese Scapegoat
September 12, 2015
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1 | China’s most dangerous environmental threat to human health is air pollution, the worst in the world.
It is a great big false allegation to claim that China is home to the world’s most polluted cities in terms of air pollution. In 2014, the World Health Organisation released data on air pollution levels in 1600 cities across 19 countries for (PM2.5 and PM10). Despite being home to the Beijing “Airpocalypse”, China did not feature among the Top Ten Most Polluted Countries in the world.
There is a deep misunderstanding within the mainstream international press about the importance of urban smog in the battleground of Chinese environmental politics. So much so that, in the English subtitled version of Chai Jing’s Under the Dome documentary on YouTube, wu mai（雾霾）and wu ran（污染）were initially mistranslated. The mistranslation made it seem as though the documentary was speaking inclusively about all pollution (wu ran) in China, as opposed to specifically about smog (wu mai).
The mistranslation reflects a growing preoccupation with visible forms of pollution, by both the Chinese government and international press alike, and a gross underestimation of the dangers surrounding soil and water pollution.
Air pollution is still a serious issue of environment in China. However, it is also a particularly easy cleanup to pitch to the taxpayers who will fund it. Thus far, China has already launched seven emissions trading schemes, one of which encompasses the entirety of Guangdong, the country’s most productive province.
Yet only in the last month did the Ministry of Environmental Protection start on an action plan to tackle soil contamination, a deadly but dangerously overlooked health hazard.
People think about China in a way more representative of previous decades. China should be given more credit for its investment in clean electricity.
Maria van der Hoeven, Director of the International Energy Agency (June, 2015)
Of course, spending money is something slightly separate from actually making an impact and reducing the damage caused by decades of rampant industrial development. But, as U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres argued last month, China’s developments are not only impacting domestic energy issues, but also changing the global landscape for environmental reform.
An example Figueres employs is China’s role in reducing the costs of solar technology, making it more accessible to both the governments of developing countries and to lower-income consumers across the developed world.
Despite their major developmental differences, China’s environmental push still dwarfs those of the European Union and U.S. combined.
Though it’s emissions pledge may not seem particularly impressive, it is equal in value to those of the EU and U.S., who are similarly disinclined to officially commit to emissions reduction.
So why is the international press so hell-bent on criticising China, over all others? Here are three major misunderstandings about China’s environmental situation:
Soil contamination has long been the poor stepchild of China’s environmental movement, lagging well behind air and water pollution in terms of government, and even non-government, attention and resources.
Elizabeth C. Economy, Council on Foreign Relations (July, 2015)
Soil and water contamination has created the famous “Cancer Villages” of China, and continues to impact food production for domestic consumption. In the last year, China has admitted that at least one-fifth of its soil is contaminated. Such an estimation had not been previously released because it was “deemed so sensitive, [that] it was classified as a state secret.”
The recent explosions at a Tianjin chemical plant have once more thrown an unfavourable light on China’s chemical industries, but the emphasis once again focuses on air pollution issues. Tianjin leaders have cited data from 12 emergency measuring stations, checking the level of pollutants released by the blasts. The People’s Daily tweeted that toxic sodium cyanide had been found in the port, a substance known to be one of the fastest-acting poisons in the world when ingested.
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2 | China's repressive authoritarianism prevents citizen protests against dangerous environmental conditions.
Though this may have been true just five years ago, recent events suggest that the central government is relaxing its stance of popular protests - if they concern the environment. It is surprising to see that environmental protests, which have risen steadily for nearly 10 years, no longer seem to see the traditional levels of social suppression.
Former CCTV host Chai Jing’s “Under The Dome,” an interrogative documentary focusing on the country’s air pollution issues, was published by the Party’s most well-known mouthpiece, the People’s Daily. It was also praised by China’s environment minister, Chen Jining. It was later censored, but not before it had been viewed by over 100 million people.
There have been incidences of state-governed media inflaming the scale of protests, while local governments have floundered while attempting to stick to traditional self-censorship, only to find themselves left out on a limb by their Central superiors.
It is even more surprising that many of these environmental protests are seeing success, despite their illegality.
In Ningbo, a city inland from Shanghai, a protest against the construction of a paraxylene plant turned violent as protesters clashed with police. Though arrests were made for violent behaviour during the protest, the local government consented to a series of “carefully calculated concessions” in order to defuse tensions.
In July 2013, a “walkabout” protest in Jiangmen, Guangdong, led to the scrapping of a 37 billion RMB (around US$6 billion) nuclear power project, with no arrests for disrupting social order.
Increasingly, experience and evidence is pointing towards an overall relaxation of the rules governing environmental protests. As Xinran, women’s writer and political commentator, argues: “fashion in China has always been political” and right now, it is fashionable to be environmentally conscious, and politically active about it.
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3 | As it is investing the most, China is the most advanced country in terms of renewable energy conversion.
Power, from all materials and sources, generates as many problems as it solves. With China’s unprecedented rise to power, and its skyrocketing power demands, the government has spent billions of dollars trying to upgrade its energy sector, and convert to renewables.
By the end of 2015, China aims to more than triple its solar installation capacity compared with the 2012 installation figures, from 6.5 GW to 21 GW. Similarly, in the wind energy sector, China aims to increase installation by nearly 25% by 2015, from 74 GW to 100 GW.
Despite the apparent positivity of wind and solar development, even such clean renewable energy faces considerable challenges in the Chinese case.
China’s wind farms provide enough wasted energy annually to account for half of Germany’s entire wind power production. Despite extensive government tariff incentives, wind power projects across China face a far more basic problem than a lack of funding. China’s wind farms face a lack of market. Located many miles from the energy-hungry urban centres, China’s rural wind farms lack the necessary infrastructure to transfer generated energy to the cities.
In a country that developed an entire electricity and energy infrastructure according to the needs of coal power, renewable energy sources continue to suffer in the absence of a reform policy that extends beyond investment in technology.
China’s is perhaps the largest yet most inefficient wind power system in the world.
Michael Davidson, East Winds (August, 2013)
For better or for worse, the issues facing China in the environmental arena are far more complicated than the black-and-white press will acknowledge. Such polemic publishing will only push Chinese politicians further behind their default safety net: the Great Firewall.
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