During the past three decades China has become the workshop of the world. I first visited China in 1985 and, as I travelled around, I could see the beginnings of the economic transformation which would escalate during the next two decades. I returned to China in 2012 and could hardly believe the scale of the transformation that had taken place in such a short period of time. More than 300 million people had been moved out of poverty and were now enjoying a middle class lifestyle.
But for all the glitter of new airports, factories, new cities, hotels, roads and rail networks, the environmental costs of this rapid economic growth has been enormous. A study published in March 2013 by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning puts some figures on the cost of environmental degradation. According to this study, the financial cost of pollution is $230 billion in 2010, this is three times what it cost a decade earlier in 2004[1] Air pollution alone contributed to the premature death of 1.2 million people in China in 2010. This represents 40% of all deaths due to air pollution globally, according to data published by the British medical journal The Lancet. [2]
According to Alistair Thornton, an economist working with the research firm HIS Global Insight, the $230 billion figure is incomplete because the researchers have not had a full set of data. Edward Wong of The New York Times, (April 1st 2012) wrote that Chinese officials cut out sections of the 2007 report called “Cost of Pollution in China” that put a of figure on the number of premature deaths due to air pollution.[3]
Those who are battling air pollution in China will seize on a recent study in California which shows that exposure in the first two months of pregnancy to air pollution from traffic sharply increases the risk of birth defects.[4] According to the main researcher, Amy M. Padula, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford, mothers living in areas of high levels of carbon monoxide or nitrogen oxide were almost twice as likely to give birth to a child with “neural tube defects – severe and often fatal defects of the brain and spinal cord – as one living in areas with low concentration of these gases.[5]
According to Thornton, China is faced with making some very crucial decisions. Will the government continue to promote the economic model which has brought prosperity to hundreds of millions of people, but at the expense of huge social and environmental costs? The new political leadership in China is faced with a real dilemma: how to transform the explosive economic growth of the past 30 years into some form of sustainable growth that will deliver prosperity and, at the same time, protect the environment.
In response to this growing concern for the environment the Beijing city government released details of a three-year plan to reduce pollution The plan was even published in the China Daily, which is the official English-language newspaper for the regime.[7] Beijing’s mayor, Wang Anshun, was quoted as saying that the city authorities plan to spend $16 billion on improving sewage treatment, garbage incineration and forestry projects during the next three years.
Despite the heightened awareness and the agitation, China’s state-owned enterprises in the oil and power industries have consistently blocked the efforts of pro-environment government officials to impose policies which would deal with this high level of pollution.
A Deutsche Bank report released in March 2013 claimed that the current growth policies would lead to a continuing steep decline of the environment for the next decade, given the expected coal consumption and boom in automobile sales. [8]
[1] Edward Wong,, Cost of Environmental Damage in China Growing Rapidly Amid Industrialization, The New York Times, March 29, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/world/asia/cost-of-environmental-degradation-in-china-is-growing.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
[2] Edward Wong , Air Pollution, 1.2 Million Premature Deathis in China in 2010, The New York Times April 1st 2013.//www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/world/asia/air-pollution-linked-to-1-2-million-deaths-in-china.html?src=rechp&_r=0&pagewanted=print
[3]. Ibid
[4] Nicholas Bakalar, “Air Pollution Tied to Birth Defects,” The New York Times, April 8, 2013 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/air-pollution-tied-to-birth-defects/?hpw&pagewanted=print
[5] ibid
[6] Jamil Anderlini, “China pollution, “Beijing begins to see light over smog,” The Financial Times, April 6th 2013, page 7.
[7] ibid
[8] ibid