Climate of Concern

China’s runaway economic growth means it could soon be the world’s largest single contributor of greenhouse gases. But with climate change threatening the country’s new found prosperity, there are signs it’s waking up to the challenge, says Jiahua Pan.

China’s overall carbon dioxide emissions account for just over one seventh of the global total. That’s way below the global average, when you consider it in terms of emissions per head of population. But it’s bigger than any other country except the United States. And China’s energy consumption, the major source of its emissions, will continue to soar over the coming decades. Researchers at the US-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change predict that China is likely to be the number one emitter within 20 years.

Yet as a developing nation, China is not legally bound to limit its emissions under the Kyoto Protocol - and it’s inconceivable that it will agree to do so at the expense of its development. But that does not mean that the issue is a matter of indifference to China. Far from it. It has recently shifted from having an energy surplus to being an oil importer - a symptom of its rapid industrialisation. And that’s been accompanied by growing evidence of just how seriously it is already suffering the effects of climate change.

Climate change diplomacy

When climate change first reared its head in the 80s, China treated it as a scientific issue, giving the China Meteorological Administration the responsibility of advising on policy options. After Kyoto, this passed to the more powerful State Development and Planning Commission (now the National Development and Reform Commission). It was an important shift in perspective. For China, climate change had become predominantly a development issue.

From the outset, the government approached international negotiations on climate change as an integral part of its foreign policy. It argued that the industrialised countries should take the lead in reducing emissions, while the developing world needed scope to increase emissions so as to meet the needs of development. Developed countries should help them contain these increases, ran the argument, by transferring technology and funds.

At the time of Kyoto, China officially stated that it would not consider limiting its emissions until it reached a “medium level of development”. It implied that this meant an annual income of about US$5,000 per person, which would be reached around the middle of the 21st century. Nine years on, the government remains unlikely to make any commitments to limit its emissions. It has, however, been more flexible when it comes to international efforts to mitigate climate change. These include co-operating on the technological development of renewable energies, as well as on carbon capture and storage. And it has played an active role in the Clean Development Mechanism (which helps developing countries run projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions using investments from developed nations).

Meanwhile at home, China has been striving to diversify its energy sources and increase energy efficiency. This is not primarily because it wants to comply with global climate change policy - although it may have the same desired results. Instead the reasons are economic and social. China is concerned about having sufficient secure energy supplies to sustain its booming economy and meet the consumption demands of its rapidly urbanising population. But it must also do these things while bringing the country’s acute pollution problems under better control. The fact that it generates most of its electricity by burning coal is a real issue - and the worst contributor to its rapidly climbing greenhouse gas emissions [see ‘Energy in the hothouse’].

Although China labels itself a developing country, the image it wishes to cultivate — of a large and responsible power — will probably make it more flexible in international negotiations in the future. There has certainly been no mention recently of the idea that it would do nothing to limit emissions until it has reached ‘medium level development’. Many feel that it will have to consider committing to some kind of emissions ceiling in the post-2012 phase of the Kyoto process, because of the unprecedented speed and scale of its industrialisation and urbanisation. After all, it is in China’s interest to help mitigate the effects of climate change, both internationally and domestically.

But it’s more likely to do so through an active engagement with global initiatives on energy efficiency, renewables and carbon capture, than a new found enthusiasm for curbing its own emissions.

FEELING THE HEAT In 2005, when a comprehensive assessment entitled Climate and Environmental Change in China was published in Beijing, it confirmed that the country is experiencing a pattern of climate disruption similar to the rest of the world. Global warming will hit China hard, making it more vulnerable to damage caused by extreme weather events, rising sea levels, drought, flooding, tropical cyclones, sandstorms and heat waves. Although a warmer climate could increase the amount of land available for farming, extreme weather may reduce agricultural yield by 10%. There is already clear evidence of this happening. In 2004 alone, drought and floods damaged more than 37 million hectares of arable crops, leaving over four million of them barren.
REGIONS AT RISK
NORTHWEST: Largely arid and semi-arid, a fragile environment highly vulnerable to climate change.
NORTHEAST: A warmer climate might increase agricultural production, but also bring growing risk of catastrophic damage from storms and flooding.
CENTRAL / EAST: Winters are very cold, and summers bakingly hot: climate change could exacerbate these extremes, threatening both economic activity and quality of life.
COASTAL AREAS: The densely populated southern and eastern shorelines are highly vulnerable to storms and sea level rise, particularly in the economically dynamic and prosperous Zhejiang region and Yangtze delta.

2 November 2006

Jiahua Pan