Pipe: China

Singapore’s leaders realised 40 years ago that it is much more expensive for a society to live in a polluted environment than a clean one

When the tiny city-state of Singapore gained independence in 1965, its social, economic, political and environmental constraints appeared so formidable that many of those looking in from outside predicted a future of dismal dimensions.

Forty years on, the reality looks very different. Within a few decades, the state – just 714 square kilometres and with very limited natural resources – has turned itself into a role model: a country with increasing per capita GDP, a clean environment and vibrant innovation. From China to Myanmar, “learn from Singapore” has become a common refrain.

Today’s emerging economies are right to single out Singapore for study, and they should pay particular attention to its history of water management. In the face of multiple challenges – surging water demands due to rapid economic development; a 30-fold rise in GDP; a 23%-plus increase in land area through reclamation; a tripling of population; thriving industry – water security has actually improved. Though Singapore is still dependent on imported water, it aims to become self-sufficient within 50 years.

Boom in water consumption

Between 1965 and 2011, total water consumption in Singapore increased from 70 to 310 million gallons per day.

To meet the challenge of this increase, the state has expanded its water catchment – the area from which rainwater is collected through a network of drains, canals, rivers and stormwater collection ponds – to 67% of the area of the island, compared to only 11% when it became independent.

Singapore still buys a lot of its water from Johor in neighbouring Malaysia, but at the same time as water demands have grown, the city-state has worked to reduced its heavy reliance on imports. One of two key water agreements with Malaysia expired in 2011. Under the second, a maximum of 250 million gallons per day can still flow to Singapore. The state aims to cut this figure to zero within 50 years.

The latest available technology has been used to expand Singapore’s water supply base, manage water quality and reduce the energy consumption of its water activities. Examples include the development of non-conventional water sources, such as very high-quality treated wastewater known as NEWater and desalinated water.

NEWater already meets 30% of the national water demand, a figure expected to rise to 50% by 2060. It has become a chief alternative for the growing industrial sector and reduced pressure on potable water. Desalinated water meanwhile satisfies 10% of total water demand and is expected to cover 30% by the year 2060.

Participation of the private sector in infrastructural development has also been encouraged: water pricing has been set at a marginal cost since 2000, while the public has been involved through decades-long communication and information efforts.

Technological advances have been integrated into water policies as one of the many elements necessary both to increase available supply and maintain high water quality, while different ministries proved able to coordinate their water strategies. Notably for China, laws and regulations have been stringently enforced: there were more than 29,000 prosecutions relating to environmental offences in Singapore in the 32 months between 1968 and 1971 alone, marking a move by the state to enforce environmental law decades ahead of its Asian peers.

These are lessons that could be considered by emerging economic powers like China, where fast growth and its associated pollution have triggered serious economic, social and environmental concerns.

Cleaning up the Singapore River

The 10-year clean-up of the Singapore River is one example of coordinated planning, though it took time to come to fruition. Success was made possible by the large-scale re-development of central Singapore and the elimination and control of the sources of pollution entering the river so that water could be used safely and cost-effectively for potable use.

It was not a quick process, and Singapore learned lessons along the way, including the need for support at the highest political levels to permanently solve pollution problems.

Since the river was the main trade artery of the island and growing economic activity along its banks attracted increasing numbers of people – squatter colonies, hawkers, backyard industries – the problem was repeatedly sidestepped. The net result was that increasing quantities of domestic and industrial wastewater and solid waste was discharged into the river, seriously affecting its quality.

It wasn’t until former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew gave an ultimatum to ministries and agencies in 1977 that things started to change. They were instructed to work together to improve the water quality of the river, identify the domestic, commercial and industrial pollution sources blighting the waterway, create relevant legislation and, ultimately, redevelop Singapore’s entire central area.

More than 26,000 families were resettled into public housing, significantly improving their living conditions. Almost 5,000 street hawkers, more than 46,000 squatters and some 800 lighters – barges used to transport goods along the river – were relocated. Around 2,800 industrial cases of backyard trades and cottage industries were also moved, most of them into newly developed industrial estates. Finally, some 610 pig farms and 500 duck farms, which used to discharge untreated wastes into the river, were phased out.

At US$240 million, the clean-up of the Singapore River wasn’t cheap. But a tally of the benefits – both direct and indirect – makes clear it was a sound investment. The programme transformed the face of Singapore. Land values along the river banks soared, as did tourism and business.

Lee Kuan Yew noted during a personal discussion with us that the main driver for long-term strategic planning was the search for water security. During his premiership, water was prioritised to the extent that economic development was subordinate to the impacts it could have on water resources. This strong political support from the highest levels of government has been instrumental to the state’s development.

It is said that Singapore has been able to thrive because of its small size and that its experiences are therefore not relevant to other countries. On the contrary, without a hinterland and almost no natural resources, the tiny island has had to formulate long-term, creative solutions to ensure economic growth and a liveable environment.

Lee Kuan Yew realised as early as the late 1960s that, in the long-term, it is much more expensive for a society to live in a polluted environment than a clean one. Almost half a century later, most of the world’s leaders are still to grasp this fact.

Cecilia Tortajada and Asit K Biswas are authors of The Singapore Water Story: Sustainable Development in an Urban City State (Routledge, 2013).

While China battles widespread lead pollution, the US is dealing with its own legacy of lead poisoning – and facing a new set of biohazards

A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name – and no antidote.   

The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised “better living through chemistry”, but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment.

Today, we are all unwitting subjects in the largest set of drug trials ever. Without our knowledge or consent, we are testing thousands of suspected toxic chemicals and compounds, as well as new substances whose safety is largely unproven and whose effects on human beings are all but unknown. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) itself has begun monitoring our bodies for 151 potentially dangerous chemicals, detailing the variety of pollutants we store in our bones, muscle, blood and fat. 

None of the companies introducing these new chemicals has even bothered to tell us we’re part of their experiment. None of them has asked us to sign consent forms or explained that they have little idea what the long-term side effects of the chemicals they’ve put in our environment – and so our bodies – could be. Nor do they have any clue as to what the synergistic effects of combining so many novel chemicals inside a human body in unknown quantities might produce.

How industrial toxins entered our homes

The story of how Americans became unwitting test subjects began more than a century ago. The key figure was Alice Hamilton, the “mother” of American occupational medicine, who began documenting the way workers in lead paint pigment factories, battery plants and lead mines were suffering terrible palsies, tremors, convulsions and deaths after being exposed to lead dust that floated in the air, coating their workbenches and clothes.

Soon thereafter, children exposed to lead paint and lead dust in their homes were also identified as victims of this deadly neurotoxin. Many went into convulsions and comas after crawling on floors where lead dust from paint had settled, or from touching lead-painted toys, or teething on lead-painted cribs, windowsills, furniture and woodwork.

Instead of levelling with the public, the lead industry, through its trade group the Lead Industries Association, began a six-decade campaign to cover-up its product’s dire effects. It challenged doctors who reported lead-poisoned children to health departments, distracted the public through advertisements that claimed lead was “safe” to use, and fought regulation of the industry by local government, all in the service of profiting from putting a poison in paint, gasoline, plumbing fixtures, and even toys, baseballs and fishing gear. 

Only after thousands of children were poisoned and, in the 1960s, activist groups like the Young Lords and the Black Panthers began to use lead poisoning as a symbol of racial and class oppression did public health professionals and the federal government begin to rein in companies like the Sherwin-Williams paint company and the Ethyl Corporation, which produced tetraethyl lead, the lead-additive in gasoline.

In 1971, Congress passed the Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Act that limited lead in paint used for public housing. In 1978, the Consumer Products Safety Commission finally banned lead in all paints sold for consumer use. During the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency issued rules that led to the elimination of leaded gasoline by 1995 (though it still remains in aviation fuel).

The CDC estimates that in at least 4 million households in the US today, children are still exposed to dangerous amounts of lead from old paint that produces dust every time a nail is driven into a wall to hang a picture, a new electric socket is installed or a family renovates its kitchen. It estimates that more than 500,000 children ages one to five have “elevated” levels of lead in their blood. (No level is considered safe for children). Studies have linked lost IQ points, attention deficit disorders, behavioural problems, dyslexia, and even possibly high incarceration rates to tiny amounts of lead in children’s bodies.

Unfortunately, when it came to the creation of America’s chemical soup, the lead industry was hardly alone. Asbestos is another classic example of an industrial toxin that found its way into people’s homes and bodies. For decades, insulation workers, brake mechanics, construction workers and a host of others in hundreds of trades fell victim to the disabling and deadly lung diseases of asbestosis or to lung cancer and the fatal cancer called mesothelioma when they breathed in dust produced during the installation of boilers, the insulation of pipes, the fixing of cars that used asbestos brake linings, or the spraying of asbestos on girders. Once again, the industry knew its product’s dangers early and worked assiduously to cover them up.

Today, however, these devastating industrial-turned-domestic toxins, which destroyed the health and sometimes took the lives of hundreds of thousands, seem almost quaint when compared to the brew of potential or actual toxins we’re regularly ingesting in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. 

Of special concern are a variety of chlorinated hydrocarbons, including DDT and other pesticides that were once spread freely nationwide, and despite being banned decades ago, have accumulated in the bones, brains and fatty tissue of virtually all of us. Their close chemical carcinogenic cousins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were found in innumerable household and consumer products – like carbonless copy paper, adhesives, paints, and electrical equipment – from the 1950s through to the 1970s. We’re still paying the price for that industrial binge today, as these odourless, tasteless compounds have become permanent pollutants in the natural environment and, as a result, in all of us.

The largest uncontrolled experiment in history

While old houses with lead paint and asbestos shingles pose risks, potentially more frightening chemicals are lurking in new construction. Our homes are now increasingly made out of lightweight fibres and reinforced synthetic materials whose effects on human health have never been adequately studied individually, let alone in the combinations we’re all subjected to today. 

Formaldehyde, a colourless chemical used in mortuaries as a preservative, can also be found as a fungicide, germicide and disinfectant in, for example, plywood, particle board, hardwood panelling, and the “medium density fiberboard” commonly used for the fronts of drawers and cabinets or the tops of furniture. As the material ages, it evaporates into the home as a known cancer-producing vapour, which slowly accumulates in our bodies.

While the flame retardants commonly used in sofas, chairs, carpets, love seats, curtains, baby products, and even TVs, sounded like a good idea when widely introduced in the 1970s, they turn out to pose hidden dangers that we’re only now beginning to grasp. Researchers have, for instance, linked one of the most common flame retardants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, to a wide variety of potentially undesirable health effects including thyroid disruption, memory and learning problems, delayed mental and physical development, lower IQ and the early onset of puberty.

Other flame retardants like Tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate have been linked to cancer. As the CDC has documented in an ongoing study of the accumulation of hazardous materials in our bodies, flame retardants can now be found in the blood of “nearly all” of us. 

These synthetic materials are just a few of the thousands now firmly embedded in our lives and our bodies. Most have been deployed in our world and put in our air, water, homes and fields without being studied at all for potential health risks, nor has much attention been given to how they interact in the environments in which we live, let alone our bodies.

The groups that produce these miracle substances – like the petrochemical, plastics, and rubber industries, including major companies like Exxon, Dow and Monsanto – argue that, until we can definitively prove the chemical products slowly leaching into our bodies are dangerous, we have no “right” and they have no obligation, to remove them from our homes and workplaces. The idea that they should prove their products safe before exposing the entire population to them seems to be a foreign concept.

In the 1920s, the oil industry made the same argument about lead as an additive in gasoline, even though it was already known that it was a dangerous toxin for workers. Spokesman for companies like General Motors insisted that it was a “gift of God”, irreplaceable and essential for industrial progress and modern living.

Like the oil, lead, and tobacco industries of the twentieth century, the chemical industry, through the American Chemistry Council and public relations firms like Hill & Knowlton, is fighting tooth and nail to stop regulation and inhibit legislation that would force it to test chemicals before putting them in the environment. 

There can be no doubt that this is the largest uncontrolled experiment in history. To begin to bring it under control would undoubtedly involve major grassroots efforts to push back against the offending corporations, courageous politicians, billions of dollars and top-flight researchers. But before any serious steps are likely to be taken, before we even name this epidemic, we need to wake up to its existence. 

David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz are the authors of Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children. 

This article was first published by TomDispatch.com

Copyright 2013 David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz

Two climate experts give their recommendations to the new US-China climate change working group

The new Joint US-China Statement on Climate Change, signed during secretary of state John Kerry’s recent trip to China, is symbolic in recognising that forceful cooperation and intensified action by the two largest emitters of greenhouse gas is crucial to containing climate change. It raises the bar by aiming to “set the kind of powerful example that can inspire the world”.

However, this important new signal will only be meaningful if it delivers specific actions that match the strong rhetoric.

After all, this isn’t the first time that these two major countries have committed to working together to address climate change. Just before the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, the two countries agreed to “strengthen and coordinate our respective efforts”. Since then, the US and China have been partnering on a series of clean energy initiatives, though funding and high-level support have dwindled.

Sceptics could, quite rightly, view this new statement as little more than a repeat of the previous one, which was supposed to be an important breakthrough. But it still merits close attention, since real climate progress, including a strong international climate agreement, will only occur if key countries work to turn their climate commitments into specific actions at home.

The joint statement creates a new US-China Climate Change Working Group that will “begin immediately to determine and finalise ways in which the two powers can advance cooperation on technology, research, conservation and alternative and renewable energy” to foster green and low-carbon economic growth. 

As a start, here are our top recommendations for concrete actions the new US-China Climate Change Working Group can promote: 

I. Curb carbon emissions from the power sector and other major emitters

Unconstrained coal use in the power sector and other large industries is a major source of climate and air pollution in China and the US, so tackling this pollution in both countries has to be a key priority. China’s power sector accounts for about 50% of its coal consumption and emissions, with heavy industries such as iron and steel, cement and coal chemicals also constituting a large proportion of its coal consumption and pollution.

In the US, even though the power sector has reduced its consumption of coal in the last two years, emissions from existing coal-fired power plants are still the largest source of US carbon pollution. For both countries, improving efficiency and expanding renewables is essential to curbing emissions.

China has improved the efficiency of coal-burning greatly since 2005 by replacing inefficient power plants with newer, more efficient facilities. Its Top 10,000 Enterprises Program has also boosted energy efficiency, as have provincial demand-side management schemes and other targeted industrial efficiency projects. It has also greatly expanded its use of wind power, and is set for similar growth in solar PV resources in the next five years, for both utility and distributed generation.

The US also has significant success stories in decarbonising the power sector and industry, such as California’s demand-side management programmes, the California Solar Initiative and the progress California is making to reach its target of obtaining 33% of its energy from renewables by 2020. New York state has also recently expanded its NY-Sun initiative, a public-private project that’s providing US$800 million for solar PV projects through 2015 and will provide US$150 million in funding over the next 10 years.

The US-China Climate Change Working Group can help strengthen cooperation on market mechanisms such as cap-and-trade to further incentivise clean-energy investment. China has initiated carbon trading pilot platforms in five cities and two provinces, which will begin trading later this year and are meant to be a precursor to establishing a national carbon trading programme during the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20).

In the US, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and California’s cap-and-trade programme both provide valuable experiences, including (1) developing accurate and comprehensive emissions inventories, which will be helpful for China in developing either carbon trading or carbon tax regimes; and (2) designing emission trading systems so they achieve the optimal emissions reductions, especially through re-investment of programme revenues into efficiency and renewables projects.

The Working Group can also explore other innovative mechanisms for reducing CO2 emissions from power generation. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has developed a groundbreaking proposal to establish carbon pollution standards for existing power plants. Our proposal accounts for differences among states, charts a path to affordable and effective emissions reductions by tapping into the ingenuity of local governments and the private sector to achieve emissions reductions through efficiency and renewables; and provides multiple compliance options, including cleaning up existing power plants, shifting power generation to plants with lower emissions or none at all, and improving the efficiency of electricity use.

The Working Group should also consider expanding the role that public-private partnerships, subnational cooperation and NGOs play in strengthening US-China cooperation on climate change. Such mechanisms can serve as important bridges for exchange on innovative policies, best practices and financing mechanisms.

For example, China has been supporting combined heat and power – integrated and efficient production of heat and electricity – for several years, an area that is also being actively promoted in the US. Similarly, US developers have developed innovative third-party financing mechanisms for distributed solar PV, while China is now actively seeking ways to scale up its domestic distributed PV market.

II. Take urgent action on HFCs and Black Carbon

The Working Group should focus on powerful greenhouse gases such as Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and black carbon, which have a potent near-term impact on the climate system. Joint action on these could be done quickly, with huge co-benefits for both sides and little need for lengthy follow-on work since the solutions are well known in both countries.

The US and China should agree to phase-out HFCs under the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are “super” greenhouse gases used primarily as coolants in room and vehicle air conditioners. Transitioning to safer chemicals that trap much less heat could save an amazing amount of climate-changing pollution – equal to 88 billion metric tonnes of CO2 worldwide before 2050, or 12 times the current annual carbon pollution of the US.

Both the US and China are major consumers and producers of HFCs, so they play an important leadership role here. More than 110 countries have already signed up to efforts to tackle HFC use under the Montreal Protocol, but the proposed phase-down is yet to be implemented due to the resistance of China and India.

The US has begun to ease out HFCs in new cars and is considering proposals for broader action. We have found business reasons for India to phase-down HFCs and similar dynamics are at play in China, where some companies are already developing joint ventures, implementing less damaging coolants and eyeing the evolving market. The US and China could help to unlock the stalemate and agree to take action on HFCs at this year’s Montreal Protocol meeting.

The Working Group should also focus on action to reduce black carbon from high-sulphur diesel fuels and vehicles. Black carbon is a much more powerful contributor to climate change than previously thought. In addition, diesel emissions are particularly toxic, contributing to increased asthma emergencies, cancers, heart attacks and premature deaths.

Fortunately, diesel pollution is a solvable problem. Lower-sulphur fuels, combined with emission-control technologies that are only feasible with low-sulphur fuels, mean vehicles, engines and ships that can be more than 90% cleaner than the models they replace. China recently set a timetable for adopting stricter diesel and gasoline fuel standards, so implementing those standards will be a priority. The US is in the final stages of implementing low-sulphur fuel and vehicle standards.

Both countries should also work together to reduce high-sulphur diesel emissions from ships burning bunker fuel, the world’s dirtiest transportation fuel.  Unlike the US, where ship fuel will soon be capped at 1,000 parts-per-million (ppm), sulphur levels in fuels burned at ports in China and other developing countries are much, much higher than. In those regions, the average container ship burns bunker fuel that averages 26,000 ppm. This too is a solvable problem that will yield major climate and air pollution benefits. 

With the nearby Chinese ports of Shenzhen and Guangdong, the Hong Kong government is exploring the feasibility of proposing to the International Maritime Organization the establishment of a regional Emission Control Area (ECA) to cap sulphur content of shipping fuel at 0.1% within 200 nautical miles. ECAs, which are already in effect in the United States, Canada and northern Europe, provide the most protective clean air standards available under international law and would dramatically reduce polluting emissions from shipping.

III. Ensure strong environmental safeguards for shale gas development

Having observed the rapid scale-up of natural gas from shale in the US, China is aiming to replicate the boom. But US experience has also demonstrated the importance of establishing strong safeguards for shale-gas development in order to protect and conserve precious water resources used to extract the gas, minimise methane and other air pollutant emissions and protect public health.

The Working Group should develop partnerships with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection to ensure such safeguards are put in place and lessons shared. For example, the US has finalised standards for volatile organic compounds that will also reduce methane emissions from new natural gas facilities.

In May last year, the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue included an agreement to “strengthen future cooperation concerning shale gas development and regulatory and environmental frameworks”. But China’s main environmental regulator is the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which currently lacks any environmental regulations or standards specific to shale gas.

It would be very productive for the US environmental regulator, the Environmental Protection Agency, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and NGOs to cooperate on environmental and climate regulatory frameworks for shale gas. Key areas for exchange of best practices include environmental impact assessment, testing and monitoring of well integrity, methane emissions controls, wastewater reduction, treatment and disposal and monitoring and regulatory practices.

The US and China do not have to start from scratch in these efforts. Many of them are already under way with varying levels of effectiveness and support. However, to be effective, the US and China will need a stronger political commitment from the heads of government, scaled-up resources and focused efforts to ensure that the actions are delivered on the ground in each country. NGOs like NRDC, along with public-private partnerships like the China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance, can provide strong support to government efforts. Such assistance is especially important in light of governmental budgetary constraints.

Alvin Lin and Mona Yew from NRDC’s China Program located in Beijing contributed to this post. 

THE first Chinese-owned vehicle manufacturer in the United States has unveiled ambitious plans to eventually build as many as 1,000 plug-in electric buses a year at a refurbished RV manufacturing plant in a wind-swept, sage-dotted corner of the Mojave Desert.

In a news conference on a patio outside BYD's new energy-efficient production facility on Wednesday, the company's Senior Vice President Stella Li said the first of 10 zero-pollution vehicles, already on order from the city of Long Beach, should roll off the assembly line next year.

Within two years, Li said, BYD Motors expects to be producing 50 buses a year, and it will continue to ramp up production, hoping to reach the plant's capacity of 1,000 buses a year within a decade or two.

All the buses will be powered by the company's own iron-phosphate batteries, which will be made at another plant near the bus factory in Lancaster, 100 kilometers east of Los Angeles. BYD is the world's largest maker of rechargeable batteries.

"Today is a very special day for us," Li said. "Today marks the first time a Chinese vehicle company opens a vehicle manufacturing plant in the United States."

She said after the news conference that BYD has invested more than US$10 million in the two plants, declining to give a more specific figure. When the vehicle plant reaches full production, she said, it could employ as many as 1,000 people.

BYD's North American headquarters in Los Angeles now employs about 40 people but will also grow as bus production does, Li said.

For Beijingers, London’s history offers an example of a successful fight against air pollution. But on a trip to the UK capital, Chinese journalist Feng Jie found a city still battling its demons

Inside London’s egg shaped City Hall on the south bank of the River Thames, London Assembly member Darren Johnson sits in a hall as grey as the sky outside, wearing his trademark green tie and welcoming a group of special Chinese visitors.

Johnson is a member of the Green Party and is meeting with a group of popular Chinese microbloggers, each with hundreds of thousands of followers. Most of them come from Beijing and are fed up with their city’s air pollution. They hope Johnson can offer some advice.

The Great Smog of 1952 is thought to have killed more than 4,000 Londoners. But in the 60 years since, London has cast off its Chinese nickname of the “Foggy Capital”, an allusion to the translated title of Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist. For many in China, the city offers an example of how to face up to and deal with air pollution.

But London’s story may not have the hoped-for fairytale ending. By EU standards, London has one the worst air quality of any European capital.

In mid-March, the city suffered several days of severe pollution, with PM2.5 levels reaching more than 40 micrograms per cubic metre – an amount which would hardly raise an eyebrow in Beijing, but still well above levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization and EU standards.

In a non-descript five-story building belonging to the UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), senior scientific advisor for air quality Emily Connolly points out that the city’s average PM2.5 level is now 20. “And for us that’s serious,” she says. The Chinese audience can’t believe it, and ask the translator to check, and then check again. In Beijing, PM2.5 levels soared to 600 micrograms per cubic metre in January.

By comparison, London’s reaction seems almost obsessive. Confirming that London’s average PM2.5 level is lower than even Beijing’s best day, the Chinese crowd jokes that “If you haven’t breathed PM2.5 levels of 500, you haven’t lived.”

Back to 1952?

But the British aren’t being obsessive without cause.

DEFRA puts premature deaths from diseases caused by harmful particles in the air at 29,000 annually – enough to reduce average lifespan for the country by six months.

Frank Kelly, a leading researcher into the health impacts of air pollution at London’s King’s College, reaches an even more worrying conclusion: even if the UK controls PM2.5 levels at around the EU standard of 25 micrograms per cubic metre, he says, more people will suffer from chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There will also be more detrimental impacts on unborn children, he adds.

London is also facing increasing pressure from outside. In the run up to the 2012 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee warned the city that it would reclaim 25% of broadcasting income – around £700 million – if air standards weren’t met. The EU has long ruled that countries where air quality fails to meet standards for over 35 days can be fined up to £300m.

Mark Demery, head of external relations for the London Assembly, told Southern Weekend that London has been talking action to avoid those fines.

In 2008, under the previous mayor Ken Livingstone, London established a 980 square-kilometre emissions zone, with costly charges or even fines for polluting buses, lorries and diesel vehicles. London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) signs dot streets from Piccadilly to Oxford Street to the cultural centre of Covent Garden. Demery explained that the current mayor Boris Johnson is considering expanding the LEZ.

Some unusual measures have also been taken, including the use of “pollution glue”. Since early 2012, dust suppressants have been sprayed on 15 of London’s most polluted streets to capture PM10 pollution, which it is hoped is then washed into sewers or carried off on vehicle tires. Preliminary research suggested this could achieve reductions of between 10% and 14% in pollution, though a more recent study from King’s College has questioned the efficacy.

The special “glue” spraying vehicles work from midnight to 6am, when few Londoners will see them.

But the mayor’s preferred weapon is under investigation by the EU. It is only a temporary measure, and as soon as you stop spraying the effect ends. If the EU find this is a form of cheating, those huge fines may be inevitable.

It is structural problems that cause London headaches, according to Simon Birkett, a clean-air campaigner who gave up a job at HSBC to dedicate himself to the campaigning on air quality. Birkett told Southern Weekend that “decades of development in road transportation have turned visible pollution invisible. The harmful effects of air pollution are increasing faster than pollution itself is being reduced. In this sense we’re back in the time of the Great Smog, even if we thought we’d left it behind.”

Birkett’s group, Clean Air in London, has for years been pressurising the government and lobbying the EU to tighten air quality standards.

In 2001, the European Commission passed a directive on ceilings for national emissions of atmospheric pollutants, which member states had to implement by 2010. 12 nations, including the UK and Germany, failed to do so.

In early 2013, the EU gave the UK a warning over its failure to comply. But despite almost inevitable delays, the UK was the only nation not to apply for an exemption. A DEFRA spokesperson explained that “the UK cannot reach EU standards by the end of 2015,” meaning that an exemption would have done no good.

Tom Levitt, managing editor at environmental website chinadialogue, worries that the UK will still struggle to get the job done: “It’s just the same old story of London failing to clean up its air.”

Weakened legislation and opposition

The UK has been procrastinating on air pollution ever since the Great Smog of 1952.

The government’s first response to that tragedy was to shift blame and deny the need for legislation to combat pollution.

“I am not satisfied that further general legislation is needed at present,” said then minister of housing and local government Harold Macmillan – later prime minister – despite a report from the London County Council making clear the dangers of air pollution.  

He proposed setting up an investigative committee, but warned that the government could not cure all ills. Health minister Iain Macleod also pleaded helplessness. “Really you know, anyone would think fog had only started in London since I became a minister,” he joked.

Under pressure from members of parliament and the LCC, the government eventually backed down and a committee of inquiry was formed, chaired by Sir Hugh Beaver.

Sixty years later, Robert Vaughan says that the delays in legislation were most likely due to years of debate and discussion: “The debate on how the government should respond to air pollution, and if it should limit or ban the types of fuels people could use, continued until 1955. It was only then that the Beaver Committee published its report and legislation became possible.”

The committee identified the chief culprit: domestic fuel use was less efficient and created twice as much pollution as industry. The government must ensure supply of smokeless coal, which the public would have to use during smoggy periods, while the Met Office needed to warn of those periods in advance, the report said.  

Dspite the report identifying the problem and proposing a practical solution, the UK government – facing a long list of urgent tasks in the wake of World War II – remained reluctant to act. A group of MPs decided to table their own bill, bypassing government inactivity. One of the MPs involved was Gerald Nabarro. 

That prompted the government to come up with its own alternative bill. Weaker than Nabarro’s proposed bill, the Clean Air Act passed in 1956 and provided a basis for dealing with air pollution.

It is also not commonly known that air quality standards, widely accepted today, were once subject to opposition.

At the time, the Greater London Council was a stalwart supporter of the EU’s air quality standards. It argued that lessons had to be learned from the smog and standards set to tackle the problem head on, rather than reacting to it passively.

But the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution disagreed: “While we welcome the intent to improve air quality… we do not think that the achievement of this aim by imposing rigid statutory limits is either wise or practical. We believe that such limits would be unenforceable in practice and would bring the law into disrepute.”

The debate ended in 1995 with the Environment Act, which required the government to produce national air quality standards and targets.

“People still don’t want change”

As coal-burning declined in the UK, power plants alongside the Thames reinvented themselves – as art galleries, or high-end apartment complexes.

It is impossible to think people today would ever go back to cleaning out chimneys and raking half-burnt bits of coal out of the ashes to reuse. But decades ago, when the government started to eliminate coal-burning as a response to the 1952 Great Smog, Londoners stood in opposition. Some of the upper and middle classes saw the coal fire as “a symbol of traditional British life”.

To deal with the root causes of the smog, the government set up strict smokeless and smoke control areas. And alongside strict enforcement, subsidies were provided for domestic fires to be converted.

“It is hard to imagine that 50 years ago many Londoners did not realise this was the right policy – and the same is true today,” said former mayor Ken Livingstone at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Great Smog in December 2002. Now, as then, people don’t like change.

When, in 2008, London needed to implement the emissions zone to cut new forms of pollution from vehicles, there was strong opposition from vehicle manufacturers’ associations and others. These groups complained that the charges and fines would badly affect owners of polluting trucks and construction machinery.

In a café in Old Street in east London, Tom Levitt recalls the air quality commitments made by the current mayor during his election campaign – but he thinks many have not been kept.

“London hasn’t been able to implement stricter emissions zone rules and eliminate polluting vehicles, and this is due in part to opposition from ‘white van man’,” said Levitt.

In the UK the term “white van man” refers to anyone who drives a small commercial van for work – plumbers, locksmiths, delivery drivers. These people were hit hardest by the LEZ charges.

But fortunately the government did not stand alone. Environmental groups, parliament and the city government mobilised political and commercial resources to deal with air pollution, all the while patiently telling the public that this was their responsibility too.

Today measures such as driving less, taking the underground, choosing more efficient vehicles and saving energy at home are advocated in government slogans and taught at school. They have become a part of the everyday lives of Londoners.

But today London is still under fire for the quality of its air, and both the UK government and the people of London are facing a difficult choice, similar to that of 1952.

Data to use

For the civil servants of DEFRA, it isn’t enough to just sit in the office and try to tackle air pollution. As the EU requires member states to make pollution data public, DEFRA has a specific transparency strategy.

Even before the advent of social media, DEFRA and other ministries were providing information by e-mail and telephone hotlines. Now websites and social media platforms are also used.

“The government has to give the public the data, because they are the taxpayers,” said Emily Connolly. DEFRA’s own website encourages the public to watch this hard-won data more closely, to make it more valuable.

A major part of the work of Connolly and her colleagues is publishing air pollution data and health advice via a UK Air website and associated Twitter and Facebook accounts.

To help ordinary people understand what abstract pollution data actually means, the UK Air website uses a colour-coded air quality index with 10 different levels. The deeper the colour, the worse the pollution – Band 10 is purple.

Health advice from government experts is given alongside the pollution data. In the week prior to the arrival of the Chinese delegation, the website was advising susceptible groups to reduce outdoor activity and also strenuous indoor activity, due to high pollution. The advice is so detailed it even tells asthma suffers to use their inhalers more often.

And while many employers might ban staff from using social media sites during working hours, for Connolly tweeting is actually part of her job.

In May 2012, DEFRA opened an official air quality Twitter account. The pollution index is tweeted three times daily through the week, and twice at weekends.

But after several months the account has less than 500 followers, failing to keep up with the Clean Air in London group. DEFRA is considering having pollution data included in weather forecasts – nobody in Britain would miss that.

The UK Air site also makes policy suggestions for government, depending on the degree of pollution.

“Once we’ve published the data, nobody else needs to,” explained Connolly. “And we license the data so others can use it.” She went on to say that using social media to make data available to both the public and business is a major target for DEFRA. They believe only this will motivate Londoners to work together to change their dirty air.

This article was first published in Southern Weekend

Instead of building more nuclear power plants, Taiwan should replicate its neighbour's successful support for the renewable sector over the past decade

Taiwan is racked by debate over the prospect of a referendum on its fourth nuclear power facility, currently under construction, but subject to a ban on further works. 

The debate is focused on the risks of nuclear power on an earthquake-prone island (with reference to the Fukushima disaster in Japan) and the supposed cost of moving off a nuclear trajectory in terms of electricity prices and reliability of supply. 

It has also become side-tracked by a long debate over the legalities of the referendum process in Taiwan, and whether the present government is to be trusted in the framing of the referendum question. 

However, what is missing in this debate is the recognition that Taiwan has more to gain in promoting renewable energy industries than in sticking with the nuclear option, both in terms of energy security and in terms of building export platforms for tomorrow. The example Taiwan should be following is Taiwan itself.

Taiwan is justifiably proud of its achievement in building three "pillar industries" in semiconductors, flat panel displays and PCs. Now it should be getting ready to add a fourth pillar industry, of comparable success – a solar PV and wider renewable energy sources industry – utilising all the institutional and entrepreneurial strategies perfected in Taiwan’s earlier development.

Replicating mainland China 

The model for such a strategy is close to hand. In mainland China, we find the world’s most strenuous and dedicated promotion of renewable energy industries, in an extraordinarily successful industrial policy. Renewable energy industries were considered playthings, marginal players, until China got serious about promoting them in the mid-2000s. In one sector after another – first in wind, then in solar photovoltaics (PVs), tomorrow probably in concentrated solar power (CSP) – China has been pursuing relentless promotion of a “green” option to balance and complement its pursuit of a “black” coal and oil-fired option. 

The mainland’s industrial policies, grounded in the need to build energy security and not be reliant on fuel imports from troubled countries, have been spectacularly successful, as it has exported its renewable energy products all around the world. But it is also exporting its green development “model” to other countries such as India and Brazil, and it is now being emulated as well by advanced countries such as Germany (with its non-nuclear “Energy transformation” or Energiewende).

Mainland China’s relevance as an energy model for the Taiwan nuclear debate is undeniable. It not only has an effective industrial policy to support the development of new industrial sectors such as renewables, but is also successful in promoting the drastic upgrading of the grid to make it able to accommodate a variety of decentralised renewable inputs, through investments in IT (a smart grid) and high-tension long-distance HVDC power lines (a strong grid). 

Ageing nuclear technology

By contrast, Taiwan is currently embroiled in an energy debate over the nuclear option that Germany and many other countries are leaving behind. This is a very different perception of the future from that of Taipower and some Taiwan big firms, who anticipate that renewables will be costly and unreliable. The Chinese government knows full well that the opposite is the case. 

Taiwan’s nuclear industry is nearly three decades old, and has been based on now-outdated American technology. Four of its reactors are General Electric boiling water reactors, and two are Westinghouse pressurised water reactors (PWRs) – the kind that succumbed at Fukushima in Japan. The reactor designs date from the 1950s. The fourth nuclear facility projected, at Lungmen [Gongliao, New Taipei City], is designed to consist of two 1,350-megawatt Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR), sourced once again from GE-Hitachi (reactors) and from Mitsubishi (turbines). 

While ABWR technology is Generation III, apart from the contracting business involved in actually building the reactor, there is very little anticipated Taiwan contribution or spin-off from the technology. No doubt there has been considerable pressure from American sources to ensure that Taiwan continues to implement US-made nuclear technology. This is where the contrast with a “Taiwan-first” renewables industrial strategy would be most telling.

The approach we propose is based on extending the successful Hsinchu model that has been the backbone of Taiwan success in high-technology industries. This is a quite different strategy from the one being pursued by both political camps in Taiwan – the KMT with its pro-nuclear stance and the DPP with its anti-nuclear stance. The key is to frame the energy issue in terms of Taiwan’s industrial strategies.

The solar farm idea

To fix ideas, let us suppose that the Taiwan government said today that the entire nuclear fleet would be phased out over five years, and would be replaced by a series of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants – fields of mirrors collecting and concentrating solar energy and storing it in a heat transfer fluid such as molten salts. The scare stories are that this would cover Taiwan in photovoltaic cells; that it would be prohibitively expensive; and that it would be unreliable since power could be generated only when the sun shines or the wind blows. All these claims are false. 

The reality is that just a few mirror farms using molten salt technology as heat sink would be needed, covering no more than 125 square kilometres, which is as nothing when compared with Taiwan’s land area of 32,260 square kilometres, and comparable to the land currently devoted to Taiwan’s advanced science and technology parks. 

The point about CSP plants operating with molten salt heat storage is that they could easily generate all the power currently produced by the nuclear fleet in Taiwan – and generate power 24 hours a day (with up to 30 days heat storage for power generation in the current technology) – in a way that is infinitely more reliable and safer than the current nuclear facilities. In time-honoured fashion Taiwan’s adoption of CSP technology would drive down the costs and open up a vast global market, and at the same time score a massive plus for reducing global carbon emissions. 

What a new green industrial paradigm would require is not just promotion of new industries (as is being done for solar PVs, LEDs and electric vehicles) but promotion of a domestic market as a test-bed for the new products and services. 

HYBRID and electric models were in the spotlight as the 15th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition kicked off yesterday.

This was not surprising, given that China, the world's biggest auto market, has just experienced a winter of unprecedented smog amid high vehicle emission levels.

Among the more than 1,300 vehicles on display, 91 were new energy models, including 56 from international firms, making it the first time in the show's history that foreign models outnumbered domestic ones for green exhibits.

Wang Xia, chairman of the Automobile Industry Committee at the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said figures show that new energy cars are no longer only an eco-friendly concept touted by Chinese carmakers, but, rather, a substantial business opportunity recognized by market players from all over the world amid increasing environmental awareness.

Of special concern are sports utility vehicles which often conjure up image of being gas guzzlers. Volkswagen presented a global model of its hybrid SUV CrossBlue Coupe and China's GAC unveiled the deep hybrid SUV Trumpchi GA5.

Global collaboration

The most notable evidence of the growing social importance of green vehicles in China is perhaps the fact that they took center stage at the stands of premium car brands, whose customers hardly need to worry about rising fuel prices.

Among luxury green cars making their China debut were Mercedes-Benz' SLS AMG Electric Drive and Lexus' hybrid LF-CC concept car. Porsche made the new Panamera S E-Hybrid the centerpiece of its show appearance.

Another trend in the green business is that the development and production of electric cars and supporting technologies is shifting to more of a global collaboration model.

The auto show has on display many green accomplishments achieved jointly by Chinese and foreign carmakers, which include e-Lavida, the purely electric sedan developed by Volkswagen and its Chinese partner SAIC, a "twin-engined" concept car by Toyota equipped with its Chinese-developed hybrid powertrain, and the latest high-voltage safety technology for electric vehicles by Denza, the first new energy joint-venture brand in China, co-owned by China's BYD and Daimler.

More China-only car brands will come to the market with a special focus on sustainable mobility. A pure electric concept car exhibited at GAC Toyota's booth offers a preview of their co-owned brand yet to be launched.

"While automakers are making tremendous efforts to develop their technological expertise, a growing level of global collaboration efforts are expected between OEMs, suppliers and other innovative companies to maximize their collective knowledge and resources," said Thomas McGuckin, auto leader of audit, tax advisory firm PwC Asia Pacific. "In China, we also expect to see collaborative efforts accelerate as standards are defined."

Following this trend, China may establish its green dominance by 2020 though Japan is still seen as the current leader by the majority, according to a survey conducted by the firm among 200 participants from 34 countries representing the automotive, utilities, energy, technology, government, finance and education sectors.

TOYOTA'S global sales of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles have surpassed 5 million in a milestone for a technology that was initially greeted with skepticism.

The Japanese automaker, which said yesterday it had sold 5.125 million hybrid vehicles as of the end of March, started selling the Prius, the world's first mass produced hybrid passenger car, in 1997. Gas-electric hybrids deliver fuel efficiency by switching back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor depending on speed and other driving conditions, and recharges as it travels.

"What an achievement for this technology to have grown this widespread," said Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, known as "the father of the Prius" for having led the team that developed the hit model. "I believe there is a lot more room for this technology to grow," he said at Toyota's Tokyo office yesterday.

Toyota's hybrid vehicles now account for 14 percent of its global sales and 40 percent of its sales in Japan. Toyota sells 19 hybrid passenger car models and one plug-in hybrid, and is promising 18 new hybrids from now through December 2015.

Uchiyamada recalled that expectations had been low for the hybrid to catch on.

The production plan had called for barely 1,000 cars a month, he said, and he had to beg to raise it to that from 300 a month. But when the Prius was announced, people were flocking to dealers in Japan to place their orders. And there wasn't even a sample model to check out yet in the showrooms.

When the Prius was launched in the US, it was again met with enthusiasm, by people Uchiyamada called "opinion leaders," including Hollywood stars.

It was almost all too good to be true, he recalled, as marketing experts had warned that Americans would likely not want a car like the Prius because gas prices were then relatively low.

Since then, gas prices have skyrocketed and nations around the world are grappling with pollution and global warming.

After the March 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disasters in Japan, hybrids found a new use, helping deliver electricity during blackouts in disaster zones.

China is enabling developing countries to mirror its strategy of infrastructure-led development by providing the needed investment at low cost. The West has a lot to learn.

South African President Jacob Zuma’s warning to Western corporations to change their neocolonial attitudes toward Africa or risk losing out to China and other developing economies resonated powerfully last month, as South Africa hosted Brazil, Russia, India and China at the fifth BRICS summit. But Zuma’s stance reflects the rise of cross-border “macroinvestment”, a phenomenon that is more remarkable than the developing world’s declining reliance on the West.

Business investment is usually project-based, with the factory to be built or the land to be cultivated forming the investment boundary. A larger deal – for example, a concession to mine iron ore in Mongolia – would include more complex investment boundaries, establishing details like the project’s timing and the anticipated benefits to the host country.

For example, beyond building the mine itself, the deal could include investments in transport systems to market the mined product, energy generation and accommodations and other facilities for workers in the surrounding communities. In some cases, the deal might even include features aimed at boosting domestic added value by localising the mine’s procurement or creating the capacity to process the mine’s output.

The advent of macroinvestment is rendering even such extended deals obsolete. Macroinvestment involves government-to-government agreements that pre-allocate large lines of cross-border public financing. (This should not to be confused with the equity-based private investment strategy of the same name, which attempts to anticipate and profit from global trends.)

Unlike comparable financing that Western governments provide, these pre-designated lines of credit are tied to agreements concerning market or natural-resource access, and provide additional funding for the host government to invest according to its own priorities. Angola’s government, for example, arranged with China’s Exim Bank for several lines of credit totalling several billion dollars, some directly in exchange for oil, and others more broadly linked to enhancing Chinese companies’ ability to secure oil concessions.

Western commentators have largely dismissed such investment as a means for China to build vanity infrastructure, such as public administration buildings, oversized airports and underused highways. But, while such follies exist, the reality is far more interesting – and its impact far more significant.

Developing countries – and, increasingly, advanced countries as well – need massive infrastructure investment to drive their economic development. China is now enabling its developing partners to mirror its own strategy of infrastructure-led development by providing the needed investment at low cost. In these mutually beneficial macroinvestment deals, Chinese contractors deliver the needed infrastructure. Host governments receive financing not only for the agreed projects, but also to pursue other priorities that they have identified for their countries.

Shifting approach to investment governance

Critics argue that China’s macroinvestment strategy encourages rent-seeking by partner governments, providing slush funds that serve the political elite and well-connected businesses. They highlight China’s unwillingness to embrace initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or to establish an equivalent of America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or the OECD’s Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

To be sure, such concerns are not unwarranted; China and its partners would benefit from robust anti-corruption legislation regulating Chinese companies’ international operations. But the critics ignore China’s promotion of national environmental and social oversight over outward investment, including the “green credit guidelines” that the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued last month, and the just-released Guidelines on Environmental Protection in Foreign Investment and Cooperation. Indeed, China is rewriting the rules for cross-border investment governance, just as it is reshaping public and private investment strategies for the twenty-first century.

Macroinvestment need not be exclusive to China, though competing against China’s unique combination of low-cost operations, abundant cheap finance, and powerful state-owned enterprises will not be easy. But, as major emerging economies like Brazil and India rapidly increase their outward investment, they are in a prime position to establish similarly constructive arrangements with developing countries.

Western countries, too, can meet growing demand for broader long-term investment deals. But they must adopt a new mindset, treating host countries as equals. Lecturing developing-country governments, while limiting investment to resource extraction, is no longer tenable.

Global investment markets are changing fast. And the cost of falling behind – erosion of long-term competitiveness – could not be higher.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.

The authorities are increasing their cloud-seeding ambitions in response to drought, but many experts are sceptical about the benefits

Airplanes loaded with cloud-seeding chemicals swept across southwest China early last month in a bid to bring rain to the drought-parched region. Tens of thousands of rockets and battalions of cannons stood poised to ambush stray clouds that might pass unwittingly into view.

By mid March a light, sporadic drizzle over Yunnan province brought welcome relief to farmers and residents struggling into a fourth consecutive year of severe drought. Local newspapers heralded the rains as the province’s first successful large scale cloud-seeding operations of the year.

This was the latest episode in China’s attempts to control the weather.

The water-starved country already has the world’s largest weather engineering programmes, and these look set to grow. In February, China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, announced plans to step up cloud-seeding and other weather modification techniques to tackle drought and boost agriculture.

Cloud-seeding is the oldest and most common weather modification technology, and often a resort during drought. It involves injecting clouds with frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) or silver iodide, using military aircraft, cannons or rockets, to speed up the production of rain.

China’s bid to use cloud-seeding to guarantee blue skies during the 2008 Beijing Olympics caught global attention. But the country’s history of “rainmaking” stretches back into the distant past. Marco Polo reportedly returned to Europe from Cathay with an “explosive yellow powder” – and tales of how the Chinese used it to trigger rain, historian James R Fleming points out in his book Fixing The Sky.

Today, China spends US$100 million a year on operations to make rain, prevent hailstorms, contribute to fire fighting and counteract dust storms in almost every province.

It’s a figure expected to grow. "Weather modification technology is crucial to China," Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, told China Daily in 2012. During China's 12th Five-Year plan period "our goal is to reduce losses caused by weather disasters from 3% of GDP last year to 1% by the end of the period."

Doubts about effectiveness

China is not the only country looking for technological fixes to water scarcity. The popularity of cloud-seeding has rocketed over the past decade, as governments, companies and scientists turn to large-scale interventions in our climate systems – known as geoengineering – as a potential fix for water shortages and global warming.

In the US, cloud-seeding is used to boost rainfall during spring planting, suppress hail, increase snowpack in the Rocky Mountains and divert and weaken hurricanes. Scientists working for the Abu Dhabi government claimed to have created more than 50 rainstorms in Al Ain in July and August of 2010, the peak of summer. Indonesia recently said it had used cloud-seeding to prevent further flooding in its inundated capital Jakarta. Iraq, Yemen, India and Mexico all have their own programmes.

“Worldwide more than 40 or 50 countries are doing cloud-seeding,” says Roelof Bruintjes one of the world's leading experts on weather modification at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research who has helped many countries design and improve weather modification programmes, including China.

“With so many countries doing this, getting the science right is important.”

China’s false hopes on geoengineering

Though a prominent advocate of weather modification, Bruintjes is critical of China’s methods. Despite the wishful thinking of policymakers, cloud-seeding is “not a drought busting tool”, he says, pointing out that drought tends to mean less cloud – and without cloud, you can’t cloud-seed. Such techniques should be used as a long-term water management tool rather than a quick fix, he says.

Paul Sayers, a water expert at the University of Oxford who is advising the Chinese government on drought planning, also dismisses cloud-seeding as a solution to drought, arguing the authorities need to get a better balance between supply and demand management. “Drought plans can’t just be about infrastructure – desalination, cloud-seeding – China needs to think about drought in a more strategic way.” A start would be to find a way of prioritising water allocations during drought to avoid irreversible environmental damage, he says.

Experts are in fact sharply divided on the efficacy of cloud-seeding. The China Meteorological Administration claims its weather manipulations helped to release 490 billion tonnes of rain – about 12 times the water storage of the Three Gorges Project – between 2002 and 2012. But many are sceptical about such lofty claims, as well as China’s recent noises about more ambitious programmes.

“My first impression is that it’s very much more of a public relations effort than it might be a technically sound proposition,” says Fleming, who is professor of science, technology and society at Colby University in Maine. Being seen to do something about China’s worsening drought at least demonstrates an attempt to fix the problem, even if it achieves little.

As the world invests more in geoengineering, China is also likely to want to stay at the front of the pack, he says: “If China is becoming a world leader economically and in some ways militarily, they’re going to have to position themselves as a player in this field, even if from my point of view it’s a slight fantasy.”

Does it work?

The danger, Fleming argues, is that a focus on weather manipulation distracts from the lifestyle changes that can really make a difference to our environment. The biggest impact on the Beijing Olympics came not from the much-hyped “cocktail of artillery shell ordinance” used to bust up clouds, he says, but lower-key measures to slow down traffic into the city, which reduced hydrocarbons and helped clear the air, compounded by a “fortuitous weather pattern”.

This gets to the heart of the problem with evaluating cloud-seeding, namely the difficulty proving cause and effect. Weather is complex, shifting and difficult to understand – crediting shell fire for subsequent rain is easy enough in political rhetoric, but harder to stand up scientifically.

Some of the research that has been done strikes a sceptical tone. In 2003, the US National Research Council published a study that questioned the effectiveness of cloud-seeding and the extent of impacts outside of local areas. The report called for greater research into practices for understanding and improving cloud-seeding impacts.

To complicate things further, rising levels of pollution in the atmosphere could reduce the effectiveness of cloud-seeding, says Bruintjes. His research on inadvertent weather modification, including the effects of smoke and pollution on clouds and rainfall, suggests that what works in an unpolluted region may not in a highly polluted one.

He says more research is urgently needed in China, where the approach has been chaotic and unscientific:“They have made some claims but there is no evaluation available that can substantiate their claims," he says. China has started to invest more in upgrading technology and evaluation methods, adds Bruintjes, but results will be slow to show.

Research is costly, admits Bruintjes, but if you can get 10-15% of water out of cloud, it’s cost-effective – “five to 15 times cheaper” than any water-saving alternative, such as building reservoirs, desalination plants or water-transfer programmes.

Fears of local and regional conflict

Concerns stretch beyond efficacy and cost, however. Fleming points out that commerce is playing a driving role in weather modification. His studies of dry areas of the US show funding for rainfall enhancement is coming not from the government, but from water companies, irrigation companies and hydropower companies.

Officials in China have also talked about providing cloud-seeding as a service to the private sector. The prospect of companies paying for rain to fall in one area – potentially meaning it won’t fall somewhere else – will inevitably raise knotty questions about water rights and public access to resources.

Some commentators are also fearful that growing use of weather modification could lead to conflict both within and between states.

Its development is already closely linked with military espionage. During the Cold War, US scientists debated weather modification as one way to destroy Soviet agricultural harvests and incite internal dissent. The US military used cloud-seeding in the Vietnam War to disrupt transport of military supplies along the Ho Chi Minh, a move it's claimed triggered catastrophic flooding and widespread starvation.

James Lee, professor at the American University, Washington and author of Climate Change and Armed Conflict, has even suggested the US military is investing in cloud-seeding as an excuse for developing drones. Almost inevitably, Lee fears the widespread use of weather modification could trigger resource conflicts: “There are so many countries involved in this that I think at some time, one country is going to say to the other ‘hey, you’re stealing our rain’.”

A controversial pipeline to Canada’s oil sands has serious implications for the climate and China

The oil sands of western Canada, a barren-looking expanse in the province of Alberta, possess an enormous amount of power. Locked away in the sand and sediment is the third-largest crude oil reserve in the world, with the capacity to produce hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.

Canada’s oil sands contain the majority of the world’s remaining oil reserves that are still open to private development. The fight over what should become of its crude is a microcosm of the battle for the few remaining unclaimed energy sources in an increasingly energy-hungry world.

Environmentalists are pointing to the dangers of climate change, pipeline supporters are pointing to billions of dollars in potential profits, and neither side can believe the other one could overlook something so massive.

It’s a scene China is watching very closely – especially since it has a stake in the matter. 

In February, the state-owned Chinese National Offshore Oil Co. bought the small Canadian gas and oil company Nexen for US$15.1 billion. The purchase – China’s largest-ever overseas acquisition – gives China about a 7% stake in Alberta’s oil sands, said Stephen R. Kelly, a former US diplomat to Canada who is now at Duke University. 

The European Union has labeled oil from the oil sands (or tar sands, as they’re sometimes known ) as a dirty fuel, limiting its import to the EU. US reliance on foreign oil imports is declining. Yet the energy-hungry economies of China, India and other developing nations pose lucrative markets for Canada’s oil.   If Alberta had the infrastructure to get its oil to the international market, Kelly said, the oil sands would be worth an additional US$20-30 billion per year.
“There are powerful financial incentives to find a way to get that oil to world market,” Kelly said. “Those incentives are so strong that this will happen, and when it does the Chinese investment in the oil sands region will seem quite prudent.” 

Getting the sands’ oil to places where it could be refined and exported, however, is no small task. At the moment, Alberta has an insufficient amount of infrastructure to transport the crude out of the province. Plans for a few different pipelines are currently on the table, but the proposals have been met with massive opposition from those concerned about their potential for oil spills and massive greenhouse gas emissions.

Tar sands oil comes to the US

Sometime this summer, US President Barack Obama is expected to announce his decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline Project, a 1,900-kilometre extension to an existing pipeline system that would link Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in the US.

Though opponents have also voiced concern about the possibility of oil spills along the route, Keystone’s climate change implications are at the heart of environmentalists’ opposition. A barrel of oil produced from oil sands generates 5% to 20% more emissions than a barrel produced from conventional sources, thanks to the extra energy needed to extract crude from sand.

The environmental campaigner Bill McKibben has recounted a now-famous conversation he had with James Hansen of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in which he asked the climate scientist what Keystone would mean for climate change. “Essentially, it’s game over for the planet,” said Hansen. Hansen has been arrested four times for protesting construction of the pipeline, which he has called “a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent.”

“The high price of oil on the international market, largely driven by an increase in demand in Asia, is the only reason why these dirty fuels are commercially viable,” said Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, a US campaign group founded by McKibben and others.

The pipeline could also stymie China’s development if and when the global markets begin to price carbon more aggressively, he added. “The more carbon intensive projects like Keystone XL that are approved in the developed world, the less room the developing world will have to maneuver,” Henn said.

Proponents argue that the pipeline would create jobs, cash and energy security that Canada and the US can’t afford to pass up.

Keystone isn’t the only oil sands pipeline in question. In addition to discussions over its section of Keystone, Canada is embroiled in an equally vociferous debate over the proposed Northern Gateway project, a twin pipeline system linking Alberta to shipping outlets on the coast of British Columbia.

Though the company behind the project insists it will bring the province jobs and more than US$1 billion in tax revenue, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark says she will block the pipeline unless environmental concerns are addressed.

“There is no amount of money that could make up for an environmentally unsound proposal,” she told the Canadian broadcaster CTV News.

Can anything still stop Keystone?

Obama has pledged to combat climate change in this term, as has his new Secretary of State, John Kerry, whose agency is tasked with issuing the decision on the transnational pipeline. Yet Obama also said shortly after his election that he wouldn’t put climate ahead of jobs. 

In the US, there is a creeping sense that Keystone’s approval is inevitable. Earlier this month, the US Senate voted in a non-binding measure to go ahead with construction. The State Department’s environmental impact statement carried no substantial argument for why the pipeline should not be approved. A six-week public comment period on that statement ends in mid-April, after which the president will act.

If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, climate advocates will have to move their fight against dirty fuel to the places where it will be purchased. 

“Here in the United States, we'll have a voice in determining the outcome of Keystone XL, but the real fate of the tar sands rests to some extent in the hands of Asian consumers, especially in countries like China,” said Henn. “Their decisions about the type of economy they want to see, and the type of planet they want to pass on to their children and grandchildren, will determine all of our fates.” 

A mix of new and old technologies such as aquaponics and polytunnels are helping to make profitable city-based farming a reality in the world’s biggest cities

The hype over urban farming is catching. International media have been clamouring over the latest rooftop and trendy vertical farming projects in Beijing, London, New York and Singapore.

For cities like London, city farming represents something of a return to former times. In the 1940s, during the Second World War, the central Hyde Park was given over to growing vegetables.

In Beijing, meanwhile, it is peri-urban farming, outside the outer ring-road, that has been seen to offer the best opportunity for food production within the city limits.

However, what the latest soil-free and rooftop farming technologies present is an opportunity not only to return a level of personal or household food production to cities, but also create a viable commercial urban farming sector.

While no-one is predicting vast swaths of urban space being given over to productive agriculture – there simply isn’t enough room in densely populated cities like Beijing or Singapore – there are a growing number of examples out there pointing to a growth of urban-based agriculture over the next decade.

It just may not be the agriculture we know.

Growing food without soil

The densely populated state of Singapore has been desperately trying to increase in size since the 1960s by reclaiming land from the sea. Even with plans to expand its surface area by 7% by 2020, it is still severely land scarce.

With little spare land for agriculture, unsurprisingly, it is heavily dependent on imports, with more than 90% of its food, including six key commodities – chicken, pork, fish, eggs, rice and vegetables imported.

Enter aeroponics, which presents an opportunity to grow food in a limited amount of space. Under this farming system, plants are cultivated with their root systems suspended in the air while a nutrient solution, circulated in mist form, maintains a constant film of nutrients and moisture on the roots.

One of the world’s largest aeroponic farms has been running for more than a decade in Singapore, producing cut and bagged salads and herbs for local supermarkets – perishable products that are difficult to import.

According to local urban farming expert He Jie, professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the ability to grow vegetables without soil makes aeroponics well-suited to a dense, urban setting.

“While it isn’t possible for arable land to be expanded horizontally, an urban farming system could increase production area through vertical extensions of lightweight troughs,” she explains. “Vertical stacking is constrained by the weight of the troughs, but this could be resolved through the more lightweight aeroponic system, where stacking of lightweight troughs can offer an alternative to overcome the weight factor.”

Closed loop farming

In London, it’s a water-based system of farming known as aquaponics that is slowly gaining ground. The opening of FARM, a café and urban farm in east London back in 2010 set the ball rolling, showcasing how a tank of fish could be used to cultivate vegetables for salads.

The waste from two large tanks of tilapia fish in the cafe, fertilises vertical stacks of lettuce and other vegetables.

The company behind this installation, Aquaponics UK, has said it is getting three or four orders a month to install the system.

Twenty-something entrepreneur Kate Hofman is one of those trying to drive on the use of aquaponics. A sustainability graduate, she has recently set up a company, Grow Up, to supply and set-up aquaponic sites and is setting up a demonstration site in Bermondsey, close to central London, this summer.

To help get her project started, Kate linked up with Swiss-based Urban Farmers, a company which pioneered aquaponics in Switzerland and installed the first rooftop farm in the city of Basel.

While high-tech solutions like aquaponics and aeroponics are fascinating to document, there is also a larger but, perhaps, less glamorous urban farming sector based on more traditional techniques.

Adrienne runs Cultivate London, a social enterprise, which is farming across three sites in West London. Most of the sites are on temporary lease, typically on derelict land owned by property developers.

Operated by a team of volunteers and experienced gardeners, Adrienne expects the three sites to be able to produce 40,000 kilograms of fresh cut salads this year – a miniscule amount in the context of London’s overall food needs, but a successful demonstration of what kind of produce urban farming is likely to expand around. The three sites also produce potted flowers, herbs and vegetables, but it is the salads, chopped and bagged, that have proven the most popular and profitable product.

“I don’t think we can grow all the food London needs, but we could certainly grow all of London’s salads,” says Adrienne. “It wouldn’t require much space and it’s a high-value product that we’re currently importing from Italy and Spain, so it would make sense to grow here, if we could.”

Adrienne says being peripatetic, as well as creative with the spaces available, are both critical for aspiring urban farming enterprises. Perhaps even more necessary in Asian cities like Beijing and Hong Kong, where available derelict land seems scarcer than Europe or the US.

Urban farming goes corporate

In Beijing, recent estimates, published in chinadialogue, suggested the city has around 90 million square metres of empty rooftop space, some of which could be used for growing food.

Its harsh climate may deter many people, but early pioneers like Zhang Guichun, who has proudly shown off his 15-kilogram marrow and homemade dumplings to television crews from CCTV, have achieved celebrity status for their rooftop farms.

There are more commercial examples in Hong Kong, where Osbert Lam, owner of City Farm in Hong Kong, runs a rooftop business hiring out small garden plots to locals to grow their own fruit and vegetables. He says he was forced into a rooftop farming location because of extortionate ground rents in the city and now has 400 growing boxes on the 10,000-square-foot (930-square-metre) rooftop, available to rent for between HK$150-200 ($20-25) a month each.

The most developed commercial urban farming sector is probably in the US, where in cities like New York urban farming is already switching from a trendy activity to a corporate success story.

The Brooklyn organic rooftop farm is a 6,000 square metre farm on top of a warehouse rooftop, with views across to Manhattan island and the Empire State Building. Opened in 2009, it now supplies local restaurants, as well as selling produce through a weekly farm market.

The farm was designed and built by a company called Goode Green, which has a number of other successful rooftop farms including a vegetable farm on top of a hotel.


Jack Astbury runs a rooftop farming business on top of a supermarket in London, supplying it with fresh salad (Image by Tom Levitt)

Another company, BrightFarms, has recently struck a deal to build what it claims will be the US’s largest rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn, producing enough vegetables to feed 5,000 people.

It says the project will help cut out the transport costs of importing produce into New York from the major vegetable-growing regions in California and the west coast of the US, as well as producing fresher crops. However, the heating costs of the greenhouse during the cold New York winters could outweigh any potential environmental savings.

In the past week, the world's largest indoor vertical farm opened in a suburb of Chicago, making use of an abandoned warehouse site to grow fresh basil and salads.

Salads, greens and high-value foods

A trend shared by the more profitable urban farms emerging in the US, as well as Europe and Asia, is the focus on growing high value, perishable crops like herbs and salads.

“If you did the maths you’d just grow salads and not even herbs,” says Jack Astbury, the head grower at Food from the Sky, which has taken over the rooftop above a supermarket store in London. “With salads we can show how fresh it is, nothing else does as well,” he explains.

In a unique partnership, food produced on the roof, with the help of volunteers, is sold the same day it is picked downstairs in the supermarket. The fresh salads are usually sold out by early afternoon, with a stream of loyal customers.

It is very much a shoestring business, with a Jack running the whole project on a part-time basis. Sales of £7,500 enabled him to work one day a week in 2012. He is aiming to push that up to £11,000 this year to cover the farm’s running costs and his wages for two days a week, although a cold start to the year has already put production behind schedule.

By restricting yourself to leafy green vegetables, Jack believes urban farming can be profitable.

“It is possible [to make a commercial urban farming business] because your customer and buyer are so close and all around you in a city,” says Jack. “The money is there to be made if you can attract the people. But I think the future is in intensive solutions that can maximise the yield in small spaces, because it’s really hard to make money when food is so cheap and city space is so expensive.”

A future of intensive and specialised urban farming models, based on soil-free hydroponic/aquaponic systems, is one that has already been predicted in a report from 2011 by Kubi Ackerman, from Columbia University's Earth Institute.

But Ackerman also points to three other important roles; utilising neglected space, educating the public on food and benefiting deprived neighbourhoods with low consumption of healthy foods. All of which could yet entice state and city governments to support a second, less commercial, urban farming sector.

Vehicle fumes are a major factor in China’s persistent smog, but experts disagree about who should foot the bill for tightening fuel standards

As large areas of China were enveloped by smog early this year, and PM2.5 levels soared off the charts, city-dwellers found themselves asking how things had got so bad.

Part of the answer can be found on the country’s congested roads.

While vice environment minister Wu Xiaoqing put the widespread smog and falling air quality down to “a combination of natural factors and human activity”, vehicle pollution, he said, was the “most prominent” cause. In 2012, the number of cars on China’s roads passed 100 million. Exhaust fumes have become a major source of urban air pollution.

Hou Yuxuan, an environmental sector analyst at investment advisor CIConsulting, said that the intensity of vehicle emissions is determined by fuel quality, the number of cars and the degree of congestion. Fuel quality in particular affects the toxicity and particulate matter content of emissions, which in turn impacts public health.

Most of China uses fuel that meets National Emission Standard III (NES III), which sets limits for carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbons and particulate matter. Cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing use cleaner NES IV fuel, the next level up. Beijing alone is phasing in the stricter Beijing Emission Standard V, equivalent to the European Union’s Euro V standard, the strictest in the world.

Diesel vehicles are more of a problem, as there is a shortage of NES IV compliant diesel. NES IV was set to come into force nationwide on January 1, 2011, but has twice been delayed.

Technology used as an excuse

Anyone trying to find out why the process has been so slow will first be told about technical problems.

An engineer with one major Chinese oil company told National Business Daily that the oil firms were “feeling their way”, but faced numerous difficulties – with technical problems accounting for one third of these.

Cleaner fuel requires wholesale upgrading of equipment, technology and catalysts in use at the refineries, as well as engine upgrades for vehicles, explained an expert at the China University of Petroleum. That all takes time.

The industry is facing widespread calls for cuts in polluting fuel additives such as sulphur and manganese. Car makers also want to see less manganese used, as it damages engines. But cutting sulphur and banning manganese would reduce diesel’s octane rating, a standard measure of fuel performance. The lower the number, the more prone the fuel is to “knocking”, a malfunction where fuel burns in the engine earlier than it should, causing a series of knocking or pinging noises – something neither car makers nor drivers want to see.  

However, many experts we spoke to said technology isn’t the real obstacle. It’s money.

“They’ve had clean fuel overseas for years – there aren’t any technical barriers. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to do it,” said Li Houfeng, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Energy Research Institute (ERI) and director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy.

Si Bin, an analyst with Long Zhong OilChem, agreed that there are no technical barriers to producing low-sulphur fuel. Back in 2007 Yanshan Petrochemical installed Szorb sulphur removal technology, enabling it to produce fuel meeting European Emission Standards IV (Euro IV), Si said. The company is now installing a second unit.

There are two reasons for the delays, according to Chen Qing, an analyst with consultancy Sci99. First, upgraded fuel pushes up production costs – costs currently borne by the refineries. In Beijing, the higher quality fuel is still being sold at old prices. This gives them little incentive to drive through improvements and so upgrades have been slow.

Second, there are concerns about the ability of drivers to cover the extra costs were they to be passed onto the consumer. Developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have taken the lead, but the extra costs would not be so easily borne in the poorer regions of central and western China.

Si Bin added that the price of oil has gone up over the last two years, and consumers are already feeling the pain. Drivers in China tend to have mid- or low-range vehicles – they don’t want to spend money if they don’t have to. That means even companies able to produce higher standard fuel are sticking to NES III.

Who pays for better fuel?

The winter smog prompted the Chinese government to put forward a schedule for fuel upgrades.

On February 6, the State Council instructed the standards authorities to speed up publication of tougher fuel standards. The already issued NES IV standard for petrol, which allows sulphur content of no more than 50 parts per million, would be followed up by an NES IV for diesel, with the same sulphur content standard, and a transitional period running to the end of 2014.

By June 2013, an NES V for diesel would be produced, and an NES V for petrol by the end of the year, both allowing only 10 parts per million of sulphur, with transition periods up to the end of 2017.

The State Council also told refineries to speed up their own upgrades to ensure supply would be ready on time, with China National Petroleum Corporation, Sinopec and China National Offshore Oil Corporation asked to take the lead.

Refinery experts say that a fuel upgrade adds 300 yuan per tonne to sulphur-removal costs, in addition to up-front investments in equipment. Paying for that affects the producers, drivers and even the government tax take. It has been calculated that, at a conservative estimate, it will cost 50 billion yuan for the three big oil companies to make the necessary changes.

There is an urgent need to decide how to cover those costs. Experts have differing opinions, sometimes sharply opposed.

“Of course the refineries should pay,” said Xia Qing, formerly deputy head of the China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, pointing out that the state has ruled that if their fuel isn’t up to standard, they can’t sell it.

Jiang Kejun, an ERI researcher, holds the opposite view: “You have to increase fuel prices. There’s no more to discuss.” If cleaner fuel means higher costs, better-off drivers should cover these environmental expenses, he said. If the government subsidises the costs, non-drivers are effectively paying for those who own cars. That’s unfair for the public, and particularly the poor.

“We’ve always called for higher taxes, assuming oil prices don’t change,” said Jiang. This could be used to change driving habits.

Others take a more conciliatory approach. Li Houfeng said all three parties have responsibilities they must accept – the government needs to set strict standards, companies need to implement them and consumers need to bear certain costs – while CIConsulting’s Hou Yuxuan argued it would be unfair to expect refiners to bear all the costs. Overseas experience has shown the fairest way is to divide the costs between fuel and car producers, consumers and, through reduced taxation, the state, Hou said.

Notably, some academics have said the government’s super-profits tax on the oil firms could be reduced to cover these costs and lessen the burden on drivers. The rules on this tax state that some of the income will be returned to the oil giants to account for costs incurred thanks to caps on domestic fuel prices, meaning such a move would be in line with national policy.

This article was first published in National Business Daily. Intern Yue Qi also contributed.

An international network of lawyers wants countries to commit funds to helping people forced from their homes by climate change

Villagers in the harsh landscapes of northwestern Alaska face a formidable journey. Sea ice and permafrost, the frozen subsoil that makes the land hospitable to humans, are melting. Flooding and erosion are blighting lives.

Climate change has taken on very real dimensions for these ancient coastal communities with their ancient names – Unalakleet, Golovin, Teller – where temperatures have risen twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. As government interventions have failed to ward off the elements, 12 indigenous groups have decided they want to move. More may follow.

They are not alone. From the Sahel, where women already walk up to 25 kilometres a day to collect water, to the island atoll of Majuro, set to battle increasingly regular and destructive high tides that wash away houses and flood roads, climate change is challenging the durability of people’s homes. In the long-term, many will need to adapt, or seek new lives elsewhere.

As awareness of the potential scale of climate migration grows, an international network of lawyers is seeking to draft a treaty to help secure assistance for vulnerable groups.

Operating outside the UN system, the proposed Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change would see richer countries agree to give money to poorer countries, either to adapt homes so that people can stay in them as long as possible or to move communities in a planned way over time. It would also establish a framework for long-term discussion on the more fraught problem of rehoming whole nations lost to the sea. Importantly, signatories to the treaty would not be asked to commit to taking people from elsewhere.

A draft treaty is expected by the end of the year, after which the team will start trying to persuade states to sign up.

Climate migration – or displacement – has drawn increasing interest in the past five years as experts have piled into the field to analyse the likely human impacts of rising sea levels, desertification, glacial lake outbursts and more. Projections of the scale of movement still vary wildly, ranging from tens of millions to the oft-quoted estimate of Oxford academic Norman Myers who puts it as high as 250 million by 2050 (or one in every 36 people on the planet). But a clearer view of the likely impacts of such human migration is slowly emerging.

While the dramatic fate awaiting Pacific island nations set to be wiped off the map as sea-levels rise has understandably seized headlines, scholars now emphasise that most displacement will happen within countries. Few people are likely to cross international borders. As a 2007 report from UNDP puts it, “The simplistic image of a coastal farmer being forced to pack up and move to a rich country is not typical.” Most of the burden will be borne locally.

That does not make it an easy problem to tackle. Conflict is expected as migration brings competition for land and water into sharper focus. Governments, disproportionately in poor countries, will have to find ways of protecting or rehousing vulnerable communities. And, for the nations that are rendered uninhabitable, whole peoples will have to find host countries willing to take them, raising a host of thorny legal questions: is an underwater country still a state, for instance? What happens to its fishing rights? And what’s the legal status of its people?

A climate migration treaty

So how can a treaty help? Australian lawyer David Hodgkinson, an aviation attorney by trade, is leading the project. The point, he says, is that climate displacement is a global issue: even if most migrants don’t cross international borders, the impacts will be transnational. “Climate change displacement in one way or another will affect every state,” he says, whether because of internal migration or because they’re being asked to cough up funds to help other countries.

Existing climate and refugee law fails adequately to provide for those displaced by global warming, says Hodgkinson. And, while “piecemeal efforts” are under way – researchers are helping Alaskan groups plan for relocation, for instance –something rather more coordinated is needed, he says. In short, the world needs to start talking.

But isn’t it already? Transferring money for adaptation from the rich to poor world already forms part of UN negotiations, and developed countries have promised to provide US$100 billion per year by 2020 for adaptation and mitigation efforts. Why start a separate conversation?

For Hodgkinson’s team, forging a specific treaty on the narrower issue of climate displacement represents an opportunity to break with stalled attempts to agree a wider deal on climate change. “We recognise that treaty making is inherently difficult, particularly with regard to climate change. But I do think one way forward is to break the problem up into pieces and somehow make it a little more manageable.”

Even if he’s right and efforts on climate displacement prove more fruitful than the UN’s more ambitious – and troubled – climate journey, there are severe challenges ahead.

First are broad human welfare issues linked to large numbers of people uprooting from long-term homes and seeking new places to live – how this can be done without impinging on other people’s territorial rights, for instance.

Then there’s the risk governments will use climate change as an excuse to move people they want to move anyway, or simply make bad judgments. In the west of China, for instance, large numbers of herders moved off the grasslands in the name of environmental protection – so-called “eco migrants” – have been stranded in cities with no livelihood or social networks, while the impact on grassland preservation has been negligible.

Hodgkinson readily admits his treaty will have limits in the face of such problems: “I’m sure that governments will make those sorts of decisions and I’m sure that in some instances climate change will be used as an excuse to achieve non-climate change related objectives. There’s no question but that there will be problems and problems that a treaty won’t be able to guard against.”

The money problem

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all, however, is funding. The developed world is already falling far short of its promises on adaptation finance, and enthusiasm for footing the bill for reinforcing foreign homes may weaken further as climate costs at home mount: Hurricane Sandy alone cost America up to US$50 billion, according to catastrophe analyst Eqecat, and extreme weather events are predicted to increase. Persuading countries to commit more than they already have will be a tough sell.

“In that regard, it’s sometimes hard not to be pessimistic generally about the climate-change problem,” says Hodgkinson. “Generally it may be that, notwithstanding the global nature of the problem, states do retreat into ever more narrow forms of self interest and, understandably enough, look after their own people. The consequences of that are understandable, but may well be quite alarming.”

One aspect of the migration conversation makes him more cheerful, however – unlike mitigation targets, CDM schemes and other more clinical aspects of the climate discussion, displacement is easy to describe and appreciate: “People can understand it, because we all have homes. Families on the move, people needing new homes – it’s a very human problem. And my experience as a lawyer has been that, when people can intuitively understand a problem, that can assist in finding solutions.”

There’s something else. Hodgkinson came to climate change through his career as an aviation lawyer, where he has seen first-hand the “intractable” knots around legislating on airplane emissions – shown most recently by the EU’s stalled attempt to include international flights in its carbon trading scheme. Dwelling for a moment on the difficulties of that sector, his voice brightens: “Gee, climate displacement might not be so difficult after all.”

Both inside and outside the ongoing Lianghui, China’s annual parliamentary season, everyone is talking about what to do about smog. Wang Tao reports.

“First, do more to clean up polluting and energy-hungry industries, like steel and power…. Seventh, limit the use of fireworks.”

Wang Deyong, boss of a printing firm, is a member of the Zhengzhou People’s Political Consultative Conference (PPCC). Six months ago he hadn’t even heard the word ‘smog’ – now he reels off seven different measures for dealing with it. He’s included those seven measures, and research into an emergency action plan for heavily polluted days, into a proposal to the PPCC.

On February 18th, 2013, his “Proposal for Dealing with Smog and Creating a More Beautiful Zhengzhou” was chosen to be the first motion to go before the 5th Plenary Session of the 12th Zhengzhou PPCC.

Ding Mingxing, director of the Zhengzhou PPCC Proposals Committee explained: “Like with the NPPCC, the proposal with the most backers becomes the first to be heard.”

Similarly, the first proposal to be heard in Hefei was also environmental in nature. A merger of three proposals, it covers a “Blue Sky Project”; dealing with pollution from coal-burning furnaces; and a crackdown on heavily-polluting vehicles.

Early in 2013, many of the local Lianghui were held during smoggy weather. Public complaints became the subject of political debate: a review of media articles found that of 31 provincial-level Lianghui’s, 23 heard motions, proposals or discussions on smog, covering all aspects of atmospheric pollution.

Air quality has been the focus of more discussion during the 2013 sessions of the local and national PPCCs than in any other year.

Chen Xiaoya, a member of the Shanghai PPCC and also of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, originally planned to submit a food safety proposal, but then opted to propose increased urban greenery to improve air quality. Wang Quanjie, a representative to the Shandong People’s Congress and a professor at Yantai University, had a proposal on a pet topic of his – disclosure of assets by leading cadres. But during the Congress “you didn’t see the sun once”, his recurrent cough came back, and all the representatives were complaining. So he and many other representatives put together another proposal on preventing atmospheric pollution.

Wang explained that this topic doesn’t affect anyone’s interests and can be talked about more freely. So he just gathered signatures for the smog proposal. As for assets disclosure: “I didn’t ask anyone else to sign, in case it caused them trouble.”

Media scrum over environment

At a Shanghai PPCC press conference the head of the city’s environmental protection bureau found himself surrounded by reporters – he was in even more demand than the transport and housing heads. “In the past,” explained a reporter, “everyone was interested in transportation and house prices.”

Wang Deyong started asking friends in the Environmental Protection Bureau about PM 2.5 pollution six months ago. Once his proposal got some attention he attended seminars with the development and reform committee, and transportation authorities. “I remember they said the city was working on a white paper, and an analysis of pollutants, but I’m no expert, I didn’t really understand.”

The representatives and members putting forward the motions and proposals come from a wide range of backgrounds, with differing levels of specialist knowledge: members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; heads of environmental protection offices; middle school teachers; lawyers; and company bosses. Some miswrote the Chinese characters for smog, others misunderstood the Air Quality Index to be an Air Pollution Index, and even then miswrote it as “PI”.

But the content they put forward covered every aspect of the problem. Prior to 2011, submissions to the Lianghui on air pollution were highly technical. But in the autumn of that year PM 2.5 pollution came to public attention and was included in air standards, and in 2012 representatives called for monitoring and publication of air quality data data.

From 2013, 74 cities around the nation started publishing PM 2.5 data, and the number of proposals on air pollution rocketed. Wang Xiangrong, a professor at Fudan University’s Department of Environmental Science and Engineering has attended three sessions of the Shanghai PPCC, and said he has seen a distinct increase in related proposals this year.

Enforcement needed more than laws

After Beijing’s local Lianghui, businessman Pan Shiyi held a poll measuring support for a clean air law on his microblog – of more than 50,000 respondents, 98.9% were in favour. Local Lianghui participants have repeatedly proposed legislation.

Wang Quanjie believes legislation is crucial – his proposals on asset disclosure and smog both called for new laws. He thinks that lasting and standardised management requires legislation, and legislation makes later checks and limits easier. Ji Jiayu has more specific reasons – after much reading he has found that many localities are working on emergency measures for days of heavy pollution: “That response is just a part of it; legislation is at the root of dealing with the problem. You need laws, or you’re doing things backwards.”

The smog encircling China’s cities has forced progress on legislation. A consultation period on Beijing’s regulations on preventing atmospheric pollution ended in early February, with 326 responses received in 20 days. Students from Beijing 4th Middle School even submitted a 7,000 word report.

There are also calls for a revision of national legislation on air pollution. The Air Pollution Control Law was first passed in 1987, and the latest revisions have seen little progress since submission to the NPC. Wang Fengchun, head of the legislation office of the NPC’s Environment and Resources Committee, has told the media that during the 2013 Lianghui representatives were sure to call for faster action.

But Lu Zhongmei, NPC representative and expert on environmental and resource law, does not plan to make any related proposals, despite having repeatedly called for a revision to the Environmental Protection Law. She thinks that existing national law allows local governments to set targeted and implemented measures, such as taking on overall responsibility for environmental quality. “Our biggest problem is enforcement. We shouldn’t just keep on revising existing law – law you can’t enforce is just paper…”

Progress? No, not really

During the local Lianghui, Shijiazhuang might have been the nation’s most embarrassed city. In 2012, the Hebei Democratic League’s motion on improving air quality in the provincial capital was put at the top of the agenda. In January 2013, the Hebei PPCC held a press conference on the moves, at which it said that progress had been made on cleaning up the city’s air. But awkwardly, according to the new air quality standards that now include PM 2.5 levels, in January, Shijiazhuang ranked second-worst in air quality among the 74 PM 2.5-reporting cities. And of the ten worst, seven were in Hebei.

Some in Hebei complain this is unfair – as part of the important Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, it has to monitor PM 2.5 levels in eleven cities. Compare this with neighbour provinces Shanxi and Shandong, where only the provincial capitals and Qingdao monitor PM 2.5 levels. This is why Hebei looks so bad.

Despite the loss of face, the data still sounds a warning for the people of Hebei. The PPCC has not yet decided if it will continue to give atmospheric pollution the same priority. “The improvements aren’t that obvious, as car numbers are increasing too quickly. In 2010, Shijiazhuang had 400,000 cars, now it has 600,000,” said Feng Junsheng, one of the proposers of the original motion and deputy head of the Hebei Democratic League’s Political Participation and Discussion Department. They will follow up the 2012 motion with another on atmospheric pollution in 2013 – this time covering the entire province.

But you can’t solve air pollution overnight. On February 18, 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said that it would be 2015 before a system for reducing total PM2.5 emissions in key regions would be in place.

But most members and representatives interviewed were optimistic about putting their plans into action. “It is difficult, it needs to be taken seriously. But the one child policy was difficult, wasn’t it? We did that,” said Wang Quanjie.

This article was originally published on March 1st, Southern Weekend

Recent drilling test in Northern Shaanxi Province saw local officials temporarily cut a nearby city's water supply

China has become one of Asia's leaders in expanding unconventional shale-gas extraction in the name of energy self-sufficiency and national autonomy. Experiences of “fracking” worldwide, however, suggest the costs to China of joining this revolution will be loss of control of natural resources and land to major corporations, with negative social and environmental consequences for many communities.

Rising oil prices, concerns about “peak oil” and growing public awareness of environmental depletion have made diversification of energy sources in a “sustainable” manner an urgent worldwide priority for governments and corporations.

In this context, unconventional natural gas is increasingly hailed as a triple win in terms of energy self-sufficiency, economic development and environmental benefits. Extracted through a newly applied use of hydraulic fracturing technology more commonly referred to as “fracking”, it is promoted by the gas industry as a route to lower greenhouse gas emissions – a “transition fuel” that can bridge the shift from a fossil-based economy towards a renewably powered future.

Unconventional gas exploitation has also been embraced by some governments as a solution to energy insecurity and a geopolitical “game changer”, as countries hitherto dependent on imports of fossil fuels become self-sufficient.

China’s shale gas reserves “largest in world”

China has enthusiastically joined this scramble and emerged as an Asian pioneer of unconventional shale gas production, describing it as “a ‘revolution’ to increase domestic gas supply, improve the energy mixture and protect energy security”. The government has set a target for the industry to pump 229 billion cubic feet of natural gas from underground shale formations a year by 2015; and by 2020, the nation's goal is for shale gas to provide 6% of its energy needs.

Fracking has particular appeal for Chinese policymakers, because of the size of the country’s gas reserves. A recent report by the Ministry of Land and Resources claims China holds the largest onshore shale gas reserves in the world at around 4,800 trillion cubic feet, lying mainly in the Sichuan and Tarim Basins in southern and western China. This would, it is argued, free China’s growth from a key Achille’s heel – its reliance on imported energy.

The government is also determined to support the sector’s development, because it seemingly provides a way to reduce the national carbon footprint, as 70% of the nation’s consumed energy is currently supplied by burning coal.

However, Chinese fracking “know-how” is meagre. As a result, China has encouraged energy companies China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to form partnerships with foreign oil companies. Chesapeake Energy, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Total have all embarked on multi-billion dollar deals, while Shell has announced a shale gas joint venture with CNPC to operate a 3,500 square-kilometre concession in the Sichuan Basin.

This state-foreign capital alliance notably lacks any real environmental law protection in spite of the proven risks from the US and elsewhere. The risks are directly linked to the technology and its application.  

Risks of fracking

Fracking is a multi-stage process that involves drilling 3-6 kilometres below the Earth’s surface through underground freshwater sources to reach shale or coal bed formations; then drilling horizontally for up to 2 kilometres and blasting a series of fractures to create fissures to release natural gas trapped in the deep rock formations; before finally bringing the deposits up to the surface through high-pressure injection of frac fluid (water, sand and toxic chemicals) into the drilling well.

Each stage entails considerable risks. Cement-casing failures may allow methane and other hazardous chemicals to migrate to water sources and water wells. The fracking inputs contain known carcinogens and air pollutants, which can leak into ground and surface water during the fracking process. BTEX compounds such as benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene, notorious for their harmful effects on the central nervous system, have been found in hydraulic fracturing products used in the US between 2005 and 2009.

Water contamination can result from accidental spills during truck transportation, leakages through cracked or corroded cement casing of the wells, or as fugitive gas through the rock fractures themselves. Wastewater, known as “produced water”, poses serious risks. For every million gallons of chemical-laced frac fluid injected down the drill wells, 20-40％ will be regurgitated back to the surface, bringing with it: chemicals, traces of oil-laced drilling mud, and all the other toxic substances previously trapped in the rock – such as iron, chromium, salt, and radioactive materials including Radium 226.

Most water treatment facilities today are not designed to handle fracking wastewater. As a result, much of it ends up sitting in large ponds and eventually entering rivers and streams. Meanwhile, fracking can also cause earthquakes, as happened in Lancashire in the United Kingdom and Oklahoma and Arkansas in the US. (See TNI’s full briefing on fracking).

Not enough water

All of this casts doubt on the seemingly “transitional” and “cleaner” aspect of the Chinese fracking boom. The boom is most likely to breathe new life into the corporate oil industry's constant search for new avenues for profit. It certainly will undermine the Chinese people’s possibilities for democratic control of resources and their environment.

One issue in China, perhaps highlights this more than any other, and that is the way fracking will exacerbate “water grabbing”. To achieve the target of 229 billion cubic feet of shale gas will require no less than 485 million cubic feet of water. Yet, according to the same source, “most of the nation's shale gas lies in areas plagued by water shortages”. A recent drilling test operation in Northern Shaanxi Province encountered complications, forcing local officials to temporarily cut a nearby city's water supply. These risks are all the more threatening in a country that already faces major water conflicts.

China's embrace of fracking may seem attractive on the surface, but its darker consequences are already becoming obvious. Handing over power to determine how land and water is used and how the environment is managed to fracking corporations and their quest for profit is not a path to a sustainable and liveable future for China's citizens. 

 

There is a danger fishermen will be scapegoated for harm inflicted by markets and criminal networks

Standing among coconut and mango trees near the coast of Mozambique, Fernando Nhamussua carefully prepares shark meat for a family meal – and contemplates a basket with a profitable haul of four dried shark fins.

"I want to sell them to the Chinese," the 33-year-old admits with disarming candour, estimating that a kilogram's worth will fetch around 5,000 meticals (US$161). "We take them to town where there is a place for Chinese buyers. It's good money."

Nhamussua reckons he has sold 20 fins so far, boosting his normal income and his hopes of completing a modest concrete house that stands unfinished. But this burgeoning trade along the Mozambican coast is putting precious species such as manta rays in existential danger, according to local conservationists.

Fishing for sustenance has long been a staple here, with few alternative sources of income. But it is an open secret that Chinese syndicates are supplying improved fishing nets, buying shark fins and manta ray "wing" tips and shipping them back to Asia, where there is increasing demand for delicacies such as shark fin soup.

Nhamussua's nephew, Americo Gilamba, is 19 and has scant other career prospects. "We do it because we don't have a good job," he explained, standing in the small, sandy family settlement that includes huts made of reeds and coconut leaves. "We know it's not good and the Chinese are killing things that are not allowed to be killed, but we do it to survive and get some money. We don't want to have to steal from other people. If we were given an alternative, we would stop."

Inhambane's beaches and ocean are a diver's paradise with one of the most fabulous concentrations of marine life in the world. Tourism, a vital lifeline in one of the world's poorest countries, could be threatened.

Carla Victorino Guicome, who last year became the first Mozambican woman to qualify as a diving instructor, said: "I am sad, I am angry because if it continues like this it's going to kill tourism in Mozambique. No more tourists will come here."

She continued: "People come from all over the world to enjoy diving with sharks and manta rays, but if this goes on, they won't be there any more.

"The Chinese don't respect marine life and they're trying to destroy our heritage. We have tried and tried, but the government don't seem to be doing anything to stop it. If nothing is done, the animals will disappear."

Fishing versus tourism

Conservationists have called for legal protection of species such as sharks and manta rays, the banning of gillnets – which create a wall of netting to catch fish – and greater education of and alternative livelihoods for fishermen. But the fisheries ministry is powerful.

Andrea Marshall, director of the Marine Megafauna Foundation in Tofu, said: "I would argue that far more people benefit from tourism here than from the fishing industry. The economic argument for preserving these charismatic animals in the long term surely outweighs a one-off profit for a few fishermen and Chinese."

Time is running out for the manta ray, a beautiful fish with big, triangular pectoral "wings" that has a meagre reproductive cycle.

Inhambane has one of the biggest populations in the world, with 908 known to the foundation, but has witnessed an 87% drop in the past decade. This means that where visitors could once expect to see six or seven of the creatures in a single dive, now the average is less than one.

Marshall, principal scientist for the manta ray programme, said: "We're looking at decimation in the next decade or decade-and-a-half. Manta rays are in big trouble along the coastline. If current trends continue, I don't give this population more than a few generations."

Fishermen are more efficient than ever before thanks to bigger nets and more sophisticated equipment. "Sometimes the fishing nets are given by the Chinese, other times they're part of official schemes intended to benefit fishing communities," Marshall added. "We've been to the fishing camps and you can see the high-quality hooks and lines that they have now."

And when she followed the money, it led to China. "It's a very secretive operation, but we've had confirmation of the Chinese buying and shipping them out. There are containers that are just reeking. Everyone knows who owns those containers, but nobody does anything."

Many Chinese people are in Inhambane on legitimate business and working on government infrastructure programmes.

But the fishing controversy echoes wider concerns over what some in Africa regard as a Faustian pact with China. The Environmental Investigation Agency has said nearly half of the timber exported from Mozambique to China is done so illegally, costing the impoverished nation tens of millions of dollars a year.

Based on evidence given by fishermen, the Guardian visited a Chinese-run shop said to be a front for the illicit trade in marine life; an expensive car was parked outside. Its owners said they were aware of such trade in recent years, but claimed it had declined of late. Asked where shark fins could be obtained, a co-owner shook her head and said: "I don't know."

But Lon Chen, a resident of five years and owner of a supermarket in Inhambane, claimed that he been offered such items in the past. "The local people kill them and bring them," he said.

"They came here to ask if we needed it or not. I said no, but some Chinese are buying that kind of food. They don't eat it at all; they are buying it to export to Asia. It's their business and they're surviving on that."

Criminal networks in operation

Mozambican authorities are said to be taking the problem seriously, but are working with limited resources, including only one or two patrol boats to cover the immense coastline, although focusing on Inhambane with its abundant marine life would be a start.

Carlos Carvalho, an activist based in the capital, Maputo, claimed that sea turtles and dolphins are also being targeted for their flippers and organs, although observers in Inhambane could not verify this. Chinese traders are seeking to obtain boats to extend the fishermen's range, he added.

"The Chinese are gangsters and they have the protection of certain officials in Inhambane province," Carvalho said. "Every month it is escalating. Inhambane is out of control. It is the killing field of Mozambique and nobody is doing anything about it. It absolutely devastates me."

But the issues are complex and there is a danger that fishermen will be scapegoated. Timothy Dykman, director of Ocean Revolution, said: "It's about the markets, conditions and global impacts far beyond the control of local fishermen that are being run by organised criminal networks. Networks are also selling drugs and engaged in human trafficking."

Copyright © Guardian News and Media Limited 2013

Crowd-sourced commuting would cut emissions and stress in Chinese cities, says New Cities Foundation

The extraordinary growth of China’s cities is well-known. Today, 160 Chinese metropolises have over one million inhabitants and more than half the population lives in urban areas, which are growing at two to three times the rate of Western cities.

One sector feeling the weight of this unprecedented demographic shift is transport. In a country where the number of cars grows by more than 10% each year, urban planners and transport authorities need innovative techniques to address road congestion.

Though cities such as Beijing already have several radio stations dedicated to providing traffic updates, they did not manage to prevent the two-week long gridlock in 2010, or the slew of Autumn Holiday traffic jams throughout the country in 2012. China needs alternative approaches.

A recent study by the New Cities Foundation has particularly interesting implications for urban China. Working with technology company Ericsson and the University of California, Berkeley, we used smartphone apps to connect travellers who take the same daily route to and from work, allowing them to share relevant, useful information with each other.

The report, based on a year-long pilot project in San Jose, California, presents an opportunity for transport agencies, local governments and mobile phone app developers around the world to identify new ways to improve the commuter experience. It examined the effects of tools like Waze and Roadify, two innovative smartphone apps that allow drivers and public transit users respectively to share information in real-time.

Such apps are based on a passive contribution model – simply by driving with the app open on your phone, you passively contribute traffic and other road data that helps the system provide other commuters with the optimal route to their destination. There are opportunities to supplement this information with more detailed traffic reports, and it is the responsibility of the commuter not to put others at risk and drive responsibly, by entering traffic information while the car is stopped during a traffic jam, for example.

Connected commuters, happier commuters

A key finding of the project is that encouraging and using crowd-sourced information sharing can be an efficient, cost-effective way to build a community of commuters who themselves provide solutions to the burdens of daily travel.

The benefits extend to both individual commuters and organisations working on transportation and mobility. We found that commuters' ability to receive or share real-time information with other travellers effectively reduced commute-related stress and provided a sense of community. Moreover, car drivers connected to other commuters via social apps tended to be happier with their commutes than unconnected drivers. This was because of the timely information they received and the information they shared with others, which gave them a sense of satisfaction at helping fellow commuters.

Finally, crowd-sourced data from commuter apps was found to be highly relevant to transport agencies and mobile app developers. Real-time information-sharing can be a useful tool for identifying where commuters are experiencing problems and at what time of day. In turn, this provides feedback on routes that need to be better managed by authorities.

There are cultural, demographic and technological reasons why these insights have the potential to improve urban mobility in China.

First, the popularity of smartphones among the Chinese urban middle class, and a keen appetite for mobile phone apps, means commuters are likely to engage actively in connected commuting. Crowdsourcing enterprises like Zhubajie, which has four million workers signed up (arguably making it the biggest employer in the world) are already very popular in China. China’s enthusiasm for social networking and crowdsourcing suggests its commuters will be receptive to sharing information with others.

Second, like commuters in San Jose, Chinese commuters tend to drive alone. As the data analysis of connected commuters in California indicated, drivers valued the ability to share their feelings – and useful information – with fellow commuters. Similarly, the staggering number of lone commuters flooding China’s roads each day could benefit from a more enjoyable drive to work enabled by these mobile apps.

Cutting Chinese road emissions

Finally, at the city level, connected commuting could provide millions of Chinese people with the necessary information to make better commuting choices, with positive environmental, social and economic ramifications.

Research shows that people’s perception of the efficiency of different kinds of transport influences commuters most when deciding how to travel. For example, an undecided commuter, seeing the warnings of other drivers before leaving the house in the morning, might be encouraged to use public transport instead, or depart at a different time. Even if the commuter ultimately decides to drive to work, he or she may have a more efficient commute thanks to information on alternative routes from other commuters.

If this behavior is replicated across even a small percentage of China’s urban population, it could have significant impacts on reducing carbon emissions, either by boosting use of public transport or cutting time spent in traffic. These potential environmental impacts will assume increased importance as China explores innovative ways to decrease the pollution being emitted by its 200 million automobiles.

In fast-growing Chinese cities like Wuhan and Shenzhen, the rapid rise in car ownership makes it difficult to assess how traffic patterns will change in future. The need to evaluate and react to a fluctuating situation has already elicited a variety of responses from local authorities.

Wuhan, for example, has installed traffic lights that react to the flow of traffic to minimise the disruption typically caused by intersections. Similarly, data gathered from smartphone apps could provide more clarity on pain points for drivers – by location, time of day, or day of week, for instance. The authorities could then use this information to develop commuter programmes, adjust regulations to optimise traffic or incentivise commuters to avoid overloaded junctions.

As Chinese cities and infrastructure investments grow, the mix of qualitative and quantitative data generated by apps like Waze or Roadify could help authorities address areas that consistently cause stress for commuters and are a source of pollution.

The power and potential of connected commuting is evident: both individuals and city authorities can benefit from the information generated by smartphone apps designed for commuters. Although our study was conducted in San Jose, California, the tech-savviness of the Chinese urban population, combined with government efforts to cut both congestion and carbon emissions, make Chinese cities particularly well placed to apply its findings.

THE lure of free car plates in a bid to drive sales may not be enough to electrify would-be buyers to purchase electric cars which still face a tough ride in Shanghai due to the scarcity of places to charge the vehicles.

With just more than 10 charging stations and 1,700 charging poles in place, the city still has many residential complexes and business centers "unplugged." To promote the use of electric cars, the government started to issue free green car plates more than three weeks ago and later sweetened the deal with free installation of private charging poles.

But the public has so far clearly given the offer a cold shoulder, much like a cold flat battery, as the Shanghai Municipal Electric Power Co received only five inquiries and no applications so far.

Buying a private charging pole can cost around 10,000 yuan (US$1,602) and one needs to have a permanent parking spot for its installation. But many owners of public parking lots think "it is unnecessary to set aside special places for installation of charging facilities since parking spots are already in tight supply," said Du Chenggang, an officer in charge of smart power at the company.

This deters the development of public charging infrastructure, according to market observers.

To solve the problem, Shanghai plans to plug in more residencies, commercial and business centers this year.

Pressing ahead too fast with emissions cuts will cause pain down the line for China, says senior climate strategist Zou Ji

Zou Ji is deputy director of China’s National Centre for Climate Change Strategy

chinadialogue: How has China’s role in the global response to climate change evolved over the past decade?

Zou Ji: I divide it into three stages. First, from 1989 to 1995, China learned about climate change and started to participate in international discussions. It mainly went along with the global process.

Then, from 1995, when substantive climate negotiations started, to the Bali roadmap in 2007, China shifted from adjustment and familiarisation to active participation in response to calls from other countries. During the negotiations over the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Chinese media commonly rejected the demands and requests of the international community, and that made a deep impression on other nations.

Since 2007, China has become more active, entering a stage of full and positive participation.

Driving this last stage has been the global trend towards low-carbon development and, more importantly, a change in domestic circumstances. During the 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans, China’s economy grew exponentially, bringing alarming increases in energy consumption, spending on power plants and emissions. Ten years ago, China had less than 500 gigawatts of generating capacity – now it has over 1,000 gigawatts. In six or seven years, more capacity was added than in the 50 years after 1949.

Those figures are enough to rattle any economist or China expert. Coal is China’s primary source of energy, and those hundreds of gigawatts of power rely on the burning of coal. Huge numbers of people are at work in coal mines, both large and small, and about half of rail freight capacity is used to move coal. That’s quite something. In the early 1990s, China was an oil exporter. Today, we depend on imports for almost 60% of our consumption. This is unimaginable, in terms of oil price, economic cost and energy security. We have hit the limit of this type of growth.

So China has started to rethink things. The decades leading up to 2050 are crucial for China’s shift from a middle-income developing country to a middle-income developed country, and we can’t yet be sure we’ll hit that goal. What we can be sure of is this: if we carry on with our current model of development, there’s little chance of success.

To sum up, China’s role has shifted from being asked to act, to acting of its own accord. That was determined by the prospects, the basic interests, of China’s billion-plus population. And China has affirmed that approach through its national strategy – everyone has seen the action taken to close down obsolete production and adjust economic structure.

cd: Cutting emissions isn’t easy for an industrialising and urbanising economy. Is the rest of the world asking too much? Forget for a moment the political tussles over how much CO2 can and should be cut – what’s China’s actual ability to reduce emissions?

ZJ: China does have some advantages, such as the opportunity for adjustments in the world economy due to the financial crisis. Also, China has become the world’s second largest economy and the gap with the US is shrinking. Spending on institutional measures and research and development that in the past would have been unthinkable is becoming feasible.

Although the world is still led by the developed nations, the status and negotiating strength of the developing world is also on the increase.

But at the same time, China suffers from some obvious disadvantages.

The international community has some misconceptions, such as believing China is now a developed nation. This could mean China ends up taking on more global responsibility than its capabilities allow. We’ve held the Olympics and sent astronauts into space, but you can’t look at the richest parts of Beijing and Shanghai and assume the whole country is like that. The welfare of hundreds of millions of rural residents isn’t yet assured. Healthcare, unemployment benefits, pensions, all of these are weak. Many Chinese people have no safe drinking water, and our per-capita GDP ranks ninety-something globally. Overall, China is still a developing nation.

Another important disadvantage is the make-up of our natural resources.

Brazil gets 90% of its energy from hydropower. It is fortunate enough to have those resources. If China could replace coal with oil as a primary source of energy, emissions would drop by one third. If we could replace coal with natural gas, they would drop by two thirds. But China’s main resource is coal. We only have limited amounts of other sources of energy, and obviously a reliance on imports is unrealistic. Moving to clean energy is a massive challenge.

Meanwhile, we still need to urbanise and educate hundreds of millions of rural residents. Quality of life needs to be improved. There can be no disagreement about that.

Domestically, there are two dangerous trends we need to steer clear of. One is sticking too rigidly to our traditional way of doing things. The other is changing too quickly, trying to create a low-carbon economy in a Great Leap Forward manner and misjudging China’s circumstances and technological ability.

China can only do its best as it is able. Moving too quickly will actually hold back low-carbon development.

cd: Will China take a different path to that of the Kuznets curve (the idea that certain environmental indicators start to improve once development has reached a certain stage)?

ZJ: In the current world economic system, it is difficult for a developing nation to cut emissions. China currently accounts for 70% of new emissions each year, and the pressure and expectations it faces are increasing. But China is still on the left-hand side of the Kuznets curve, while the EU is on the right-hand side, beyond the peak. The type of emissions of the two different stages aren’t the same, they can’t be compared. China’s high emissions come mainly from industry and are driven by investment. The EU’s emissions come mostly from building and transportation, and are due to consumption.

At their peak, France’s per-capita emissions were 19 tonnes, while Germany’s approached 15 tonnes. We shouldn’t forget that. You can’t ask China to get to 7 tonnes and level off or fall. It goes against the basic laws of developmental economics. Japan and Australia have per-capita GDPs of US$40,000, but their emissions still haven’t peaked. China’s per-capita GDP is US$5-6,000. The curve is still going up.

China can peak at a lower level than the US and EU did historically. But even a per-capita peak of 10 tonnes means total emissions of 13 billion tonnes. That’s more than I can imagine. It’s a huge challenge for China.

cd: Historically, EU countries cut emissions by exporting production. We can’t do that this time, so where can China cut emissions?

ZJ: Through technological advances. Energy efficiency will be the key battlefield.

China’s population will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. But even if that growth is very small, the imports and exports, investment and consumption that per-capita GDP depends on must continue to rise. Currently, that growth is mostly driven by investment, but consumption would similarly increase emissions and energy use, through transport and buildings.

For decades, China has sought to adjust its economic structure in favour of the service sector. But if that means increased use of transportation and freight, emissions will still grow. The service sector as a whole has low emissions, but that kind of industrial structure needs a certain GDP level. It’s not just a numbers game.

In manufacturing, there is a clear distinction between low-end operations – with high emissions and low profits – and high-end operations, with low emissions and high profits. Again, we see the importance of technology.

Increased manufacturing and urbanisation will continue for the foreseeable future. What would be the easiest way to cut emissions? To send everyone to the fields overnight. But that’s not possible, that would just increase poverty. Some expectations are over-simplistic. China still needs to supply safe drinking water for hundreds of millions of rural residents and ensure houses don’t collapse in medium-strength earthquakes. More concrete and steel means more energy consumption – that’s the basic situation.

And energy-hungry EU and US lifestyles have had a huge impact. They have a sense of superiority and leadership, and their culture informs the youth of developing nations – the consumers, managers, chairmen and professors of the future. Every day they see adverts for cars, big houses, SUVs, for high consumption, and they think that’s what success is. 

If we’re going to change things, then the world needs to act together and change our ways of life.