As China goes, so goes the future. A successful bright green world requires a green China. A China that continues to spew tons of coal smoke into the air, tear up the landscape for dams and minerals, and push the adoption of the automobile as a “pillar industry” is a China that could drive the world past the environmental tipping point, regardless of the efforts of the rest of the planet. A year or two ago, the likelihood of Chinese leaders seeing this disaster unfolding and changing direction in time seemed slim. Now, we may well see a glimmer of hope.
The last month or so brought us a bonanza of reports about the new choices the Chinese leadership is making regarding the environment. Some are doubtlessly motivated by wanting to look good for the 2008 Olympics. But many of the proposals look to be the kinds of steps necessary for China to head off further environmental disaster—big, risky steps, with the possibility of significant benefit should they succeed. Hit the extended entry for links and discussion. Shanghai: 100,000 Solar Roofs
California’s Million Solar Roof initiative may have been put on hold, but Shanghai’s more modest Hundred Thousand Solar Roof project is well underway. Xinhau News, as translated by the Worldwatch Institute, claims that putting photovoltaic solar panels on 100,000 of Shanghai’s six million roofs will generate 430 million kilowatt-hours annually, roughly equivalent to the amount of power used by the whole city in… two days. Nonetheless, this will reduce coal use by 20,000 tons and CO2 output by 40,000 tons.
This points to the importance of a mix of renewable energy sources and increased efficiency of use in a transition away from carbon-intensive energy production. Even if all six million Shanghai roofs were covered in solar panels, that would only amount to about four months worth of power—impressive, but still not enough. Hopefully, Shanghai as a whole will be taking a lesson from the Dongtan carbon-neutral expansion to the city now being built.
Green GDP
Beijing’s mandate over the last couple of decades can be summed up in one word: growth. Regional leaders, once evaluated solely on party loyalty, became accountable for rapid increases in GDP, leading inexorably to environmental disaster. In early 2004, President Hu Jintao suggested that a more “scientific concept of development” would be a good idea; in early 2005, ten regions, including Beijing, began a test program to measure the environmental costs of GDP growth. None other than Pan Yue led the charge—which is now about to rolled out nation-wide. The leadership decided on a process that calculates the “Green GDP” by subtracting the costs of natural resources and pollution from the standard GDP value. The greater the waste of resources or production of pollution, the worse the result—for the GDP and for the regional leaders.
Criticism of the idea takes two major forms. The first, as shown in this Economist article from late October, is that figuring out precise numbers for the costs of resource waste and pollution is tricky, and prone to manipulation and fraud. The second, as discussed in this piece from the Asia Times from last week, centers on the difficulty of maintaining growth while trying to reduce or eliminate waste and pollution.
Of the two, the question of accurate and reliable measurement of costs seems the greater issue. Although there are various proposals for accounting for environmental loss as part of GDP, even green economists disagree about the details. A system with fuzzy metrics and difficult-to-confirm measurements is one just begging to be cheated. Still, it’s likely that even a semi-effective system of green accounting would be better than none at all, at least under the Chinese state-capitalist economic model. It’s possible—although by no means assured—that having an active Green GDP program will allow those running the project to fine-tune the system, learning from early mistakes.
The question of how to maintain growth while improving environmental behavior is less troubling because it’s something of a bogeyman. We’ve seen multiple large-scale examples of economic actors and regions adopting stricter green regulations and becoming richer because of it; the “going green kills your economy” argument is a decreasingly-legitimate scare tactic. At the very least, Chinese pioneers of green development will see a growing international market for these ideas in the near future.
Mainstream Attention
The last piece of news about green moves in China may actually lead to changes outside the country. One of the most mainstream American media voices, Thomas Friedman, is now pushing the idea that China (a) is shifting to greener development, and (b) is therefore going to be a global leader in the green century while the US is caught sitting on its thumbs. Friedman, who (sad to say) is still a bit ahead-of-the-conventional-wisdom-curve on environmental issues, is nonetheless an influential voice. The halls of power in Washington DC may not follow his advice, but they pay attention to what he says. This means that, if political leaders had somehow missed that China was building a global strategic advantage by shifting green, they know now.
It’s possible—indeed, it’s likely—that the current political leadership in charge in the US will be unable to make the deft changes necessary to respond to the environmental-strategic challenge of China (and Europe and Japan) this late in their political lives. If 2006 (the next Congressional election) results in a significant shake-up, however, this could well become part of the new agenda. It would be unfortunate if the only way to get the United States to move quickly on a large-scale shift to renewable energy and high-efficiency design was to cast it as a great power competition with China (etc.), but I wouldn’t complain too loudly if it happened.
Jamais Cascio is a fellow of the IEET, and a professional futurist. He writes the popular blog
Open the Future.
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