First steps toward environmental change

By John Boudreau
Article Launched: 06/17/2007 01:32:37 AM PDT

BEIJING - When Fuqiang Yang looks out the window of his 24-story office in the central business district, he sees promising splotches of blue in the dirty sky.

The researcher with the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation believes the Chinese government is serious about averting an ecological meltdown.

The central government is calling for renewable energy, such as solar and wind, to provide 10 percent of its energy use by 2010, and 16 percent by 2020. That's a difficult goal, say some experts, who point out that California, which leads the United States in use of alternative power, derives about 11 percent of its power from renewable sources.

China also has pledged to reduce water and air pollution emissions by 10 percent and cut energy use per dollar of gross domestic product by 20 percent by 2010, though it failed to meet last year's target.

Hitting the 20 percent energy reduction target, said Wanxing Wang, another scientist with the Energy Foundation, would "save 600 to 700 million tons of coal over five years. That's huge."
"They are very serious," said Vincent Lo, the billionaire Shanghai chairman of the development company the Shui On Group. "As I go around various cities, they don't talk about economic growth. They are more focused on what they are going to do about emissions, the environment.
The total cost of cleaning up the cities will be around 5 percent of GDP every year."

Barry Friedman, who heads up the U.S. Embassy's commercial affairs division in Beijing, said China's government faces strong domestic pressures to act.

"If you ask any Chinese what the top issue is that China faces, there's one thing people in the rural and urban areas agree on: the environment," he said. "For 20 years now, they've been stampeding for economic development. They did not pay much attention to the byproducts of this, which are the environmental problems that are so formidable. Now, they are finally waking up to it."

But even if the central government is getting serious about pollution, it must prod recalcitrant provincial officials, who often are more concerned with economic growth than a clean environment. The central government has begun to tie energy efficiency and pollution mitigation to performance reviews of officials, a critically important move, experts say.

The Chinese government is quick to point out that the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions from developed countries, particularly the United States, have contributed most to global warming.

The United States needs to embrace tough measures before it can expect poor countries such as China to do likewise, said Jiang Lin, a scientist in the China Energy Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which works with Chinese researchers and regulators to improve energy efficiency in China.

"We have the technology, we have the income to take early action," he said. "Hopefully, we can demonstrate to the developing world our moral leadership and we can get them to do this without destroying their economy."

Late last month, President Bush proposed for the first time goals to cut greenhouse gases, which some observers see as a sign the United States finally will take a global leadership role. Critics, though, said the announcement to pursue non-binding limits is aimed at sidelining tougher measures backed by Europeans.

China's government, which is developing large wind and solar energy industries, plans to pay for some of the environmental cleanup by phasing out tax breaks for high-polluting industries.

Leaders in China's Jiangsu province are trying to emulate California's conservation measures. Stricter energy efficiency standards for appliances, power rate structures that encourage energy saving and tough building codes have helped to keep California's per-capita energy consumption the same despite decades of robust economic growth. The central government also has consulted with California officials, PG&E executives and environmentalists on the state's energy policies.

China's new aggressive attitude about environmental cleanup is personified by Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based non-profit Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which lists the names of corporate water polluters on a Web site (www.ipe.org.cn). Although the government does not publicly endorse his efforts, it has not tried to stop him, even when his work embarrasses influential company bosses.

This grass-roots effort is "sort of a milestone" said Ma, a former Hong Kong journalist. In the next room of his Beijing office, his staff compiled data. Their organization receives funding from foundations and corporate donors.

Attorney Wang Canfa is conducting his own guerrilla war against corporate polluters. Wang, who operates out of a cramped, basement office at the China University of Political Science and Law, has been quietly filing lawsuits against polluters since 1999, successfully winning about a third of his 90 cases. Wang and his partners have shut down 35 factories.

He is training a new generation of Chinese lawyers with expertise in environmental law. "We believe that in the future, environmental protection will be strengthened," Wang said. "We have been changing the laws."

There remains plenty of resistance to change, particularly from rural leaders who worry more about providing jobs than dirtying the air, land and water with pollutants. While the central government works to shut down less efficient, small coal-fired plants, local politicians undercut the campaign, the Energy Foundation's Yang said.

"We have to encourage China," he said. "If they fail, it will damage their reputation. And they won't try again."