China must take lead in sustainability issues

Source:Global Times Published: 2013-12-23 18:43:01

Martin Lees Photo: Wang Jingtao

Editor's Note:

Smog and other pollution issues have been hotly discussed in China. But under China's current technological conditions, there is a challenge in balancing environmental protection and economic development. What choices should China make? Will China be able to lead the world in finding new methods of sustainable development? Global Times (GT) reporters Chen Chenchen, Wang Jingtao and Zhai Yafei sat down for an exclusive interview with Martin Lees (Lees), former secretary general of the Club of Rome, rector emeritus of the UN University for Peace, and non-resident senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute of Financial studies at Renmin University of China.

GT: An intense debate is going on among the Chinese public: Is the environment still worsening, or have we truly embarked on the path to environmental improvement? What is China's situation in your eyes?

Lees: The answer is both. Your problem is that you are doubling the size of your GDP roughly every eight to 10 years. You are improving your environmental performance by a few percent each year, so you are doing very well. If you look at energy intensity, you'll discover China is reducing it every year.

But unfortunately, as you double your GDP, you are going backward in aggregate. This is not sustainable. China has a land mass about the same size of the US, but only about 10 percent is usable for humans to live. You've got 1.35 billion people living on the very limited amount of land. You should not destroy your very limited environment.

GT: Some believe we cannot afford to sacrifice economic growth for excessive attention toward environmental protection. How do you see this?

Lees: I think that's wrong. One of the primary reasons behind the great success of China's reform is that the Chinese people don't rush to do stupid things, they've been cautious and pragmatic, and they look at the facts.

So let's look at the facts. It is an illusion that you can keep developing first and clean up afterward. The scale of the environmental problems becomes too big as we can see out of the window today.

Environment and growth are in fact two sides of the same coin. Economic growth requires resources, energy and human efforts. It creates pollution, waste, and threats to the climate. You don't have a choice in China between "we will grow" or "we will protect the environment."

GT: Some pointed out that when London suffered from the Great Smog in 1952, it had a level of GDP per capita and industrialization which is very similar to the level in China today. So is smog, or other pollution issues, inevitable when industrialization reaches a certain level?

Lees: There is a very big error in that idea, in trying to look at the equivalence. The scale of the issues today is very different from what it used to be, even in the 1950s. When the world population was much smaller, if people did stupid things, they could cause local difficulties, but would not destabilize the whole planet.

We are confronted by the reality that the scale of human activities is now so big, that we are risking the destabilization of the conditions which have allowed our civilizations to develop, including stable climate conditions.

GT: Along with the rise of public awareness of environmental protection, environmental issues are becoming political issues, especially in some developing countries. Are developed countries facing more challenges during growth compared with developed countries?

Lees: Not compared with developed countries, but compared with the situation in developing countries themselves a few years ago. You are quite right: This is a very big phenomenon. And often, the people who object to these projects are right.

A big problem for China is that it only has 7 percent of the world's water resources for 20 percent 0f the world's population and now half of this has been polluted. China is facing connected challenges - water, climate, environment, energy - all linked together. You've got to think about these problems more coherently.

GT: Will China's economic slowdown, aimed at sustainable development, become a long-term state of affairs?

Lees: US economist Paul Krugman just wrote a very interesting article in which he said all our decision-makers had mistakenly assumed that the world economy would continue to grow at the pace it was growing at before the financial crisis. Then he asks, what if the situation we are now stuck in, five years after the financial crisis, is the new normal?

If you look at the Chinese economy, you'll discover that the very fast growth in China has indeed come about because of certain special conditions - you've had very low wage rates at the beginning, the workers were prepared to work without social support or healthcare. That's all gone.

The question is, under the new conditions, what will be the path of growth for China? My answer is it should not be the mass consumption, material-intensive fossil-fuel-based system developed in the West: You can find a way of growth which is less environmentally damaging and better for the people. Fortunately, the new Chinese leadership understands this and is gradually making a vital change toward a sustainable path of progress for the Chinese people.

GT: There is an argument that in the 19th century the British taught the world how to produce, in the 20th century the Americans taught the world how to consume, and if the Chinese are going to lead the world in the 21st century, they must lead the world to realize sustainable development. Are you optimistic that China can fulfill such a role?

Lees: The short answer to that is yes, China could do this. But the more important point is that if China is to be able to do it, you must act fast. We have to survive the short term to get to the long term. Looking at them in terms of centuries has no meaning if we don't make it to 2030.

If China takes seriously the problem of sustainable development and acts strongly and quickly, then we could get through the problem, and then China will be a constructive player on these critical issues in the whole world. But it's a great illusion to think that these are long-term problems.

China is doing a lot already. But these efforts are not yet enough to guarantee that we can preserve a viable environment and a stable climate.

Nobody is doing enough yet to solve the problem, including China. And China is so big, it is a big part of the problem, and also a big part of the solution.



Posted in:

blog comments powered by Disqus