Environment Poses Cruel Dilemma when Trying to End Poverty
11/20/97
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Headline: Environment Poses Cruel Dilemma when Trying to End Poverty
Source: Reuters
Date: 11/20/97
Byline: Stephen Powell
SINGAPORE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - In the 21st century, Asia and
the world will face a cruel dilemma -- how can big Asian
countries banish poverty without wrecking the planet?
At the heart of the picture are China and India. Between
them they already have more than two billion people, who aspire
to the good things of life from refrigerators to cars.
But the developed nations are now keenly aware of the
worldwide consequences of something as simple as using a fridge
-- its emissions can harm Earth's protective ozone layer and
increase the risk of cancer.
Further large-scale industrialisation in the world could
threaten the Earth's overall atmosphere, unless the rich step in
with state-of-the-art technology.
``This leaves a mighty conundrum for China and India, and
for the rest of the world,'' wrote British historian Paul
Kennedy in his book ``Preparing for the Twenty-First Century.''
Technology transfer appears the logical solution, but it
will need time, money and political will to achieve.
CHINA EMERGES AS MAJOR POLLUTER
After their economic boom of the last few decades, Asian
economies are now major polluters -- China is the second biggest
in the world. Since 1995 it has emerged as the largest producer
of ozone-depleting chemicals, after the West phased out their
use.
China's government has signed up for the environmental goals
of sustainable growth agreed at the Rio Summit of 1992, but its
runaway economy is hard to control.
Since 1980, China's gross domestic product has quadrupled,
at heavy environmental cost.
Antiquated technology and a heavy dependence on coal -- one
in every three tons of coal consumed worldwide is burned in
China -- have sullied the skies and condemned hundreds of
thousands of Chinese to an early death.
``An estimated 178,000 people in major cities suffer
premature deaths each year because of pollution,'' according to
a World Bank survey on China's environmental goals for 2020
entitled ``Clear water, blue skies.''
SOME BIG ASIAN RIVERS RUN DRY
In much of Asia, the goal of clear water and blue skies
looks a long way off. Indeed water of any kind is getting
scarcer as the needs of growing communities take their toll.
``So many of the big rivers are beginning to dry up,'' said
Faizal Parish of environmental group Wetlands International in
Kuala Lumpur. ``The Yellow River did not reach the sea this year
in the summer period. Nor has the Indus been reaching the sea in
recent years.''
``China faces enormous challenges in resolving chronic water
shortages in the north and controlling widespread water
pollution,'' said the World Bank survey.
It said the Yellow River had been drying up for as long as
130 days of the year, for as much as 600 km (360 miles) of the
lower-reach sections.
Some of Asia's cities are sinking as the water table drops.
Environmentalists say that in the Thai capital, Bangkok, the
water table has fallen some 25 metres (80 feet) since the 1950s,
causing land to subside at a rate of 13 cm (five inches) a year.
Asian wetlands of all sorts are suffering, from the peat
swamp forests of Indonesia going up in smoke to the mangrove
swamps of the Philippines, which have lost 70 percent of their
area in the last half-century largely because of fish farming.
Faizal said the rate of destruction of Southeast Asia's
mangrove swamps, crucially important in protecting shorelines
from erosion, had slowed for commercial reasons -- a collapse in
the price of prawns.
ASIAN AIR POLLUTION IS GLOBAL CONCERN
The aim of blue skies over Asia is of concern to the whole
world.
China is already the second biggest commercial energy user
after the United States.
Without significant changes in policy -- what the World Bank
calls a ``business as usual scenario'' -- China's contribution
to emissions of the main greenhouse gas blamed for global
warming would soar.
``Carbon dioxide emissions under the business as usual
scenario will produce 2,380 million tons of carbon in 2020,
nearly three times the 800 million tons in 1995'' says the World
Bank report.
``Clearly, the international community should have a strong
interest in helping China achieve its energy efficiency and
diversification objectives.''
Chinese researchers are grappling with all the implications
of increased emissions of greenhouse gases and do not like what
they see.
They predict that higher greenhouse gas concentrations will
lower rice, wheat and cotton production because of higher
temperatures, increased soil evaporation and more severe storms.
According to Chinese studies, a one-metre rise in sea level
would displace 67 million people, including the cities of
Shanghai and Guangzhou. Most of the effects of global warming
are expected to come after 2020, but Chinese policies in the
next two decades or so will be closely watched.
WILL THE CHINESE FALL IN LOVE WITH THE CAR?
One critical area will be transport. Will the Chinese have a
love affair with the car like so much of the human race?
Cycling and walking were the main form of transportation in
China as late as 1992, the year of the most recent survey of
urban travel.
China's motor vehicle fleet grew from three million in 1985
to more than 10 million by the end of 1994.
The numbers are modest, but Beijing's primitive vehicles
create as much pollution as the motor fleets of Los Angeles or
Tokyo, which are 10 times the size of Beijing's.
The potential for growth in Chinese car ownership is
enormous. The World Bank survey calculates that if Chinese
incomes continue to rise and public transport worsens, then
urban automobile ownership could rise to 85-130 vehicles per
1,000 people by 2010 and possibly twice this range by 2020.
If China's population remained at present levels, that would
mean about 240 million vehicles in the year 2020.
Not surprisingly, the World Bank and others are urging China
to avoid this scenario and build up its public transport.
DOLLARS AND CENTS COULD SAVE THE EARTH
The World Bank survey estimated that air and water pollution
in China cost $54 billion a year, about eight percent of GDP, in
damage to human health and lost agricultural productivity.
Many analysts believe that the sheer cost of pollution,
rather than any high-flown idealism, should eventually drive
Asia along a more benign path.
``I think the pressures will be dollars and cents. They will
not be 'saving the earth' in Asia,'' said Lean Kang Loh,
managing director of Environmental Resources Management in
Singapore.
Some discern a hunger for greater democracy in Asia and see
this as going hand in hand with growing environmental
consciousness.
A leading ecology campaigner in Malaysia, Gurmit Singh,
noted that in eastern Europe before the fall of communism
environmentalists played a leading role in pro-democracy
movements.
``The link between environmentalism and democratisation is
happening in Asia in its own way,'' he said. ``In South Korea
the environmental movement is now much stronger than it was in
the days of authoritarian governments.''
Many Asians say the continent will find its own solutions
and they counsel Westerners not to force their vision on the
region.
``The danger is that the Western world, with their money and
all their 'green' thoughts, will try to impose their view on
Asia. That would cause Asia to react badly,'' said Loh.