Yesterday I had the curious experience of reading a chapter devoted to the environmental implications of China's rapid development in Jared Diamond's book Collapse, and then not five minutes later, picking up my hubby's Engineers Australia magazine and reading about the new, cutting-edge technology, Dongtan Eco-city that is being developed in Shanghai, with the aim of becoming one of the world's first sustainable cities.
Whilst Diamond's chapter, titled "China, Lurching Giant", was cautiously optimistic about China's environmental future, it was sections such as "...even if population and production/consumption rates everywhere else [in the world] remained unchanged... China's achievement of First World [living] standards will approximately double the entire world's human resource use and environmental impact. But it is doubtful whether even the world's current human resource use and impact can be sustained. Something has to give way", that made me feel pretty flat about the collective future of our earth.
Also, I suppose that because China is Australia's largest export client for coking coal and iron ore (for steel production), we tend to hear a lot about their rate of construction, and pollution (for example "acid rain" is a serious issue - I haven't heard that phrase for about a decade!), in the press. Both are quite staggering - something like 450 million tonnes of steel products were consumed in 2006 alone.
To then read almost immediately afterwards about the Dongtan Eco-city was quite exciting. The site is located on Chongming Island at the mouth of the Yangste River, has an area of 86 sq. km and is adjacent to Ramsar listed wetlands. The first phase of the project, which includes the East Village containing part of a marina and 1 sq. km of parks and open space, is anticipated to be finished in time for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The entire development is expected to be completed by 2050, and will accomodate up to 500,000 people, in around a 30 sq. km area. Amongst other things, all energy will be supplied by renewables, including a wind farm, photovoltaic cells and biogas from the sewage treatment plant, and no personal motor vehicles will be permitted.
In addition, I also found this recent article in The Australian newspaper, which discusses the new environmental initiatives the Chinese Premier unveiled at their recent State of the Nation address. The initiatives include banning the "wasteful use of land", including building golf courses and free-standing homes.
And given all of that, while Prime Minister John Howard refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, China became a signatory in 1998. Clearly, the Australian government needs to stop "blaming" everyone else in the world for climate change and take affirmative action, instead of just spouting lots of useless rhetoric.
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