Who Is China Moving To Renewable Energy – Who Is Following?

However, China accounts for 33% of the worlds Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly arising as a result of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, and the deforestation that occurs in its wake. China is also suffering from desertification, coastal reclamation and severe climate change as are result of their long time blasé attitude towards environmental issues. While the Chinese Government now do acknowledge that environmental oversight has occurred, strict censorship within China deprives outsiders of receiving the full story of the environmental calamity that is occurring within China. Citizens within China are becoming increasingly concerned with governmental policy that regards further unnecessary degradation of the environment. A retired party official revealed that there had been 50,000 environmental protests within China in 2012 alone. China has amended numerous government acts and implemented strict new regulations in an attempt to curb pollution and Greenhouse gas production. However, the problem China faces cannot be swept under the 'bureaucratic rug' so to speak. The problem rests with the lack of an alternative clean energy to the fossil fuels currently used to fuel China's resource hungry industry. China has implemented numerous 'real world' measures to reduce environmental impact. Perhaps the most well known of these projects is 'Green Wall of China', which is a 4,500 km green belt

Moreover, carbon and petroleum, compounds which produce large amounts of carbon emissions when burned, have accounted for more than half of the energy produced in 2013, while cleaner energy sources, such as solar and wind power, were reported as less than 10% of the produced energy (Adams). Developing countries, like China and India, play a huge role in the production. China alone contributed 27% of 2011’s total carbon emissions (Union). The process of modernization and the air pollution that this causes has led to uncontrollable environmental damage, in addition to a huge influx of health defects and pollution-related deaths.

One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth.

China’s increasingly steady growth has impacted the environment negatively as economic growth is normally at the expense of environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability is the maintenance of renewable resource, pollution creation and non-renewable resource depletion that contributes to the quality of environment on a long-term basis. The environmental performance index ranked Australia 3rd whereas China is far behind on the list, being ranked 188th out of 195 countries. China being ranked heavily low is due to the massive produce of carbon dioxide emissions and pollution from factories, which eventually reduces the production of inputs into the natural environment, and thus represents waste and inefficiency. China does not have

These acute health risks are a problem for the Chinese residents, but the pollution poses a long term threat to the entire world. China currently produces the most carbon emissions of any country in the world, just over 6 billion tons per year (Each country’s share). While this statistic may seem unimaginably big, so is the population of China. Per capita carbon emissions from china are only about 5 tons per year, which is relatively low when compared to almost 20 tons per capita for the United States (Each country’s share).

Most of China’s geographical features are plateaus, plains, basins, foothills, and mountains. Rugged plateaus, foothills and mountains occupy nearly two-thirds of the land. The land is higher in the West and lower in the East like a three-step ladder. China is surrounded by 14 countries. Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. Being bordered by so many continents makes for easy and fast trading and sales. Despite having all of this luscious lands and surroundings, China has one huge problem. It is the world’s largest source of carbon emissions. Some of the major cities fail to meet international health standards. Life expectancy on the north side of

China has overtaken Germany as the world’s top exporter of goods, which marks another breakthrough in China’s rise to the top and its ever growing economic influence. As China’s export rates rise to the highest in the world, so does its pollution. Judith Shapiro, the director of the Masters in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development for the School of International Service at American University, states that with “20 of the World’s 30 most polluted cities [residing] in China” it is an easy task to see the severity of pollution (Sharpiro). In order to rise to its high economic position China’s government ignores pollution regulations, allowing the release of waste into the air and

Analysis of the U.S. electricity revolution and California electricity crisis-What should Chinese Energy market learn?

The Peoples Republic of China’s economy is now the second largest in the world with an estimated gross domestic product of $9.24 trillion USD (China, 2014). This is the result of a strict economic reform policy put into place in 1978, which removed emphasis on the agricultural sector and moved to the energy intensive sector of manufacturing. The growing demand for energy often came in the form of highly polluting coal-fired power plants, but in 1992 the Three Gorges Dam was approved with construction beginning in 1994. The world’s largest dam was intended to produce power economically, reduce environmental impacts, and help to prevent floods downstream. However, the Three Gorges Dam is often seen as highly controversial due to foreseen and unforeseen problems that have arisen following its completion in 2012 (Jackson and Sleigh, 2000). The dam may be one of China’s largest environmental oversights and social failure in recent years.

And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.” As China made great efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone and state-owned banks provide generous financing. China’s commitment to renewable energy is expensive. Although costs are falling steeply through mass production, wind energy is still 20 to 40 percent more expensive than coal-fired power and solar power is still at least twice as expensive as coal. The Chinese government charges a renewable energy fee to all electricity users and the fee increases residential electricity bills by 0.25 percent to 0.4 percent, but for industrial users of electricity, the fee doubled in November, 2010, to roughly 0.8 percent of the electricity bill. The fee revenue goes to companies that operate the electricity grid, to make up the cost difference between renewable energy and coal-fired power. Renewable energy fees are not yet high enough to affect China’s competitiveness even in energy-intensive industries, said the chairman of a Chinese industrial company, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of electricity rates in China. Grid operators are unhappy because they are reimbursed for the extra cost of buying renewable energy instead of coal-fired

Taking into consideration China’s robust economic growth over the last 20–25 years, there is little reservation that China’s has had positive impacts on the economy. Because of the increase of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), China has saved over 400 million people from definite poverty between the years 1979 to 2005 (The State Environmental Protection Administration, 2007). Despite this economic growth in urbanization and industrialization, there have arisen major concerns about the impact this economic growth and the over population has place on the environment. Over population in China have place large demands on sustainability such as water and air pollution, land degradation, and natural resources. In this

China faces problems as they depend on energy importation. It is likely that their trend for dependence will continue to increase, and as such, this leads to added problems as with the increased urbanization and more industrialization that follows suit. Meaning that the country’s energy consumption will increase, and at the same time become more vulnerable to the disruptions that are likely to occur in the supply of energy. This highlights the precarious nature of the Chinese economy, as well as their heavy dependence on economic integration and interconnectivity. This also means that the country is exposed to the geopolitics that exists in the region, and as such it becomes a challenge, as they cannot control the supply that comes in (Marketos 2009, p. 12). The security over resources is considered a political issue, and this leads to many factors coming to play that might affect the supply and demand that exists in the ever-changing market.

In recent years, China has been experiencing unprecedented economic growth. Chinese prosperity has had negative side-effects, including extreme environmental pollution (Wong, 2014). What researchers call “ambient particulate matter pollution” was the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China, contributing to 1.2 million deaths in 2010. Construction, industrial waste and greenhouse gasses are the major contributors to an epidemic that is creating a public outcry for government intervention. The Chinese government and other stakeholders have asserted that air pollution is decreasing and that the main culprits are not large industrial corporations. They point to strict regulations that they claim have been rigidly enforced. However, many foreign governments, environmental groups and activists around the world dispute this assertion. A growing number of Chinese also believe their government is not doing enough to curb environmental pollution. In 2012, the government announced a “war on pollution.” However, the slow reaction to a decades old crisis is a reflection of the power struggle within a government torn between those who believe in economic growth at all costs, and those who believe that these costs are becoming too high. At the heart of the controversy is a complex question: Is the Chinese government properly regulating industry to reduce and control pollution, or are

As a communist state becoming more international acknowledged as a state China had to make major changes as a government and it had to come externally. China “began to manifest an awareness of environmental problems in the early 1970’s” (Ross, 810). This was because China had gained a seat in the UN and was working with the U.S during this time. Right before the 1972 Stockholm conference China had created a domestic agency that worked with environmental issues so that they had a voice in the conference. This conference came to the existence of SEPA which had policies with emission permits that was modeled by economically advanced countries such as the U.S (Ross, 812). SEPA was a cost to the state and could restrain a growing economy which was not in China’s best interest. Right before the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development China and 41 other developing countries made a declaration. This declaration “acknowledged the need for international co-operation to promote environmental protection and sustainable development while demanding financial assistance” (Ross, 814). This was also mentioned by the top leaders of China that economic development would reject in any interference with domestic politics for environmental policy (Ross, 814). China eventually reached a deal with a 9 year plan which shows that China is not against environmental

China has been the world 's leading coal producer and consumer in recent years.(2,28) China accounted for 47 percent of total global coal consumption and 20 percent of world energy-related CO2 emissions in 2012. (1,3) China held an estimated 126 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves in 2011, the third-largest in the world behind the United States and Russia. Coal comprised 69% of China 's total energy consumption in 2011. (2,28) Characterized by increasing domestic production and import, coal’s dominance in China’s energy consumption sector is likely to sustain in recent future. Thus, the regulatory and price reform regarding coal played the most significant role in transforming China’s energy sector. The gradual reform in