What a great article. Facts mixed with compelling argument.

Clearly wind and solar are not as applicable in China (little land available for turbines and cold northerly areas) as they are in Australia.

The implications of increasing pollution in China for Australia may be that increasing numbers of Chinese will find China unlivable and will want to move elsewhere. Australia may be one destination for vastly higher Chinese immigration.

Much immigration might be official but also many Chinese may become pollution and economic refugees - an issue AFP Commissioner Keelty so presciently flagged not long ago.

Pete

My son is working in Hong Kong. The polution from the mainland stings his eyes. In his first email to me after he got there simply stated - "The world's imploding".

The article suggests China's coal consumption is around 2.7 billion tonnes annually but others have cited around 4 Gt with an imminent need for increased imports. I think Australia should not only decline to supply China with more coal exports (they are currently a minor customer) but invoke other kinds of sanctions as well. These include a carbon tariff on imports from China set at a broad punitive amount, not adjusted for individual goods. We need have a domestic carbon penalty system in place to give that legitimacy. I also think we should say that yellowcake exports are conditional upon provable reductions in coal use ie uranium is instead-of, not additional-to.

Meanwhile the Rudd government elected partly on a promise to cut emissions is looking the other way while Queensland and New South Wales increase coal exports. It's like training the Socceroos to score own-goals in climate terms. On the other hand the Chinese did pay double the previous rate for their last big LNG contract so imported coal could also get expensive. No doubt many will say we can't really do anything about Chinese emissions. To those people thanks in advance for not even trying.

I was pretty sniffy about the last article Dave wrote. It struck me as hyperbolic and seemed to do nothing other than feed into the prejudices that are entrenched in some people regarding China.

But this article I think tells it like it is. It really is impossible to understand Chinese motivations in anything (the sudden cancellation of a trip to America for example viewed without reference to Rice's no-show last year did not make sense to many)without reference to face.

The microcosm of the classroom does indeed illuminate attitudes nationwide as the "neon light" incident mentioned in the article illustrates.

My students, after returning well-researched assignments on the subject of this article, some of which were incisive, fairly brutal and showed keen grasp of the subject, also had a practical component to complete for a final mark. One class of 3rd years, given an entire semester for their practical, finally unveiled their project which had been undertaken as a group. They had pasted stickers saying "Please turn off the lights" in every classroom.

“Chinese society is complex in ways Westerners overlook or do not understand.”

Typical statement of the white Anglo Saxon lie.

After forcibly selling opium to the Chinese, and milking India dry, the white Anglos are now trying to point the finger at China and other emerging industrialising for global warming. Just like telling Iran and North Korea they can’t have nuclear bombs; or committing biopiracy-- stealing common knowledge from third world countries, patenting them and unashamedly demanding royalties be paid. (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fline/fl1710/17100790.htm)

Firstly, let’s get the facts right by looking at figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution )

PER CAPITA CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Tons of CO2 per year per capita:

• Australia: 10
• United States: 8.2
• United Kingdom: 3.2
• China: 1.8
• India: 0.5

“AUSTRALIA TOPS GREENHOUSE POLLUTION INDEX"
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html

The biggest polluters are by the white Anglo countries.

The policies and hypocrisies of the white Anglo countries are the cause of their future Armageddon

Philip,

How about multiplying 10 by 21 million equals 210 million for Australia
versus 1.8 by 1200 milion equals 2160 million for China and rising.

Not much comparison is there.

David

Dave’s article falls into the common trap of making gross over simplifications about the incredibly diverse population of an enormous country:

“The Chinese are pre-occupied with “mianzi” to the point that decisions made in life are all about appearance.”

People get carried away by the impact that "mianzi" has on the Chinese character. Yes saving face is often very important in Chinese people's social, political, diplomatic and business interactions, however the examples that Dave provides in his article show that Chinese people are human, not displaying some uniquely Chinese characteristic. Just two examples:

“Some of my students who argue in favour of conservation, when asked about the possibility of turning off all of the neon lights around the city firmly said it just wouldn’t be China without the lights. They are part of Chinese culture.”

How many Australian cities are shrouded in darkness after nightfall?

“Electricity consumption continues to skyrocket even though nearly every resident in China knows there is a problem.”

Last week Melbourne’s electricity consumption broke the previous record for a single day. This is in spite of the media every day being full for dire predictions about climate change and government funded advertising with lots of black balloons.

China is a poor, (rapidly) developing country. It is only natural that the Chinese people aspire to all the trappings of developed Western nations (even as many living in Western countries realise that they will not, after all, bring happiness and security).

Encouraging China and all developing nations to become more responsive to environmental concerns is crucial to the survival of our planet. Providing a positive example of how development can be achieved without resorting to environmentally damaging practices, and working with other countries to develop such technology globally would be a good start.

Banging poor nations over the head and blaming them for all the world's environmental ill's, as Dave has done, is not merely the height of hypocrisy, but will ultimately be counterproductive

Butters,
“Banging poor nations over the head and blaming them for all the world's environmental ill's, as Dave has done, is not merely the height of hypocrisy, but will ultimately be counterproductive”

Blaming it all on the developed world – as has been the mantra up till now, is equally as foolhardy.

“ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE” didn’t just start with the rise of the west.
It has been going on since time immemorial. Many of these ‘poor’ nations were once the alpha empires/nations of the world, and have a long history of over-clearing,over-farming & over-population.

This is David DuByne the author of the article. I wrote the piece hoping that anyone reading it would see similarities between consumption patterns of China and most countries in the rest of the world. I wrote it, not to “bag” on China but use the example of today’s China to highlight the point that societies across our globe are the same with extravagant usage of resources and instant consumption disposable lifestyles. I hope you saw the parallels.

The switch over to other sources of energy to power our economies is still in its infancy, we basically have no other sources of energy to replace but the tiniest fraction of fossil fuels used worldwide every day. As oil production decreases there will be a substitute to generate electricity that will be coal. Now how much coal do you think we can burn each year before it’s too much and we reach peak production on that resource or pollute our skies to the point of what I see in China?

That’s just for electric generation to keep our cities lit and factories running, we also have the gargantuan task of finding a replacement for liquid fuels to power our transportation systems that keep goods flowing to our stores. Seventy percent of a barrel of oil is refined into transportation fuels which include gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, maritime fuel and railroad fuel. The real problem is that 98 percent of the world’s logistics and transport is run using liquid fuels, for which there is no substitute, except electric vehicles and maybe natural gas if the engines are re-fit and tanks installed.

I wrote to show, "this is our future" if we continue down the business as usual avenue. Sure I used China as an example, its plain for all to see the pollution here and as a message that this environment is literally headed your way. This is a global problem that requires global solutions from each individual on earth. I am just trying to put a problem on the radar screen to plant the seed of a future solution.

China is taking a wise path in developing its coal and nuclear based generation capacity. For a nation that is rapidly developing a modern commercial and industrial industrial economy, adequate energy is essential.

China can never power its economy with renewable energy; the dream of China having a renewable energy powered future should and will remain a fantacy. That China is even considering a niche use of renewables is more a political reality of joining the IPCC bandwagon than agreeing with the hypothesis of anthropogenic induced climate change.

The one renewable that will be significant, but never a dominant supply of energy, is hydro. Hydro in China comes with a huge human cost and considerable engineering hazard. The adoption of Clean Coal Technologies with nuclear supplementation will see China meet its energy demand with acceptable environmental outcomes over the next twenty years.

China should be supported with its wise energy policies.

Michael Clarke (Dr.)
Brisbane

Dr Clarke, could you please explain to us in broad outline, what is involved with these "Clean Coal" technologies that everyone keeps talking about. I have studied chemistry and thermodynamics a long time ago, but I am somewhat bewildered. Nuclear, I can understand, probably better than most.

David

After doing a little bit of research on "Clean Coal" if have come to the conclusion that it is largely somewhat of a furphy designed to pull the wool over the eyes of the unwashed, scientifically illiterate members of the population.

David

Obviously Dr Michael Clark hasn' t seen the Chinese pollution in NW Vietnam where one cannot see from one side of a valley to the other and Chinese pollution masks mountains 4000m high. There is now so much pollution coming off both China and India, and this includes the huge amount of Indian pollution from domestic cooking, that it could well affect the Asian Monsoon. If this should fail for a two- year period, SE Asia and southern China dies. And our refugee- internment camp on Christmas Island will become overfull. If CO2 production from Asian energy use continues to spiral as it is doing, then sea-levels rise, typhoons get stronger, the Yellow River backs up and its levees burst, drowning several million people. Bangladesh finally disappears, displacing at least a 100 million people. The Red River delta in Vietnam and the Mekong river would also back up and flood; millions live in those two regions. Goodbye Bangkok, some of which is below sea-level and the rest not much above it, home to about 13 million.All this and more is promised and, given the tenor of David's article, is inevitable.

Increased Asian CO2 could also stop the Gulf Stream and freeze Europe and NE America.World civilization dies because of face, mobile phones, Mercedes Benzes and credit cards.The Dinosaurs did far better.

Eventually nature restores its balance, which is tough on us. Given the Chinese and Indian irresponsibility in CO2 production, and a bit of luck as my age advances, it will happen quickly enough for me to watch it happen. Should be an interesting time. Good and timely article.