China must act to reduce ENVIRONMENT DAMAGE

From 1970 to 2008, China’s per capita consumption of materials grew from one third to over one-and-a-half times the world’s average levels. Domestic consumption of resources per capita increased at almost twice the rate of the whole Asia-Pacific region due to massive investments in urban infrastructure, energy systems and manufacturing capacity. However, some 20 per cent of resource use in China goes towards production of goods that are eventually consumed abroad. 

“China has seen dramatic growth and the effect of this transition on global demand for natural resources is unprecedented,” said UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner. 

“While that growth has lifted millions out of poverty, it has also come with rising environmental challenges linked to the extracting, processing and use of those natural resources. China, in common with other emerging economies, needs to make significant investments in more resource-efficient infrastructure, such as green buildings and public transport, but also in human capital and governance capacity, if a transition to a sustainable economic model is to be truly realized.” 

While the country’s absolute energy efficiency is below the average for the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world, its energy efficiency has improved faster than anywhere else over the past four decades. 

However, these improvements in energy efficiency alone are not enough to stabilise environmental pressures. If China’s most recent policy initiatives – which include targets to reduce water consumption and losses of arable land, and to increase the up-take of non-fossil fuels – fail to accelerate resource efficiency gains beyond current rates, environmental pressures can be expected to increase rapidly. 

As a proportion of total domestic consumption of materials, the proportion of biomass dropped from 63 per cent to 15 per cent between 1970 and 2008, while consumption of construction minerals increased from 8 per cent to 63 per cent, and metal ores and industrial minerals doubled their share from 4 per cent to 8 per cent. 

Over the same period, the absolute level of consumption of fossil fuels increased more than sevenfold, at an average annual growth of 5.3 per cent. 

Of the fossil fuels, coal supply grew most rapidly, increasing from 49 per cent of total primary energy supply in 1970 to 67 per cent 2009. The large and increasing share of coal also contributes to fast-rising carbon dioxide emissions. China emits more than four times the world average of greenhouse gases per unit of economic output, and twice that of the Asia-Pacific region. 

China’s rapidly improving standards of living have come with a greatly increased per capita demand for natural resources, and a corresponding increase in environmental pressures associated with extracting, processing, and using resources. 

The efficiency with which China converts energy into economic output, as measured by total primary energy supply (TPES)/GDP (energy intensity), improved greatly over the period 1970 to 2009. Over the full period, energy intensity (EI) decreased at an average rate of 3.91 per cent per year. The Chinese improvement in energy efficiency by far exceeded the improvements for the world (0.68 per cent per annum) and for Asia and the Pacific (0.13 per cent per annum). 

Material intensity (MI) indicates the extent to which an economy has managed to decouple its growth from ever-increasing inputs of raw materials. For most of the period 1970 to 2008, China exhibited a clear trend toward decreasing (improving) MI, by around 2 per cent per year compounding, between 1970 and 2000. Unfortunately, since 2000, coinciding with a period of extremely rapid economic growth in China, the ongoing improvement in MI has almost stagnated, with MI decreasing by less than 1 per cent per year. 

China’s per capita energy consumption, as measured by TPES, has increased from 31 per cent of world average levels in 1970 to 95 per cent in 2009. 

China’s growth in total water withdrawals was subdued over the period 1980 to 2005, when compared to the extremely rapid rates of growth in consumption of materials and energy. The total changes for three sectors over the 25-year period were: agriculture –8 per cent; industry +81 per cent; and municipal +797 per cent (total + 25 per cent). 

China achieved major decreases in its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) intensity over most of the period 1970 to 2005. Despite these improvements in GHG intensity, emissions per capita grew rapidly over the same period, by an average of 4.1 per cent per year compounding, with growth accelerating from the turn of the millennium. 

By the end of 2010, China had basically realised the targets of energy conservation and emissions reduction set up in the 11th Five-Year Plan, including reducing accumulated CO2 by 1.46 billion tonnes, and energy intensity by 19.1 per cent. 

China is the world’s largest market for new construction projects with around 2 billion m2 of floor space added annually, mostly in urban areas. While 60 of new buildings are classified as residential, 30 per cent are public buildings and the remaining 10 per cent are used for industrial purposes. At present, the building sector accounts for nearly 30 per cent of China’s total energy consumption, and this proportion is growing steadily. 

China is a leading producer and consumer of vehicles and has overtaken the US as the biggest automobile market in the world. The number of registered cars increased from around 1 million in 1994 to nearly 33 million in 2008.

As a response to such pressures, recent government planning has seen a major sustainability shift in terms of the objectives of economic policy. The current Five-Year Plans for Social and Economic Development have an increased focus on more balanced growth, greater resource and energy efficiency, better living standards, and sustainable rural-urban development 

The Chinese government has adopted a number of policy instruments to strengthen the economy and conserve resources, including a US$586 billion stimulus package with a green focus; incentives for more efficient vehicles; and setting targets for a more energy efficient building sector. Mainstreaming sustainability into national development plans and decoupling resource use from economic activity may prove to be very successful strategies to improve environmental quality while ensuring further investment into economic growth and human development. 

China is also one of the first countries to embrace the circular economy approach as a new paradigm for development. China’s Circular Economy Promotion Law came into force in 2009 and aims to improve resource efficiency, protect the environment and achieve sustainable development. According to a UNEP-backed study released earlier this year, China consolidated its position in 2012 as the world’s dominant renewable energy market player – up 22 per cent to $67 billion – thanks largely to a jump in solar investment. 

Despite such positive steps, there remain many challenges for China in its transition to a green economy, particularly water and waste issues. Key governance concerns include weak implementation and policy enforcement, and poor monitoring due to lack of technical, financial and human resources. The UNEP study recommends the development of national indicator systems so policy-makers can gauge the effectiveness of policies and strengthen the capacity of local governments to implement and enforce policies. 

 

The full report, “Resource Efficiency: Economics and Outlook for China”, is available at: www.unep.org.