DEVELOPMENTS

At the end of 2007, countries who signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) started a two-year process to draft a new climate change agreement, to be completed and signed at the December 2009 meeting of climate negotiators in Copenhagen, Denmark.  The start of agreement negotiations closely followed a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announcing that countries would have to end their growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by no later than 2015 to avoid the potentially disastrous effects of raising the earth’s average surface temperature in 2000 by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

As reported by the IPCC, climate change is a global problem. Worldwide GHG emissions continue to rise despite national and regional reduction efforts.  When the first commitment period under the Kyoto protocol ends in 2012, there will be no international legal obligation to reduce emissions unless the Copenhagen Agreement enters into force the same year.  With no alternative to Copenhagen under negotiation, the deadline to stabilize emissions as identified by the IPCC rapidly approaching, and the accelerating negative effects of climate change, many experts and international non-governmental organizations consider Copenhagen the international community’s last chance to contain the potentially severe effects of climate change.  

Of the regions most likely to be affected by a catastrophic rise in average worldwide temperature, Arab-majority states stretching from Morocco to Iraq will especially suffer depletions of their water and agricultural resources.  But interest among Arab states in the Copenhagen process is mixed.  OAPEC countries (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have a history of engaged involvement in the negotiations. Egypt and Morocco, two non-OAPEC countries, have increased their engagement after realizing the national security effects of climate change.  However, other Arab states like Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and others do not consider climate change a priority, and so far have not developed or submitted any national position on the different topics under negotiation in the lead up to Copenhagen.

BACKGROUND

The UNFCCC establishes a framework to address global climate change in part by stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to avoid "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with the climate system. It entered into force on 21 March 1994, after the requisite 50 countries ratified it. The Convention now has 186 parties, approaching universal membership among nation states.

The Arab World has played a strong role in shaping climate policy since the establishment of the UNFCCC, much to the consternation of emissions reducing countries. Oil-exporting Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, with relatively well-funded  delegations, have exerted their influence through membership in country groups, including the League of Arab States, OAPEC, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and G-77 plus China. Consequently, the OAPEC position on the current climate negotiations is completely in line with the Saudi position, a position adopted in full by the League of Arab States.  The Climate Change Performance Index, which  ranks 57 industrialized countries and emerging economies according to the quality of their climate policy, has consistently ranked Saudi Arabia last.

Like Saudi Arabia, oil-reliant OAPEC countries see the fight against climate change as a direct threat to their oil trade and strategic political power.  Fossil fuels, like oil, are considered the primary cause of climate change, and reducing GHG emissions is mainly focused on introducing renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency. Although there are no clear estimates of how climate change mitigation will impact the oil trade, any requirements that encourage switching to a low-carbon economy are likely to reduce demand for oil worldwide, unfavorably affecting OAPEC economies. Anticipating these adverse effects, OAPEC countries have advocated since the drafting of the Kyoto Protocol that oil producing countries receive compensation for losses to the oil trade sustained because of climate change policies.   

Leading this campaign for OAPEC countries at each round of negotiations has been the Saudi delegation, headed by Saudi Ministry of Petroleum official Mohammad El-Sabban, head of delegation since the 1990s. To the extent that several international environmental groups and research institutes see them as deliberate obstructers of the climate negotiation process, the Saudi delegates have struggled to insert the provisions they most desire into the agreements that have been ratified to date.

  Climate policy experts argue that changes in climate policy under President Obama and the enduring political influence of the U.S. on Saudi Arabia will convince the Kingdom to change its climate policy.  They argue that Saudi Arabia assumed an obstructionist role in the climate negotiations only because the Bush administration let it. But such hopes, like their rationales, are not necessarily well-placed. Under the Clinton administration, which, unlike that of George W. Bush, favored a strong climate treaty, Saudi Arabia lobbied for a weak agreement.  Even in its latest text submission to the UNFCCC secretariat on February 2 to comment on long-term cooperative action, Saudi Arabia reiterated their request for financial compensation for any impact on the oil trade due to action against climate change. During the last UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Poznan, they also tried to include response measures under the adaptation fund, which was created to help poor countries adapt to the direct effects of climate change.  Therefore, Saudi Arabia will likely reprise its obstructionist role in this crucial year for Copenhagen.

ANALYSIS

Knowing that the Obama administration has identified climate change as one of its top priorities, special attention needs to be given to the Arab region.  The UNFCCC decides issues by  unanimous consensus: a determined member state can derail, weaken, or delay the decision making process.   Having less than a year to deal with a long list of agenda items and reach a climate deal in December, the Obama Administration, working with other parties to the negotiation, should ensure Saudi Arabia and the rest of OAPEC do not hinder progress.  Here are a few ways the Obama Administration may achieve this goal:

1. Launch bilateral U.S.-Saudi climate policy talks.  The U.S. has relatively ignored Saudi Arabia on climate change.  Being its strongest ally, the U.S. could affect the Kingdom’s climate policy, especially if it offers the Saudis significant economic guarantees to offset potentially harmful short-term shocks to the oil trade.
2. Emphasize threats to water and food security in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Rights to water resources will be part of the negotiations, and climate change will affect those rights.  Emphasizing their prominence in the negotiations will improve regional awareness of climate change’s national security implications.
3. Increase the capacity of UNFCCC negotiating teams in non-oil producing Arab states to offset Saudi Arabian dominance of the regional debate. Capacity-building initiatives such as negotiation trainings and climate policy workshops are relatively inexpensive, and would require redirecting a relatively small amount of aid already earmarked by the US Government for the region.  Climate change will affect non-oil producing countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and it is in their national interest to balance the to-date outsize influence of Saudi Arabia in representing the region’s interests at the climate negotiations.

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Wael Hmaidan is executive director and a co-founder of IndyACT, and the head of the ‘Arab Climate Campaign’ in the organization. The campaign aims at achieving a strong post-2012 climate policy in the Arab region. He also established the Arab Climate Alliance to push strong climate policy through the League of Arab States. Wael has more than ten years experience in climate change campaigning in the Arab World. His work on this issue started in his capacity as the Greenpeace campaigner for the Arab World, where he helped establish the energy and climate change campaign in the region. He participated as an Arab World climate policy expert in several regional and international climate negotiations.

 

DEVELOPMENTS

This month, ten underprivileged youth from Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana will climb Mount Kilimanjaro in order to draw international attention to climate change in Africa.  The trip to the “rooftop of Africa” is sponsored by the Kilimanjaro Initiative, named after Africa’s highest mountain.  The climb is also supported by the United Nations' UNite to Combat Climate Change campaign.  The U.N. Special Advisor on Sport for Development and Peace, Wilfred Lemke announced, “[t]his year’s climb will highlight–with the melting ice of Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop–how global warming has a direct impact on the living conditions of individuals and communities throughout the world.” But the mountain range is not the only region of Africa devastated by climate change. 

BACKGROUND

What does climate change look like in Africa?  In 2005, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted in the Economist describing the context of climate change in Africa “[t]he size of [Africa’s] land mass, means that in the middle of the continent, overall rises in temperature will be up to double the global rise, with increased risk of extreme droughts, floods and outbreaks of disease.”  Unfortunately, the African coastline has not been spared either.  NASA has identified a link between warming of the Indian Ocean and decreasing rainfall in eastern and southern Africa.  In fact, rainfall levels have dropped 15% since the 1980s according to the NASA Global Precipitation Climatology Project.

But climate change has had the most profound impact on fishing and aquaculture in Africa.  Fishing stocks are particularly vulnerable because of a process known as “oceanic acidification.”  According to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) in Africa, the oceans operate like “enormous vacuum cleaners,” naturally absorbing the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.  But the oceans are capturing more CO2 than ever before, making the water more acidic than the ecosystem can handle. The increased acidity impairs fish larvae from growing healthy “shells, skeletons and cell coverings,” and developing into adulthood.  A similar phenomenon is apparent in lakes and other smaller bodies of water.

Small fishing communities are the most likely to be immediately affected.  Overcrowded fishing ports and low yields can have disastrous effects on small-stock fishing villages.   And unfortunately, Africa is home to fourteen of the 20 countries whose fishing supply is most vulnerable to climate change.  The first full-scale study into the effect of climate change on fisheries, conducted by the WorldFish Center, notes that the least developed countries are often the most dependent on fishing industries.  

The study illustrates the need for sustainable development models that are ‘climate-proof.’  But it also demonstrates that climate change more than just the environment and the economy.   Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change caught the attention of human rights advocates.  As a result, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution making climate change a human rights issue.  The resolution affirmed the inalienable right to development, but also highlighted the concern that the poorest nations are the most affected the climate change phenomenon.

ANALYSIS

In Africa, poverty, disease, and violent conflict often consume the attention of policymakers and development workers.  New scientific research on the impact of climate change on the continent should cause these policymakers to integrate their solutions.  As the youth ascending Mount Kilimanjaro know, there is much more at stake than the melting snow cap. 

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Olivier Kamanda is Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy Digest.

The harsh climate of Brazil’s arid Northeast has been attributed in part to man-made causes, including centuries of unsustainable agricultural practices. (Image courtesy of Google Images, caption by Adam Benz)

DEVELOPMENTS

In 2009, Brazil experienced two major milestones, which, while seemingly unrelated, have significant implications for the future of global climate change.  First, U.S. car purchases in 2009 are predicted to be eclipsed for the first time by purchases by BRIC nations, an informal grouping of the four major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with Brazil alone experiencing a rise by nearly a third in auto sales two years in a row.  Given the fact that cars were responsible for 6.3% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions measured in 2000, as reported by 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change, the rapid growth of auto purchases by BRIC countries is likely not only to profoundly impact the pace of climate change, but also the strategies utilized to combat global warming. In recent decades, Brazil has adopted one such strategy through its embrace of biofuels.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, Brazil's government has introduced its most ambitious plan ever to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions caused by deforestation by approximately 4.8 billion tons by 2018. Considering that around 75% of Brazil's carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation, and that global deforestation has been estimated to be responsible for more than a fifth of human-generated carbon dioxide, the Brazilian government’s efforts, if successful, could potentially have a huge positive impact on the effort to combat global warming.

Brazil’s anti-deforestation plan, along with its progressive biofuels policy, could transform it from a country that has historically been on the defensive in environmental debates to a nation on the forefront of the effort to prevent global warming.

BACKGROUND

The Brazilian government has been on a crash-course with environmentalists and climate change specialists since the start of the modern environmentalist movement in the mid-Twentieth Century. The path to economic development and national security chosen by the Brazilian government greatly contributed to Brazil’s becoming the world’s fourth largest contributor of greenhouse gases. 
 
Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions accelerated during the late 1960s and 1970s after its democratically elected government was overthrown by the military. The twin focuses of the military government were a security-obsessed concern with protecting Brazil’s borders from foreign infiltration and a desire to promote rapid economic development and industrialization at any cost. The vast Amazon rainforest, with its sparse population and long porous borders, was viewed by the military as an impediment to both of these goals. Thus, the government offered numerous legal and economic incentives to encourage landless families to settle and farm the region. This initial wave of human settlement led an expanded road network in the Amazon, which in turn fueled a subsequent wave of larger-scale land speculators and ranchers, which greatly accelerated the pace of deforestation as well as the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions from the burning and decomposition of the forests.

Meanwhile, the dominant economic model embraced by the Brazilian government in the twentieth century was to promote massive nationwide industrialization and to support investment in infrastructure such as roads in undeveloped regions. As a result, Brazil experienced an explosion of car ownership in the past half-century, with its per capita car ownership still far outpacing other large emerging economies such as India and China.  Currently, among BRIC economies, it trails only Russia in per capita car ownership.

Ironically, it was not merely growing Brazilian environmentalism, but also the military government’s preoccupation with national security and self-reliance that laid the groundwork for the creation a viable domestic biofuel industry for Brazilian cars. After the first oil shock of the 1970s, the military government invested in developing technology that would allow Brazil to develop part of its ample sugarcane production into highly efficient ethanol, which it promoted on a massive scale through collaboration with auto manufacturers. Moreover, the government invested heavily and early in creating a national network of ethanol fuel stations so that drivers could fill up their cars with biofuels virtually anywhere in the country. By 1985, between 85%-90% of Brazilian vehicles could use gasoline, ethanol, or any combination of the two.

As a result, car usage Brazil is by far more environmentally friendly in terms of size and greenhouse gas emissions than in any other BRIC country. Unlike the car markets in Russia and China, which strongly favor high and wide SUVs, or India, where the use of poor-quality diesel fuel is widespread, the flex-cars favored by the Brazilian market tend to be smaller and with relatively less carbon emissions. While Brazil remains a major carbon dioxide emitter due to deforestation and other types of industrialization, the spread of its flex-fuel car technology to other countries can only help in efforts to reduce the level of greenhouse gases released worldwide.

Likewise, Brazil’s recent ambitious rainforest conservation plan is likely to further reduce the country’s level of emissions as well as allow it to emerge as a major player in worldwide efforts to combat global warming. The targets pledge to reduce Brazilian deforestation by 72% by 2017, and unlike recent plans presented by the former Bush administration, offer bold and specific benchmarks to achieve it in the immediate future. Rather than push the hard work to a new administration, the government of Luiz Ignacio da Silva has pledged to reduce deforestation by 20% within the next year to less than 4,000 acres during its final year in office. While some have questioned whether the government’s promised goals can be met, it is undoubtedly a major change of course for a nation that, like the U.S., has traditionally avoided offering specific numbers or dates to reduce deforestation.

ANALYSIS

Although Brazil currently remains one of the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that plays a major role in global warming, the nation’s recent actions offer some reasons to believe that there may be hope for the future. Unlike every other BRIC country, Brazil’s growing car industry strongly favors smaller compact vehicles, most of which are capable of running on renewable biofuels. As such, Brazil’s experience serves as a rebuttal to those who argue that developing nations lack the resources or technological know-how to develop environmental strategies that can successful reduce carbon emissions while still pursuing rapid economic growth.

Similarly, Brazil’s ambitious rainforest conservation plans offer an unprecedentedly bold timetable to reduce global warming. Moreover, it offers an implicit challenge to wealthy nations to increase their own efforts to reduce global warming. For years, many in the U.S. argued that it is against the economic interests of the U.S. to join the Kyoto protocol when large emerging economies, epitomized by the BRIC economies, were unwilling to their share to limit greenhouse gases. Now that one of the world’s four largest emerging economies has unilaterally committed itself to dramatically reducing its carbon emissions and expanding its biofuels technology, such arguments by the U.S. sound increasingly hollow. If Brazil, long viewed as being indifferent or even hostile to the global climate change movement, can now emerge as one of its leaders, then there is no reason that the U.S. cannot show similar global leadership in fighting climate change as well.

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Adam Benz is the Americas Region Editor for Foreign Policy Digest. 

DEVELOPMENTS

The European Union has declared as one of its main policy objectives for 2009 the signing of a global treaty on climate change.  In December, a summit to address the issue will be held in Copenhagen under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

A leader in addressing climate change, the EU confirmed its intention to unilaterally reduce emissions with its Climate and Energy Package in December 2008.  Combined with the Obama Administration’s promise to cooperatively tackle the issue of climate change and publicly-made commitments by major developing nations (see Brazil’s national plan, for example), this made the challenging task of reaching a global deal seem less daunting.

Not easy, simply less daunting. The New Year has clouded this picture.  For the second time since 2006, a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas shut down supplies, closing schools and businesses and shocking the European energy market.  Moreover, the world economic crisis has raised questions about the availability of financing and continued governmental support, putting some renewable energy projects–a cornerstone of EU energy policy – at risk.  To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, major investments in energy efficiency and renewables are needed, but nations face a tenuous balancing act of meeting their climate objectives while preserving economic competitiveness and fighting off recession.

BACKGROUND

The meeting in Copenhagen is the latest in a long series of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations.  The first international gathering to address climate change occurred in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, resulting in the formation of the UNFCCC , a Convention with the non-binding objective “to achieve … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations.”

A lack of progress on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – which trap heat in our atmosphere and are changing the world’s climate – led to the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which set legally binding targets for industrialized nations. However, the Protocol did not enter into force until the Russian Federation ratified it in 2005.  The U.S. did not ratify the Protocol, but is a signatory of the UNFCCC. 

The scientific urgency of action on climate change and the expiration of Kyoto’s commitments at the end of 2012 create the need for a new treaty.  The EU Energy and Climate Package marks the EU’s starting point for negotiations: a 20% unilateral reduction of GHG emissions below 1990 levels by 2020, to be raised to 30% if comparable action is taken by other nations.  The Brazilian government has announced its own plans to reduce GHG emissions, with a pointed focus on drastically reducing rates of deforestation.  Brazil, like other developing countries, has no requirement to reduce emissions under the UN Framework Convention or the Kyoto Protocol; thus, the announcement is viewed by many as a dramatic step forward.  Several other key nations (i.e. China, India, Mexico, South Africa, etc.) have also developed strategies to control GHG emissions growth.  Also productive, Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate are determined to draft domestic climate legislation this year. 

Yet climate change and policies to address it do not occur in a bubble, and recent developments have underscored the challenges for many European nations.  The EU’s dependence on natural gas in general and supplies from Russia in particular – explored by Blair Glencorse in this Digest last year – has implications for climate and energy policy as well as national security.  Several EU nations are considering a turn to a long-taboo source of energy (nuclear), which could simultaneously address energy and national security concerns while also meeting GHG reduction goals.  These surprising commitments come alongside increased European resolve to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy supplies, as well as plans to diversify the supply of natural gas through the construction of additional natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.

ANALYSIS

Climate change policy should be a bellwether for the new working relationship between the EU and the U.S.  The EU will be pushing hard for a deal, and the Europeans know that no treaty is possible without U.S. participation.  Other major players in this process include Russia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, and Canada.  While many developing countries (including China, India, and Brazil) have developed domestic plans to constrain the growth of GHG emissions, none are prepared as yet to take legally binding commitments under the UNFCCC process.  U.S. domestic legislation committed to significantly reducing emissions would drastically improve the chances of a treaty and likely alter the position of some developing countries.  The travails of the economic stimulus bill prove this will be no easy task.

Some otherwise less powerful nations have gathered together into factions (for example, the Alliance of Small Island States or the G77) to exercise significant influence on the process as well.  These countries also will not commit to a deal without concessions including binding commitments to assist with technology transfer and adaptation.  Additional key technical issues to watch include: the rules for participation in an expanded carbon credit trading market; the reduction of deforestation emissions; and the future of the Clean Development Mechanism.  Agreements on targets and timelines for reductions and financing are essential to getting a deal and also, more importantly, to actually addressing climate change.

Two key indicators of the chances of success this year are the scope of U.S. domestic legislation and the first two rounds of preliminary negotiations in Bonn (March-April and June).  Gatherings of key nations outside the UN process (the G8, the G20, NATO) will also help assess the chances of a deal this year.  If climate change is a major issue in these venues, then the chances of a deal in Copenhagen improve accordingly. The EU and many of its members (especially the U.K. and Germany) will push hard for a global deal in Copenhagen.  While the winds have shifted, the prospects of reaching a treaty this year remain cloudy.  Negotiations will run up right until the last minutes in Copenhagen.

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Dominic Marcellino is a Robert Bosch Fellow, currently working at the German Federal Ministry of the Environment. He writes in his personal capacity.

DEVELOPMENTS

We are now looking at a future climate that is beyond anything seriously considered in model simulations.  Only a couple years ago, experts predicted China would not surpass the United States in carbon dioxide emissions until sometime after 2030.  Now that milestone has already been passed.  Last year, China became the largest producer of green house gases and, just last month, it became the biggest purchaser of automobiles in the world.  To quote the China Daily: “the bike has been downgraded from one of the most significant family purchases some twenty years ago to a cheap machine used mainly by the poor.”  Now, China also has the largest number of internet users, not to mention the most pigs, in the world.  These changes – which make a meaningful impact on global warming, information disclosure and consumption, across the spectrum from livestock methane to the demise of bicycles, how and what people think about climate change fundamentally alters the conversation of how China’s society should proceed from here.

A recent report by the Asia Society and the Pew Center for Climate Change, co-chaired by new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, calls for convening a joint China-U.S. summit on climate change, but it is essential that these efforts focus on efficiency–the cheapest and cleanest source of new capacity with no negative impacts.  But, making “green” work in China will require overcoming local resistance to environmental policies, and the development of a strong legal protection system; transparency is critical to these efforts.  According to China’s Vice Minister for Environmental Protection: “To reverse this kind of situation we can’t just make speeches.  It will only come from a shift of attitudes from the very top to the very bottom.”  

BACKGROUND

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao claims that meeting the challenge of climate change is a top priority for China.  But, in the last five years, China’s total power capacity has doubled, and China now uses more coal than the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined.  However, the country’s greatest resource is its potential for efficiency.  China wastes eleven times more energy per unit of GDP output than Japan and three times more than the world average.  The waste is encouraged by government policies that set energy prices low, providing consumers a disincentive for increasing efficiency. China has made some progress in shutting down inefficient power plants.  Just this month plans were announced to take 31 gigawatts of inefficient plants offline in the next three years (equivalent to approximately 10% of the new capacity installed in the last 3 years).  Nevertheless, from industrial processes to motors, heating systems and automobiles, China is ripe with untapped sources of energy.

At the cost of a half to one-fifth of traditional power source construction, efficiency programs can “generate” power with negative marginal costs.  One strategy is to build Efficiency Power Plants (EPPs) – virtual power plants that identify and implement energy saving projects – that can effectively sell power to utilities at a fraction of the cost needed to create new power plants.  Efficiency programs save consumers money and create jobs.  California’s effective energy efficiency program is an example of the potential of efficiency. Since 1990, California’s green house gas emissions have decreased by 10% per person, while the GDP has grown by over 30%.  If all states had the same per capita energy consumption as California, U.S. global warming pollution would decrease by more than a quarter.  And this is possible without raising electric bills.

The potential for China is far greater, and exciting energy efficiency cooperation has begun between California and China.  However, it is important to remember that China’s per capita green house gas emissions are still only about one-quarter of those in the United States, and a significant percentage of emissions are due to export related activity.   In 2007, China reached a per capita level of 5.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide compared to the European Union’s 8.6 metric tons and the U.S. level of 19.4 metric tons.

The Chinese government deserves credit for its investments in renewable power, but these projects tend to be more expensive than investing in efficiency and, unfortunately, can also have significant environmental impact.  China is the world’s leader in renewable power.  However, studies have suggested that stresses behind the Zipingpu Dam–which includes 760 megawatts of generating capacity–may have triggered the May 2008 earthquake that killed 80,000 people.   Besides hydropower, China has set as its highest priority the development of nuclear power - another low carbon power source but with potentially catastrophic consequences.  China is also the largest producer of solar photo-voltaic panels, which can be environmentally friendly, unless the toxic byproducts are disposed of improperly.  There are low-hanging renewable projects with high returns and low environmental impact–including solar hot water–and, in this area, China is also the global leader.  China has approximately two-thirds of the total global capacity in solar hot water heaters.

However, inadequate or inaccurate public disclosure can result in misinformation about the true state of the environment.  In 2007, China’s groundbreaking Green GDP project was shelved out of concern that the economies of many provinces are not as robust as publicized due to serious environmental pollution.  The Green GDP was developed to capture the true value of the GDP after taking into consideration serious environmental damage caused by economic growth.  Last year, Open Government Information Regulations took effect, giving government agencies an affirmative obligation to disclose information, including that about the environment.  Increased public awareness of the potential of efficiency programs can help China continue its economic growth while decreasing green house gas emissions. 

ANALYSIS

Understanding the costs of pollution and greenhouse gases requires public understanding of what is at stake.  Reviving China’s Green GDP project and providing public access to the economic and health impacts of pollution will help both China and the world.  Even projects that avoid burning fossil fuels, such as large hydro-electric dams and nuclear power, can have significant negative environmental impacts—the extent of which is yet unknown. Given the uncertainty of these projects, efficiency should be the primary focus to reduce green house gas emissions.

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Steven Q. Andrews has published widely on the monitoring and reporting of air quality in China, including a major study in Environmental Research Letters, and commentary in the Wall Street Journal Asia and Far Eastern Economic Review. He is currently pursuing a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law.