Environmental issues of China[环境问题]

[big-dog]

Originally Posted by big-dog

Real time air pollution data:

http://www.aqicn.info/?map&lang=en

A couple of Chinese large cities are pretty bad in the chart. By comparison the air in Malaysia is so good. New Delhi India is 500?! I didn't expect that.

today's worst is again Jinchang (what is this city doing). Beijing, Lianyungang, Changchun also have the bad air of China today.

[VECTROTALENZIS]

Why always northern cities?

[big-dog]

Dry, less rain, heavy industry etc. Chengdu in the Southwest is also one of the worst.

[hakz2007]

China leads on watershed protection investment

China is the leading nation in terms of global investment in protecting natural watersheds, an assessment has found.

The report's authors said water insecurity was probably "the single biggest risk to the country's continued economic growth".

Globally, US$8.17bn (£5.07bn) was spent in 2011 on projects to protect areas that provided drinking water and supplies, the assessment reported.

Read more

[skyridgeline]

The country has more than 1 million natural gas automobiles on the road, and about 100,000 new vehicles are put into use each year. ...

"China has already formed a complete industrial chain. It includes natural gas compression and liquefaction as well as its storage and transportation, and the manufacturing of natural gas cars and their parts and accessories," said Yao Mingde, honorary director of the China Road Transport Association.

- Updated: 2012-11-01 13:34 , http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/busines...t_15865067.htm

[big-dog]

Environment becomes a priority

Updated: 2013-01-25 08:18
By Cao Yin and Jin Haixing ( China Daily)

Public focus has shifted in recent years, especially with heavy smog in the capital

Journalists usually report social changes, but sometimes they signify the changes themselves.

Recently, journalists flocking to a news conference on the environment outnumbered - for the first time - those at the conference about the economy on the sidelines of the ongoing annual meetings that bring together Beijing's legislators and political advisers.

That reflects the shifting focus of the public: Beijingers increasingly care about the environment instead of economic growth.

Fang Li, spokesman for the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, was the media's most-wanted man.

One hour before a news conference by Fang on Thursday, about 100 journalists were waiting in the media room discussing air pollution and busily preparing their questions.

The conference lasted 75 minutes, but reporters still had questions to ask. Fang was surrounded by nearly 20 reporters when he was about to leave the room.

Fang's great popularity was in contrast with what happened at another news conference a day earlier, when fewer journalists showed up to hear the spokesman of the Beijing Commission of Development and Reform. It lasted no more than an hour.

In recent years, the environment has become a hot issue among residents and media alike, especially after the heavy smog that has hung around the capital since the beginning of January.

Fang told China Daily after the conference that residents keeping an eye on environmental protection is good for the bureau's work.

"The greater attention has indeed brought us much pressure, but also motivation. Every measure we took against pollution can turn into a hot topic among residents," he said.


Li Xiaosong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, takes questions from journalists at a news conference during the annual session of the city's legislature on Thursday in Beijing. Cui Meng / China Daily

[hakz2007]

Wen Urges Clean-Air Action as China's Skies Clog Again

BEIJING—Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called Tuesday for action to alleviate pollution, representing the highest-level acknowledgment to date of hazardous air-quality levels across much of China in recent weeks.

Mr. Wen's comments suggest concern among officials that the issue could become a political problem for the top leadership.

Read more

[SimFox]

Prime-minister is calling for action! What a joke! What is he? Housewife?
Shouldn't it be HIM who's actually produce said action...

[big-dog]

Inner Mongolia to assist in fight against Beijing sandstorms

By Chen Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2013-03-14 02:26

A volunteer with an environmental NGO walks on a desert as part of a desertification project in Dalad Banner, the inner Mongolia autonomous region, in May 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

Deputies from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to the 12th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, have called for upgrading the desertification control project that blocks sandstorms from hitting the country's capital, a measure that gives environmental protection the same weight as economic development.

The Xilingol League plans to start the second stage of the Sandstorm Source Control Project around Beijing and Tianjin this year, investing 6 billion yuan ($952 million) to change 2.67 million hectares of sand into grassland, said Liu Junchen, leader of the Xilingol League and an NPC deputy.

The Xilingol Grassland, 180 km from Beijing, is the nearest grassland to the capital and Tianjin.

"The overall ecological degradation has been initially curbed," Liu said.

The vegetation coverage in the league's grassland reached 60 percent at the end of 2012, up from 23 percent in 2000, Liu said.

The first stage of the Sandstorm Source Control Project around Beijing and Tianjin was finished in Xilingol League last year. The league recovered 2.17 million hectares of grassland during the past 10 years and planted more than 800 km of protection forest, a report from the local government said.

Bater, chairman of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, said a key task for the local government in the past five years has been balancing environmental protection and resource development.

"The exploitation of resources, especially the development of coal mines, has been the main driving force to support the fast growth of Inner Mongolia in recent years," Bater said.

"It also contributes to high local fiscal growth, which is the precondition to launching large environmental protection projects."

He suggested taking a "balanced" measure and improving production technology to develop modern industries.

In his annual Government Work Report to NPC deputies, Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted that economic development is increasingly in conflict with resource conservation and environmental protection.

"We should adopt effective measures to prevent and control pollution and change the way we work and live," he said.

One key to improving the living environment is to speed up the adjustment of the economic structure and distribution, as well as upgrading related regulations and laws, Wen suggested in the report.

Ecological damage in the Xilingol Grassland is still very grim, and the trend of increasing desertification has not yet been fully controlled, said Liu.

The task of grassland protection is now arduous, especially in the Hunshadake Sandy Land area, where wandering dunes cover about 667,000 hectares, about 11 percent of the sandy land, according to Liu.

Contact the writer at chenjia1@chinadaily.com.cn

[Celebriton]

What about the other cities beside Beijing?

To have a big city and a capital at the same city, have a big disadvantage.

That city will become a megastar and get special treatment like the case above. Everything just for Beijing. I agree with someone opinion to move China capital to smaller and calm city. So the government attention will be more equal to any part of the country.

Like Washington DC of US.

[RyukyuRhymer]

Originally Posted by Celebriton

What about the other cities beside Beijing?

To have a big city and a capital at the same city, have a big disadvantage.

That city will become a megastar and get special treatment like the case above. Everything just for Beijing. I agree with someone opinion to move China capital to smaller and calm city. So the government attention will be more equal to any part of the country.

Like Washington DC of US.

Washington DC is not as small as you think. the actual district is small but its part of the larger Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro.

Secondly what works with the US may not work with China.
The US is a federalist system.. while more centralized than what some would like or intended, disperses much of its powers to the state level and even city level. This means you don't have to have many of the functions placed in the capital.
PRC, as well as many other Asian countries (Japan, Korea, Thailand, Philippines), is heavily centralized in its power structure and because of that, capital cities agglomerate. This means even if China moved its capital, it will eventually balloon up unless China changes its political power structure. Japan has been considering decentralizing some of its power structures in order to reduce agglomeration.

Second in regards to the desertification issues in the previous post. I've talked to two researchers on the issue a few years ago..one was an engineer from China and the other an academic. The biggest problems in dealing with desertfication mitigation is corruption. The government sets some kind of quota on how many trees should be planted to combat desertification. The problem is when you read the numbers you find serious problems.
1. People counting any kind of vegetation as a tree. Some counters count bushes and shrubs as trees in order to inflate numbers
2. People are planting the wrong kinds of trees. They plant a tree that is not suitable to an area, and the tree dies shortly after
3. People borrowing each others trees. For example City A and City B can't plant enough trees to meet their quota..so City A borrows City B's tree to meet the number, then City B borrows City A's trees. This screws up any real progress
4. The "solution" makes the problem worse.

in terms of solutions they both differed
one suggested to not do anything and that the problem will solve itself eventually
the other suggested that the simplest and most effective solution is to simply build a giant dome to contain it..but of course its not practical.

this is based on a few examples, not the entire country as mitigation strategies differ from region to region.