Pollution is invariably one of the first impressions visitors form of China. From bicycles to cars in 25 years, urban China rarely sees much in the way of blue sky anymore. Rapid and large-scale industrialization only compounds the problem. The Chinese government knows full well it must take prompt and forceful actions to avoid an environmental crisis. There are encouraging signs it is now rising to the occasion. Can China pull it off while, at the same time, staying the course of its remarkable economic development strategy?
What is the scale of China's pollution problem?
On a per capita basis, China’s pollution problem hardly jumps off the page. Its ratio of carbon emissions per person is less than half the global average and less than one-tenth that of the world’s biggest polluter – the United States. China’s enormous population, of course, distorts those comparisons. On an absolute basis, it’s a different story altogether. China’s total carbon emissions are more than double those of Japan and Russia, fractionally behind the European Union, and a little more than half those of the US. The essence of the Chinese environmental degradation problem is both its scale and growth. Over the 1992–2002 period, CO2 emissions in China have expanded at a 3.7% average annual rate – more than two and a half times the global average of 1.4%. At that rate, according to a recent report issued by the International Energy Agency, China will surpass the United States as the global leader in carbon emissions by 2009.
Read more about China's pollution problems here.
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