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The Earthquake in China

2008-05-16T12:57:59Z

This past Monday sometime around three in the afternoon our staff in Beijing felt a strange swaying sensation, a few of them said they felt dizzy and saw the glass partition walls of our offices buckle and wave for a few moments. After they had evacuated to the ground floor, several of them were surprised to find (as phone calls were made and instant messages sent) that the cause of this had been a massive earthquake fully on the other side of the country, nearly a thousand miles away in the southwestern province of Sichuan. That the impact could be felt so far away from the epicenter was the first clue of the magnitude of the disaster, but it has been a shock for all of us to see the nearly complete devastation in Sichuan and to watch the death toll climb beyond 20,000 with the end not even remotely in site. My colleague Zhang Jingjing is from Sichuan, and though her family thankfully is safe, she has friends and acquaintances in the region who have not yet surfaced.

It has been remarkable for me to see how the earthquake has brought the country together (and China together with the world). In a year that has brought seemingly one divisive issue after another, the earthquake has created a sort of unity within China and an outpouring of sympathy from outside (our inboxes have filled with messages of sympathy from colleagues and friends in the States and elsewhere).

And it has brought about a series of seeming firsts that have been notable, even amidst the breakneck pace of change that is the norm in today’s China.

Though China has not had a strong tradition of organized philanthropy, the disaster has brought a flood of donations to come from all corners of the country.

Though Chinese NGOs have been weak and lacking in resources, the earthquake has nonetheless ignited a flurry of activity among them (in a way that, say, the Songhua River benzene explosion in 2005 did not). The groups have organized collection drives and have sought out medical experts to send to the disaster area. The environmental groups, like Green Earth Volunteers, Friends of Nature and Xiamen Green Cross, have been particularly good at this, mobilizing the extensive networks they’ve built over the years in the service of environmental education and protection to bring resources to the disaster relief effort.

The media coverage and rapid government response to the disaster have been another surprise. A system where the main official news organs have tended to stiffly read pre-vetted and approved statements was transformed seemingly overnight into an active, modern news channel, taking live reports from reporters on the ground and (most notably) giving frequent updates on the rapidly rising death toll (this sort of information has not traditionally been readily forthcoming). On Monday, I saw Premier Wen Jiabao on TV shouting out orders to rescue workers at a disaster area. This (though still a bit of stagecraft) was nonetheless a far cry from the delayed and muted responses of past emergencies. The degree of openness has been amazing and hopefully marks some quantum leap in a trend towards greater openness and transparency that has been slowly taking shape here in China. The popular opinion of the government rescue response has been on the whole very positive so far.

It has been a strange week here in China and all of us in the Beijing office are a little shaken up by this overwhelming tragedy. But if there can be said to be a silver lining to any of this, it is that this devastating situation has brought out the best in people in China and abroad in myriad ways. And in this place where a blistering pace of change is the norm, circumstances have forced things to change even faster, and everyone involved has stepped up and risen to the occasion.

* * * * *

Here’s the statement NRDC issued yesterday re: the Sichuan earthquake.

NRDC Statement on the Earthquake in China
May 15, 2008
The massive earthquake in China's Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008 devastated one of the country's most populated areas, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving hundreds of thousands in desperate need of help. NRDC China urges all concerned individuals to contribute to Sichuan earthquake relief efforts being organized by the Red Cross Society of China and other relief organizations.
NRDC China sends its deepest condolences and sympathies to those affected by this most terrible of natural disasters, and expresses the strongest support for ongoing rescue efforts by government and civil society organizations. These difficult times require that we all come together to help in any way possible. NRDC and its staff in China and the rest of the world are ready and more than willing to provide assistance as China begins the difficult work of recovery and rebuilding.

The Bali Conference - a view from the floor

2007-12-07T10:58:29Z

Today was my first day at the “united nations climate change conference” in Nusa Dua, Bali. In the U.S., we still have to deal with Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and a NASA head who claims it is “arrogant” for us now to decide for future generations that “this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings.” So, those in the United States might be surprised to find that the rest of the world basically agrees that climate change is happening and is actively seeking ways to deal with the problem. With the exception of a group called “The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,” a climate change denial group handing out fliers here in Bali, there is no denial of the reality of global warming or claims, a la Michael Crichton, that the problem is one cooked up by green groups to juice their fundraising.

The panels here have all exhibited a pragmatism about finding ways to deal with the problem. There is very little agreement among participants about just how to go about doing that or who should pay for the actions eventually to be taken. That will be where all the heat is in the coming negotiations. However, the discussion has moved on from debating whether the problem exists.

Even China, which is coming under global pressure for not doing enough to address global warming, is quite frank in its assessment of the impacts of global warming on China. In its National Climate Change Programme, released by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in June 2007, it states very clearly that climate change has already had an impact on:

agriculture and livestock production;
glacier melt;
decreased water resources; and
sea level rise and coastal flooding.

Moreover, these impacts will increase in the future and lead to other impacts such as increased death from heat waves, greater incidence of certain diseases, and so on. The Chinese programme calls for a variety of actions on mitigation and adaptation (such as development of stress-resistant crops) in equal measure to deal with the problem.

Contrast this with the U.S. debate. In October of this year, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Daniel Botkin, which states that “contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.” Just this past week, WSJ ran an outlandish editorial again trying to cast doubt on the reality of global warming (labeling it a “belief”). See this post about the article (“WSJ Launches Luddite Attack on Climate Scientists and Al Gore”). These pieces have been part of a systematic effort by WSJ and their ilk to confuse the climate change debate. And news has been plentiful in recent years of the Bush administration’s efforts to quash any information suggesting that climate change is real or a problem.

The rest of the world - and now U.S. Congress and many states - have moved on to debate solutions. Let’s hope the overall U.S. debate can, sooner than later, rise to this level.

What a difference a day makes...

2007-11-26T17:33:08Z

It's a beautiful day in Beijing today, which made me think about this picture someone sent me a few months ago:

This is a photo of Beijing on two consecutive days about a year ago in 2006. This, in a single picture, crystallizes for me why we are working in China. The enormity of the problem on one side. The overwhelming promise and potential on the other.

Many days over this gritty city are like those days you see on the left. Those are days when you stay inside and turn your air purifier up to 11. But, sometimes – particularly when a strong wind blows through or after a heavy rain – we get a perfect day like you see towards the right, an instant reminder of what is possible.

There is a tremendous amount of environmental protection activity to take us to the cleaner side of this picture, coming from many different sectors of Chinese society – government, community groups, lawyers, environmental groups, scientists, doctors, etc. More needs to be done though. We have been working to help implement a number of key solutions (in the areas of greater public involvement in environmental protection, improved access to environmental information, energy efficiency and green buildings, clean energy technologies, and so on). I’ll look forward to talking more about these in the weeks to come.

Pollution Reduces China’s Rainfall

2007-11-18T18:01:13Z

Pollution is causing rainfall to decrease in certain parts of China. A little noticed study published in Science earlier this year, somewhat opaquely entitled “Inverse Relations between Amounts of Air Pollution and Orographic Precipitation,” found that average precipitation in a particular mountain region in central China had fallen by 20 percent over the past 50 years. The authors of the study showed that increasing concentrations of fine, airborne pollutants were responsible for decreasing average precipitation in mountain regions.

“These findings highlight the threat to vital water resources in polluted regions of the world where hilly-area precipitation makes a significant contribution to the regional water supply, as in the southwestern U.S. central and northern China, and the Middle East.”

Figure: Trends of annual precipitation amounts and Ro between Mt. Hua and the plain stations of (A) Xi'an and (B) Huayin.

In past years, the conventional wisdom was that environmental protection, while desirable, was a luxury that a still developing China could not always afford. This study is part of the increasingly overwhelming body of evidence that environmental pollution actually hurts China’s economic development. Development that harms a region’s ability to renew its own water supply is not sustainable development. Many terrific experts within China have been pounding this drum in recent years.

The BBC ran an article on this a few months ago.

Little Stiletto Heels and China’s Environment

2007-11-06T13:56:54Z

It’s no secret that the products that fuel our daily consumer lives in the U.S. are now overwhelmingly produced in China. Try living a year without buying anything “Made in China” and see how you like it (one woman seems to have done just that and wrote a book about it – in short, it’s doable, but more expensive and an all-around pain).

Less often discussed is the fact that the environmental crisis in China is driven in significant part by the production of goods for our consumption. The resultant pollution in turn is finding its way back to the U.S. A few media articles have made this connection.

A Wall Street Journal article last week noted the following:

A significant portion of China's air pollution can be traced directly to the production of goods that are exported. In the city of Shenzhen, a major industrial base in southern China, about 89% of emissions of sulfur dioxide, an air pollutant that causes acid rain, are released in the process of export manufacturing, according to a recent study published in the U.S.-based Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. The study also found 71% of particulate matter, the small particles that cause smog and respiratory problems, can be traced to the manufacturing of exported goods.

The best piece I have seen on the connection between Chinese pollution and U.S. consumer behavior is Evan Osnos’ award-winning piece in the Chicago Tribune on Chinese cashmere. The article tied insatiable demand in the U.S. for $20 Wal-Mart cashmere sweaters to massive land degradation in northern China where the goats that generate cashmere wool are raised. The dust storms caused by this land degradation have in turn contributed to air pollution over the U.S. Osnos talks about the cycle on the Colbert Report of all places (to paraphrase, “the goats hooves are like little stiletto heels piercing the earth…”). What goes around comes around.

China’s government is using this dynamic to try to address its own environmental problems. China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) recently announced an initiative with the Ministry of Commerce to clamp down on export manufacturers that violate environmental laws. According to WSJ, “export manufacturers that violate China's pollution laws would be forced to close for one to three years. The policy will be enforced jointly by SEPA and the Ministry of Commerce.”

On its face, this seems like a superfluous move since all enterprises (not just export manufacturers) are subject to environmental laws already. However, the key here is joint SEPA enforcement with the much more powerful Ministry of Commerce. SEPA continues to be one of China’s weakest ministries with only 250 some staffers at the national level to oversee China’s environmental protection, and this represents another in a series of moves by SEPA to maximize its influence within the limits of its fairly significant resource constraints.

Can Beijing Clear the Air in Time for the Olympics?

2007-08-10T10:23:34Z

The hot topic in Beijing this week is whether the murky haze of smog that usually covers the city will be lifted when the world's athletes begin to descend on Beijing in August 2008. This summer certainly hasn't been pretty from an air quality perspective here in Beijing.

Dramatic things are possible though and we may be surprised at what we see come August 2008. One of the key measures Beijing is taking to clean the air is to remove a dramatic number of cars from the roads. There is going to be a trial run of this from August 17-20, when some 1.3 million of Beijing's 3 million motor vehicles will be taken off the road. A smaller scale practice run last fall (a mere 800,000 cars!) during a China-Africa forum showed drastic and virtually immediate reductions in NOx levels of 40 percent. There are some amazing satellite photos and stats on the NASA Observatory site:

Like many things in China, the scale of this endeavor is simply mind-boggling.

Other techniques to clear the air include shutting down factories, holding up the massive amounts of construction going on, and unleashing China's substantial artificial rain-making apparatus in the days before the Games. I've heard that the main concern is forcing clouds to rain themselves out before they hit Beijing so as to avoid a rainy opening ceremony; however, rain almost always whips up winds that blow pollution out of the city for the following day or two. If it helps to remove pollution, I can't imagine that Beijing will not use it in the lead-up to the big show.

So, I'm not too worried about the air during the Beijing Olympics. The real challenge is for China to sustain this long after the Olympics are done and gone. There are a lot of steps that China can take to make this a reality (while continuing to grow and improve economic conditions for the nation's people), but the devil will be in the details of implementation and making sure that leaders have the will to do what it takes. More on this later...