China encouraged to take the lead on reducing carbon emissions.
Dame Meg Taylor of the Pacific Islands Forum when speaking at a Pacific Island development forum hosted by China in Samoa recently was reported to have said, “Countries needed to be more ambitious than meeting Paris Agreement targets, she said, and China could be an "important ally" by taking the lead in "escalating its ambition level and its commitments" under the Paris Agreement.”
It was also reported today, Tuesday, that Vanuatu's Foreign Minister has also asked China to reduce carbon emissions and put an end to coal.
In a Radio New Zealand news slot, it said, quote:
“Ralph Regenvanu said that he had made the request to China's Ambassador to Vanuatu, Zhou Haicheng.
"I have written to the Chinese Ambassador requesting that China reduce emissions and stop using and promoting coal," he said on Twitter.
“Mr Regenvanu said all Pacific Islands Forum member states should also call on China to do the same.
At the third China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum, Dame Meg had commented, “China had made gains in renewable energy, accounting for 32 percent of global investments in the industry and leading the world installed capacity of hydropower, solar and wind energy.”
Being interested in Dame Meg Taylor’s claim that China has made gains in renewable energy, I sought to find out more and turned to an article in the Times on 12 September 2019 written by Ma Jun, an environmentalist and director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based NGO.
This is what he had to say, quote:
“China is the world’s most populous country and the largest emitter of carbon. If it can meet its vast potential for emission reduction, it will play an enormous role in tackling global climate change. The signs have been good. After suffering severe smog in 2011, the product of years of rising coal consumption, the Chinese government initiated a massive national action plan: halting the growth of coal consumption, improving air quality and helping the country limit emissions overall.
“However, the economic slowdown and worsening trade war are risking a relapse. Some smog-stricken regions in China were found to have relaxed tight controls on polluting industries such as steel and cement in the second half of 2018, contributing to a rebound of smog last winter. The carbon market, the government’s primary climate-action plan, has been significantly downsized while coal consumption picked up again last year.
“So what can China do now to stem emissions and remain a leader in the fight against climate change, while also maintaining socioeconomic development? Tap into the power of the market, from the bottom up.
As the world’s manufacturing hub, China is in a unique position to change the course of global emissions. In most industrial sectors, 75% of greenhouse-gas emissions are produced from the supply chains. In a globalized world, this means China’s emissions are generated to meet more than just its own rising demand. Research conducted by the Carbon Trust found that China is the world’s largest emitter in the apparel sector, but 72% of those emissions are essentially the responsibility of companies overseas where the products are exported and sold.
Responsibility for this division between manufacturing and products comes down to the private sector. In 2018, we at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) examined the climate actions of 118 IT and textile-industry brands sourcing from China to rank them by how green their supply-chain practices are. Apple and Nike tied for first place, and Chinese brands Lenovo and Huawei reached the top 30, but most brands did not take supply-chain carbon footprints into consideration. Barely any set supply-chain emission-reduction targets. Consequently, most of the top global brands may not be able to meet their climate commitments.
“Thankfully, things are already changing. As China has expanded environmental transparency, some 70 multinational and local brands have applied the monitoring data compiled by IPE to motivate more than 8,000 suppliers to address regulatory violations. The country’s commitment to environmental transparency can incentivize companies to mitigate supply-chain emissions. Open carbon data not only enables businesses to set effective targets but also permits the public and investors to identify which are using best practices and which are racking up regulatory violations. To hold companies accountable, the state must also instigate high penalties for failing to disclose or falsifying this information.
“But those leading brands demonstrating responsible oversight of their supply chains show that the private sector can make significant contributions, even without those systems in place. As climate change worsens, government and businesses will need to work in tandem to break the global community out of its “business as usual” mind-set.”
In order to control the spread of deserts in China and, at the same time help control global warming, the journal ‘Nature’ published an article in September this year which said, quote:
“China has planted billions of trees over the past four decades as part of its fight against expanding deserts, mostly in its north. Each year, the country sows seedlings over an area nearly the size of Ireland. It is even sharing its desert-control methods with others as part of its massive Belt and Road trade initiative.
“Chinese scientists say there are good reasons to plant vegetation in barren areas but that the programme needs to take into account local conditions. They say local and national governments are already planting more shrubs, herbs and other forms of native vegetation that need less water.
“The Gobi Desert and similarly arid regions in China are expanding as processes such as overgrazing deplete vegetation on their borders, allowing wind and gravity to erode soil. China’s largest tree-planting drive, the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, also called the Great Green Wall, is designed to halt that encroachment. The government says that it has planted more than 66 billion trees across 13 provinces in the country’s north since the programme began in 1978.
“Around the year 2000, deserts across the country were expanding by 10,400 square kilometres a year, says the government. But in 2017, the State Forestry Administration reported that China’s deserts were shrinking by more than 2,400 square kilometres a year.
“A 2018 study analyzing satellite data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found there has been an increase in forest cover consistent with government statistics, but suggested that changes in logging policy were more important factors than afforestation — planting forests where none had grown before.
“In 1999, the Chinese government began planting millions of trees in its Grain for Green Program, intended to repair damaged farmland in key agricultural in the northern Loess Plateau, which is roughly the size of France. “I was there two years ago, and it is indeed amazing that once bare landscapes are now almost fully covered by plants,” says Philippe Ciais, a climate researcher at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris.
“And the afforestation drive is continuing apace: in 2018, the State Forestry Administration announced a target of 30% forest coverage by 2050. At the moment, the coverage is around 22%.
The growth of forests is significant and necessary progress in the fight against desertification, says Jianping Huang, a climate researcher at Lanzhou University.
“But it’s still too early to determine whether it has solved the problem, says Congbin Fu, director of the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research at Nanjing University. Land restoration is usually a long-term process — it can take several decades or even 100 years, he says.”
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
