Courtney
Friend and long-time China resident Keith Clemenger recently sent me an interesting article by James Fallows, called China's Silver Lining, on China's environment situation . And yes, James brought up all the same jaw-dropping statistics that now seem like old news about China's environmental degredation:
- 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China
- 750,000 Chinese die per year due to environmentally-related health problems
- 500,000,000 people lack access to safe drinking water (an amount equal to 1.5 times the total population of the United States)
- Only 1% of China's 600,000,000 urbanites breath air considered safe by the EU
But, what James didn't do was all the usual fingepointing and booing of the Chinese government that these articles normally do. In fact, James did quite the opposite. He actually found a silver lining: China is finally moving in the right direction, thanks to a united effort by the Chinese government, the private sector, non-government organizations, the international community, and the Chinese people themselves.
The Chinese government, in its announcement of the 11th Five-Year Plan on Environment Protection last November, acknowledged a lot of the enviornment problems that the World Bank and others have been pointing out for years. (The World Bank's Cost of Pollution in China provides the best summary of these that I have seen.) They talked about the acid rain, black skies, polluted groundwater, drying up rivers, and dust storms and they also connected those problems to the health problems that the Chinese people have been experiencing. Are they doing anything to change it? Yes. Is it enough? No. But are they headed in the right direction? Yes. Five years ago an acknowledgement like this was unheard of.
The private sector is also taking a stab. But whats interesting here is that it is not just the big name international players like General Electric who are getting involved, its home-grown entrepreneurs as well. Take Mr. Tang, a 40-year old Tianjin native who has dedicated the better half of his life to making dirty, wasteful cement- factories less environmentally destructive. Most recently, he founded Dalian East Energy Development (DEED), a company that offers a cool peice of technology called a co-generation system that decreases the energy used by a coal plant by over 30%. And in a country that produces and consumes over half of the world's cement, that is a lot of energy.
In addition to private players, both international and local NGOs are helping to solve the problem. Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy (JUCCE) works to accelerate energy productivity and increase clean energy supply in China by incubating potential cutting edge technologies. The Global Environment Institute(GEI) establishes pilot projects across China that promote biodiversity, sustainability and clean energy use. GreenPeace holds campaigns and educational events throughout China to promote focus and awareness toward environmental degredation. And whats hard to believe is that in 1994, there was only one environmental NGO in China. Today there are over 3,000.
Individuals abroad are up in arms. Elizabeth Economy of the US Council on Foreign Relations wrote The River Runs Black about China's environmental woes in 2005. And we all know how much Tom Friedman loves to talk about China & Green. His most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America mentions China, while many of his daily articles focus on it. (My favorite being Bring in the Green Cat from 2006).
And so are people at home. Talking with a cab driver in early 2003 when I first landed in China, a comment about the pollution or the air quality never would have come up. But on my most recent stint ending in June 2007, it came up in every single conversation I had with cab drivers. Whether it be visual recognition of the black skies or knowledge spread by organizations like Roots and Shoots - an NGO dedicated to environmental education in schools. The Chinese people know that things aren't good and are not happy about it. And 1.5million people - or at least the 600,000,000 that live in urban areas - not happy is a huge liability for the Chinese government.
So what does this mean? It means that we are at the brink of change. We have climbed the to the peak of the environmental degredation mountain and are about to find the safest most expedient path down off the mountain. With the many layers of domestic and international society involved - and equally affected by the outcome - there is no doubt in my mind that the best plan will be put forward. And with China taking center stage in August, there is no doubt that China will have to put that plan into action sooner rather than later.
Taking off my environment hat and putting on my Wokai one, I can't help but wonder: What can the poverty alleviation sector learn from environmental protection movement in China? How can it obtain that same cohesion and push in the same direction? Presently, its far from that. The Chinese government, NGOs, the private sector and the people are not working together. And the international community is not touching the issue with a ten foot pole. As Jeffery Sachs said, there are bigger fish to fry - like Africa.
So what does this mean for microfinance? It means that the only way we can really have large impact on China is if the Chinese government works with NGOs, microfinance enthusiast and the people themselves to create a solution that is effective and sustainable for all.
So how do we do that? Look at the environment example above. Why are ALL those players involved? In a nut shell, environmental degredation affects the domestic and the world economy. So all we need to do is make China poverty get that same attention. We need to make it clear that China poverty affects both the domestic and world economy, more specifically the US economy. How does Wang LiPing in Inner Monglia surviving on less than a dollar a day affect Joe Smoe in Idaho? When we answer than question, we move closer to our goal.
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