China's third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu,is a microcosm of what is going right and wrong inthe world's economic dynamo. Buoyed by manufacturing, the twoprovinces surrounding the lake, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, are enjoyingsizzling growth. And Taihu, which provides drinking water formore than 2 million people, sustains one of China's most importantfisheries for crabs, carp, and eels. But it is ailing. Nutrient-richsewage and industrial runoff have turned Taihu into a toxicsoup and fueled vast algal blooms in recent summers.
Taihu and other ecological wrecks are now squarely in the government'scrosshairs. In a nod to rising public expectations, China'sgovernment work plan for 2010, rolled out last week at the country'stwo major annual political powwows, puts the environment frontand center. At the National People's Congress (NPC), officialsannounced that science priorities include new energy sources,energy conservation, environmental protection, and marine technology.
Plans call for $20.7 billion to be spent mostly on engineeringsolutions for environmental woes. New initiatives are plannedin health and food safety as well.
Cleaning up China's Augean stables is critical to the new strategy.At NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference(CPPCC), together known as Liang Hui, delegates outlined projectsto transform cities and provinces into incubators of a "low-carboneconomy." "We will work hard to develop low-carbon technologies,promote application of highly efficient, energy-conserving technologies,and develop new and renewable energies," Premier Wen Jiabaodeclared in a report to NPC.
Some scientists hail this as a defining moment for China. "I'moptimistic that we can start to bring development and environmentalprotection into harmony," says Lu Yonglong, an environmentalmanagement professor at the Research Center for Eco-EnvironmentalSciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing.
Public disaffection over China's myriad environmental ills isrising. One response, from the powerful National Developmentand Reform Commission (NDRC), is a blueprint to clean up hotspots such as Taihu and other polluted sources for the South-to-NorthWater Diversion Project. This $75 billion plan would redirectwater to the arid and heavily populated northeast. Meanwhile,30 CPPCC proposals promote sustainable development of Poyang,China's largest freshwater lake (Science, 23 October 2009, p.508). Unlike Taihu, Poyang is fairly clean and offers a testingground for water-protection measures that are "win-win for ecologyand economy," NPC Vice Chair Hua Jianmin said on the eve ofLiang Hui.
In addition, as part of an effort to "comprehensively improvethe rural environment," NDRC said it would bring under controlsoil erosion on the Loess Plateau northwest of Beijing and protectthe Qinghai-Tibetan plateau's fragile ecology. Toward thoseends, Wen vowed in 2010 to "accelerate afforestation, increaseforest carbon sinks, and expand our forests by at least 5.
92million hectares." Tree planting last year hit a target setby the State Forestry Administration to have one-fifth of China'sland area forested by 2010, up from 18.2% in 2006. Another programaims to improve "ecological zones around the sources of theYangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers."
A more slippery subject is China's aspirations for a "low-carboneconomy." That expression came up over and over in CPPCC meetingsessions and in proposals to the central government. "Low carbonis a hot topic nowadays," says Chen Junwu, a chemist with ChinaPetrochemical Corp. in Louyang. What those buzzwords mean isanother question. "There is a lot of talk but not many specifics,"Chen says.
At Liang Hui, low carbon appeared to encompass any activitythat reduces energy intensity, or the amount of energy consumedper unit of gross domestic product (GDP). In the run-up to theCopenhagen Climate Summit, China pledged that by 2020 it wouldreduce energy intensity 40% to 45% from 2005 levels. Meetingthat goal will be a stretch.
At an NPC news conference on 10March, NDRC Deputy Director Xie Zhenhua noted that efforts tomeet a previous goal cut energy intensity 14.38% from 2006 to2009. But an analysis of GDP growth rates published by China'sState Bureau of Statistics and total energy consumption datapegs the decrease at 8.2%, says Chen.
The discrepancy may liein how China's GDP is tallied. Several Liang Hui delegates questionedwhy the sum of provincial GDPs has been higher than the nationalGDP for years; in 2009, the difference was more than 8%.
No matter the precise figure, "increasing energy efficiencyby such a large amount is not technically feasible," assertsHe Zuoxiu, a physicist at CAS's Institute of Theoretical Physicsin Beijing. Much of China's efficiency savings so far have comefrom shuttering energy-chugging, high-polluting factories. ButChina is running out of such soft targets, He says.
Further gains could be achieved by moving from a manufacturing-drivento a service-driven economy, as developed nations have done.But the structure of China's economy has shifted little in recentyears. A more promising approach could be to slash fossil fuelconsumption and increase renewable and nuclear energy use. PresidentHu Jintao has said China would strive to increase nonfossilfuel use to about 15% of total energy consumption by 2020. (Itnow stands at about 8%.)
Moving to a low-carbon economy and stemming pollution are immensechallenges and Taihu sums up the complexities. Lu's teamrecently completed a study for China's National Audit Officeof the effectiveness of past cleanup efforts. Although municipalitieshave made strides in clamping down on industrial effluents intothe lake, they have largely failed to tackle pollutants fromhomes and small businesses.
Each province expects the otherto take the lead. "It's a tragedy of the commons," says Lu,president of the International Council for Science's ScientificCommittee on Problems of the Environment. "There's a long wayto go."
To speed up progress, Lu advocates installing real-time monitoringsystems to identify "who is doing the polluting." A second ideais for the central government to appoint directors of provincialenvironmental offices; too many these days are beholden to localinterests, including the paramount interest of raising GDP atany cost. "The central government needs to make such reforms,"Lu says. He and others believe the time for action has finallyarrived.
