In the first of this two-part series in our ongoing Cleaning Up The Mess space, Yang Youming, Ambassador of the Peoples Republic of China tells us how the world's most populous state with over 1.3 billion citizens, is meeting the challenge of preserving its environment without compromising its development as the world's fastest growing economy.
In recent years, China's economic development has coincided with a period when the awareness of environmental protection around the globe is significantly growing. It is therefore inevitable for China to run into unprecedented challenges arising from the environmental issue. China has not dodged the issue. The Chinese Government has taken a set of stringent measures in balancing the need of its own development and the responsibility it has to take in preserving the environment. China has made environmental protection as a basic state policy. In its 12th five-year programme (2011-2015) on national economic and social development, China pledged to accelerate the establishment of a resource-saving and environment-friendly society, highlighted by the concept of green and low carbon development.
Such a move is significant as both financial and human resources are allocated to promote environmental awareness among the population, to formulate and implement laws and regulations on environmental protection, as well as to restructure the industries, with an emphasis on the expansion of service industry. Energy saving is a priority. One morning before I came to Trinidad and Tobago, people from the district community came to my apartment in Beijing and told me that they would replace the traditional filament lamps with energy saving ones. This was actually a part of energy saving strategy in China where citizens are encouraged to replace the traditional filament lamps with energy-saving lamps
at the cost of only one RMB yuan (approximately US14 cents) for each.
In 2008, 3.7 million energy-saving lamps were replaced in Beijing alone, and the figure rose to ten million in 2009. It was estimated that 50 per cent of household filament lamps would be replaced by the end of last year. Incentives are provided to the Chinese car industry to produce energy-efficiency vehicles, while consumers are encouraged, since last year, to buy such types of vehicles at a lower cost (a reduction of 3,000-60,000 RMB yuan, approximately US$440-$8,800), an attractive benefit for owning a new car. Emphasis is also on the development of low-carbon and renewable energy. The Three Gorges Dam is a powerful symbol of China's use of hydro resources. China has spent 18 years in building the Three Gorges Dam.
With 3035 metres in length and 185 metres in height, the world's largest dam can annually generate 84.7 billion kilowatthours of electricity, a guarantee that can provide a few electricity-short regions with abundant power and at the same time substantially reduce damage caused by flooding in southern part of China.Along with it, there are thousands of large, medium and small-sized hydraulic power plants, producing 16.2 per cent of China's total power generation throughout China. Positive utilisation of wind and solar energy in China in the past decades has also been considerably growing and expanding.
The IEA's chief economist, Faith Birol, recently said that China is the world's leader in wind and solar power.
A couple of years ago, I visited Xinjiang, the Uyghur autonomous region in China's west. I still remember vividly that I saw over 200 huge windmills alongside a national highway. I later discovered that through the collaborating efforts of China and the Netherlands, those windmills not only form the backbone of Dabancheng Wind Power Plant (the second largest wind power plant in the world) with an annual generating capacity of 180 million kilowatthours of electricity, but also boost local tourism thanks to its unique landscape. Similarly, if you travel from Beijing to Shanghai by train, which I often do myself, you will not miss seeing plenty of solar panels installed on the roof tops of civilian houses or residential buildings."
To be continued