Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 26/4/2007 Page: 10
AUSTRALIA should be rattled by news that China will soon be the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter. It is playing a big part in helping China achieve this unhappy distinction. China is expected to overtake the United States as early as November, not in 2010 as previously forecast.
At the same time, China is prevaricating about previous pledges to slow carbon emissions; it wants instead to protect its roaring economic growth. Outpolluting the US is bad enough, but if China makes no effort to restrain emissions, it will within a quarter of a century be spewing out twice as much pollution as the world's 26 richest industrial nations combined. Without China, international climate change policy has no chance of success.
Rising smog levels in China have put Australia in an especially uncomfortable position, and not just because regional monsoons caused by Asian haze are affecting our north. Australia's recent prosperity owes much to being a key supplier of the iron ore, nickel, coal and aluminium fuelling China's economic growth and its soaring emissions. Then there is Australia's environmental standing.
The Federal Government's insistence that Australia cannot afford meaningful emission reduction targets - despite a new CSIRO report to the contrary - leaves Australia with no moral leverage. It is true - as the Prime Minister, John Howard, says - that without China and India, no global climate change plan will work. But it is also true that only nations which are cleaning up their act can exert useful moral influence beyond their borders.
Recent contradictory signals from China suggest an unresolved internal debate on how far to go in moderating economic growth to protect the environment. China's key foreign policy objective of peaceful growth and global economic integration means Beijing is no longer impervious to international pressure. Nor is it blind to the local impact of air pollution, which the World Bank blames for 427,000 Chinese deaths a year. Beijing recently introduced a progressive renewable energy policy. But at the same time, China's oil imports are rising by 30 per cent annually, while five new coal-fired power stations come on line each week. The official line this week is economic growth first - but that is not the last word.
China's experts predict climate change will cause severe droughts, the expansion of deserts, dwindling harvests and the spread of disease. Their conclusion: the terrible cost of doing nothing outweighs the short-term benefits of carbon-driven growth. Beijing - and Canberra - take note.
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