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UPDATED: May 21, 2007 NO.21 MAY 24, 2007
Reality of Global Warming
Against the current technical background and at the current economic stage, to avert the mode of “treatment after pollution” is only a dream
 
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Global warming is today heard in the international arena as frequently

and with the same brooding concern as terrorism, nuclear weapons and

the Iraq war. Zou Ji, Vice Dean of the School of Environment, Renmin University of China in Beijing, has been a member of the Chinese delegation to UN climate negotiations since 2000. He has also participated in the drafting of several international reports on the impacts of global warming. In an interview with Beijing-based International Herald Leader, Zou shares his thoughts on related issues.

 

International Herald Leader: Is global warming an irreversible trend?

Zou Ji: Data from observation stations all over the world indicate that global temperature is on the rise. This is an undeniable fact. More importantly, the human effect is a big factor here.

It is estimated that the overall costs of global warming will be equivalent to the combined losses incurred by the two world wars and the Great Depression in the last century. What’s your view?

It’s not simply a matter of money. If we continue to turn a blind eye to global warming, the consequences will be very serious. Nevertheless, as what we know about the Earth is still quite limited, we are unable to predict how serious the impacts will turn out to be. For example, we don’t know whether what is described in the Hollywood disaster blockbuster The Day after Tomorrow, which depicts an extreme rapid climate change event following the sudden shutdown of the North Atlantic Ocean current due to global warming, will really happen to us.

What are the predictable impacts of global warming?

The foremost impact is on the water resources. Rainfall, evaporation, atmospheric circulation, this is a quite stable system. The changing climate, however, will disrupt this system, resulting in many extreme climate and weather types and affecting the agriculture sector. Climate is crucial to agriculture. Last year, the declining wheat yield in the United States that resulted from climate change led to a sharp increase in global grain prices. Even as developed as the United States is, its agriculture sector can’t overcome the impacts of climate change. Then China’s agriculture sector will be hit more heavily. No matter how advanced a country’s agriculture sector is and no matter what kind of gene project it has, none is able to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Rising temperature also affects the coastal areas. Melting ice caps, the falling seawater density and the swelling seawater are all related to the changing temperature. The rising sea level is another problem. Although a hundred years can only see the sea level rise by scores of centimeters, pushed by the tide, the already rising water can stretch several kilometers into the land areas. Worse still, throughout the world, coastal areas always tend to be economic centers. Climate change will also exert an impact on the ecosystem. The changing water resource will affect forests and grassland, which will result in habitat alteration of various species. Finally, global warming will also affect public health. The increase of every 0.5 degrees Centigrade of temperature will help some viruses and germs to multiply in large quantities. For the elderly and children, even a slight rise in temperature will increase the incidence of diseases. Climate change’s impact on nature will further affect the social and economic system. In order to reduce the losses, new investment has to be made. For example, to cope with the rising sea level, seawalls should be built, but such projects will cost a lot.

It is said in the Western world that China is now the second largest greenhouse gas producer, so China must take more responsibilities in emission reduction. We have noticed that the developing mode adopted by Western countries features “treatment after pollution,” but they are now putting forward higher requirements on developing countries. Is it possible for China to take another development mode?

I think it’s a practical problem rather than a theoretical one. When I was studying at Tsinghua University in 1979, a senior expert in China’s environmental protection circle told us that our country would not walk in the wake of Western industrialized countries-“treatment after pollution.” However, 28 years have passed, China actually is repeating what Western countries have done, with the treatment yet to be finished. I do make research into the environment problems in other countries and also consider the problems from the theoretical perspective, and find that against the current technical background and at the current economic stage, to avert the mode of “treatment after pollution” is only a dream. It’s impossible to achieve development without causing pollution, either from the perspective of economics or science and technology. Mankind is not omnipotent. People can land on the moon, but we can’t refrain from causing pollution. It’s impossible to close down all the factories until non-polluting technologies have been invented in labs. The Chinese people are entitled to the right of developing economy. Moreover, greenhouse gas emissions in China are not so large in per-capita terms.

China does, however, face increasingly striking environmental and climate problems. How to tackle this conundrum?

The concept of “environment capital” makes this problem easy to explain. During the early days of development, primitive accumulation is inevitable, as it is an absolute economic law. With current technologies, greenhouse gas emission is unavoidable. For example, to make steel we have to generate electricity. This input is a must. But the process of power generation will pollute clean water and air. Here we can regard clean water and air as a kind of capital. To pollute clean environment is actually costing a certain kind of valuable capital and this is also a kind of input into the production process.

Take carbon dioxide emission as an example. Suppose the emission limit is 100 tons and there are 100 factories, then every factory will be allowed to discharge a ton of carbon dioxide on average. The United Nations will grant licenses to the 100 factories, permitting them to emit one ton, but they will be fined if they go beyond this limit. From the perspective of economics, any investment is designed in a way that it will bring as many outputs as possible. So if we regard the greenhouse gas emission as a kind of capital input and try to achieve the goal of low input and high output, then production will be carried out on the basis of pollution reduction. Anyway, we can’t live without consuming natural resources, but we can try to save as much energy as possible and avoid over consumption of resources.



 
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