The dramatic rise of China and India presents one of the gravest
threats—and greatest opportunities—facing the world today, says the
Worldwatch Institute in its newly released State of the World 2006 report.
The choices these countries make in the next few years will lead the
world either towards a future beset by growing ecological and political
instability — or down a development path based on efficient
technologies and better stewardship of resources.
"Rising demand for energy, food, and raw materials by
2.5 billion Chinese and Indians is already having ripple effects
worldwide," says Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. "Meanwhile,
record-shattering consumption levels in the US and Europe leave little
room for this projected Asian growth."
The resulting global resource squeeze is already
evident in riots over rising oil prices in Indonesia, growing pressure
on Brazil's forests and fisheries, and the loss of manufacturing jobs
in Central America.
Ecological superpowers
The United States still consumes three times as
much grain per person as China and five times as much as India, notes
the report. US per-capita carbon dioxide emissions are six times the
Chinese level and 20 times the Indian level. If China and India were to
consume resources and produce pollution at the current US per-capita
level, it would require two planet Earths just to sustain their two
economies.
"We were encouraged to find that a growing number
of opinion leaders in China and India now recognize that the
resource-intensive model for economic growth can't work in the 21st
century," Flavin said.
"Already, China's world-leading solar industry
provides water heating for 35 million buildings, and India's pioneering
use of rainwater harvesting brings clean water to tens of thousands of
homes. China and India are positioned to leapfrog today's industrial
powers and become world leaders in sustainable energy and agriculture
within a decade."
In 2005, China alone used 26 per cent of the
world's steel, 32 per cent of the rice, and 47 per cent of the cement.
Though their per-capita resource consumption is still low, with their
huge populations China and India are joining the United States and
Europe as ecological superpowers whose demands on the world's
ecosystems will vastly outstrip those of other countries,according to
the report.
The chemical spill on the Songhua River in northern
China in November 2005, which forced a four-day closure of the water
system of the city of Harbin, illustrated the huge environmental
challenges facing Asia today. The spill led to the resignation of
China's top environmental official, Xie Zhenhua, who authored the
foreword to State of the World 2006 shortly before the disaster.
Big challenges
Other challenges facing China and India include:
- China has only 8 per cent of the
world's fresh water to meet the needs of 22 per cent of the world's
people. In India, urban water demand is expected to double — and
industrial demand to triple — by 2025.
- India's use of oil has doubled since 1992,
while China went from near self-sufficiency in the mid-1990s to the
world's second largest oil importer in 2004. Chinese and Indian oil
companies are now seeking oil in countries such as Sudan and Venezuela
— and both have just started to build what are slated to be two of the
largest automobile industries in the world.
- China and India have the only large
coal-dominated energy systems in the world today — coal provides more
than two-thirds of China's energy and half of India's. Both countries
are therefore central to future efforts to slow global climate change:
China is already the world's second largest emitter of climate-altering
carbon dioxide, while India ranks fourth.
- If Chinese per-capita grain consumption
were to grow to roughly European levels, China alone would require the
equivalent of nearly 40 per cent of today's global grain harvest.
Already, China's growing imports of grain, soybeans, and wood products
are placing great pressure on the biodiversity of South America and
Southeast Asia.
New trajectory
Such trends have a number of influential Chinese
and Indians questioning whether their countries are on the right path.
Zjeng Bijian, Chair of China Economic Reform, is quoted in the book
calling for "a new path of industrialisation based on technology, low
consumption of resources, low environmental pollution, and the optimal
allocation of human resources."
Sunita Narain of India's Centre for Science and
Environment writes in the book's foreword, " South—India, China, and
all their neighbours — have no choice but to reinvent the development
trajectory."
The report notes that China and India are already
benefiting from South-South sharing of ideas,from biofuels to bus rapid
transit systems. Recent commitments by both nations to develop large
wind power and solar energy industries are likely to make a host of new
technologies affordable for poor countries. Their early successful
efforts to employ new approaches include:
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