|
|
|
Their
future depends on our actions.
|
How China could lead the over-consuming
West towards sustainable economic development
China can decide if the world moves towards sustainable economic
development, according to a new report that warns rapidly growing
Asian economies are using natural resources at a faster rate than
previously reported. The WWF Asia Pacific 2005 Ecological Footprint
and Ecological Wealth, launched recently in Mandarin, shows that
people in the region are devouring resources at nearly double
the rate that the region can support. “China is in a unique
position to shape the world’s path to sustainable development
in the coming decades,” said Dermot O’Gorman, County
Representative, WWF China. “If China, where around 20 percent
of the world’s population lives, can get the balance right
between natural resource consumption and production, we could
see a very different future than the current projections.”
Rapidly growing populations and massive economic development
have led to a trebling in consumption of natural resources in
the Asia Pacific region over the past forty years. The Asia Pacific
region could consume less, pollute less and tread more lightly
on the planet without harming economic growth and competitiveness,
suggests the report, which explores the impact of humans in 149
of the world’s major countries on populations of wild species
as well as land and water. As a processing hub and an important
link in the supply chain for many developed countries, “China
has the potential to help reduce the impact of consumers in the
EU and US, which consume an unequal share of global resources.”
More resource efficient buildings and transport networks in major
cities are crucial if China is to build a sustainable economy,
report authors suggest. Encouraging innovation in new energy technologies
that would free China from the high cost of fossil fuel imports
is also recommended, as is “investing in solutions for promoting
sustainability in the areas of food, health, nature management,
transportation, and shelter.” Report authors recommend withdrawing
investments from “industries that are obstacles to sustainability.”
But China may find it hard to be discerning. Foreign investment
has been crucial to the export boom that has turned China into
the world’s third-largest trading nation. The country attracted
more than US $60 billion in foreign direct investment in 2005
from foreign firms keen to take advantage of the country’s
low wages and huge domestic market. Foreign-owned firms account
for almost 60 percent of the country’s exports, but most
of those exports so far come from the kind of high labor, high
polluting manufacturing. Caught in a dilemma, China will have
to choose between cleaner industries and the jobs they bring.
A solution may be to hand. A long-awaited plan to unify the tax
rate paid by domestic and foreign-invested companies, could weed
mucky manufacturing FDI out, believes Xing Houyuan, a senior researcher
at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation,
a think tank under the Ministry of Commerce. “I expect foreign
investment in sectors such as manufacturing, processing and real
estate will shrink, but investment might increase in the services
sector when it opens more to the outside in 2006,” says Xing.
No date has been set for a unified business tax rate but preferential
income tax rates as low as 15 percent set by local authorities
(domestic firms are typically taxed at 33 percent) have helped
China rake in more than US $1 billion a week in mostly manufacturing
FDI since it joined the World Trade Organization in late 2001.
China has already been signaling it wants cleaner investment.
Foreign exhibitors at the recent Texcare Asia Expo in Beijing
were quizzed by buyers about water and energy efficient machinery,
says Engelbert Heinz, Managing Director of Kannegiesser, a German-based
manufacturer of laundry machines. “…Solutions to save
water and energy are very topical in China at the moment,”
said Kannegiesser. Suppliers, he added, are scrambling to build
special efficient machines for China to take part of a market
driven by a growing middle class, increasing awareness about hygiene
and a rash of new hotels and hospitals being built.
China-bound foreign investment will shift toward services and
away from manufacturing, says Tang Min, chief economist at the
Asian Development Bank in Beijing. “Some of the labor-intensive,
cheap labor type of export-orientated FDI will gradually move
more to the center of China and, if not, move out of the country,”
he said. New policies that suck investment into the interior may
help China assume the role urged on it by the WWF Asia Pacific
2005 Ecological Footprint and Ecological Wealth report.
The Asia Pacific region now contributes to 40 percent of the
world’s use of resources such as food, fiber, energy and
water. According to the report, their ecological footprint –
their resource demand on earth – is 1.7 times higher than
the rate at which Asia Pacific’s ecosystems can regenerate.
China has doubled its ecological footprint during the 40 years
from 1961 to 2001.
The numbers are growing fast but the average footprint of an
Asian is still seven times smaller than that of a North American
and more than three times smaller than that of a European. Per
capita footprints of rapidly transforming nations such as China
have remained relatively stable over the past eight years, despite
huge economic growth, the report found.
“Resource accounting is an opportunity for more effective
management of our ecological assets,” says Dr. Mathis Wackernagel,
Executive Director of Global Footprint Network, who along with
Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden (KFGB) partnered the WWF’s
Asia Pacific 2005 Ecological Footprint and Ecological Wealth report.
“The footprint is not about how bad the situation is, but
what we can do about it.”
|
