China opens a coal fired power station every week November 12, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment , 3 commentsThere’s a perfect excuse in Britain to ignore climate change, and keep on living as if there were no tomorrow, and that’s the way that China opens a coal fired power station every week.
But, if you use that excuse, consider this. China has, in the last twenty years, turned from a backward, poverty ridden nation, to a powerhouse economy. It has done that without worrying about planning regulations, human rights or any of the other, deeply desirable, ideas that may slow the West’s ability to respond to the need to reduce carbon. Its geography means that it may suffer more than Britain will, with encroaching deserts and sea level rise threatening delta and coastal cities. Its bright youth study engineering and science.
The first hydrogen refueling plant has opened in Beijing, and will be used for fueling a hydrogen vehicle fleet for the 2008 Olympics.
If China, its government and power brokers, decide that they will reduce their own carbon emissions, and perhaps use their economic power to encourage others to do so, they will do it, and quickly.
It is complacent, and somehow patronising, to assume that China will fail to recognise the problems its industrial revolution and economic boom are causing and, having recognised them, will fail to deal with them. We, who have had 200 years of industrialisation, need to look to our own dirty back yard now, before we are passed by in this as well.
