Outsourcing pollution is not the solution
- By Wen Jiajun
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 3, 2014
China is a microcosm of the world with rich regions that already have similar consumption level to the West and rural hinterlands which need more development. Another lesson for the Chinese government is to prevent a similar outsourcing of pollution from rich regions to poor regions.
To give it fair credit, the Chinese government has applied the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" in its emission reduction goal of the 12th Five Year Plan. Rich regions like Shanghai and Guangdong have to reduce their carbon emission intensity by 20 percent between 2011-2015, while poor regions like Guizhou and Ningxia only have to reduce it by 10 percent. However, with the current production based accounting, the easy way out for the richer regions is to relocate emission-intensive industries to poorer regions in order to achieve the local targets. Needless to say, this will help very little. It may even further exacerbate the environmental inequality between the poor and rich regions.
One particular recent concern is that in order to address the serious air pollution issue in big cities, many local governments are proposing or are already planning to replace coal with gas. Currently the best efficiency for coal gasification is around 60 percent and the best rate of efficiency for gas-steam combined cycle power plants is around 55 percent, so overall efficiency is 60 percent x 55 percent, which makes only 33 percent, far lower than the 45 percent efficiency of coal-fired plants which can be achieved today with super-critical or super-super-critical technology.
Therefore, coal gasification may reduce the local pollution in big cities, but it would increase China's overall coal usage and consequent total pollution, and some of this pollution would come back to the big cities. Also, coal gasification is a water intensive process. Many currently planned gasification utilities are located in regions with a shortage of water like Inner Mongolia, which may further exacerbate the pressure on water supplies in these areas.
Consumers have a responsibility for the goods they consume and the related pollution, no matter where the production happens. Both internationally and domestically, consumption-based accounting should be important to shape future development and environment policies.
The author, Dr. Jiajun Dale Wen, is a non-resident fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
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