CLIMATE CHANGE and SOCIAL JUSTICE: UNDP China shouts loud for economic equity and justice

Source: Principal Voices by Dr Kishan Khoday, UNDP China

"There is an increasing spirit of global environmental citizenship, a desire to address climate change as a matter of common concern for all humanity."
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, "One generation plants a tree; the next generation gets the shade." As noted by the U.N. Secretary General, climate change has become the "defining issue of our era." The great challenge of our generation is to plant the seeds for future innovation in global society; innovations that can align our current needs for energy to fuel global growth with the needs of future generations to live in a healthy environment. This is more than an academic debate. Countries like China and India have made significant progress toward the Millennium Development Goals and have greatly reduced poverty. But climate change now poses risks to sustaining these hard won development gains.
My work focuses on the most vulnerable of humanity, those who rely heavily on land and water for their daily existence and are expected to feel the brunt of climate change. The British economist and academic Nicholas Stern has called the climate crisis the greatest market failure in human history. For me, it may also become the greatest social injustice. Rural communities across the world rely heavily on the natural environment for their livelihood, while lacking capacity to adapt to these drastic changes.
I work with local partners in developing countries to find ways to increase energy efficiency and use of renewable energy technologies, while also exploring ways communities can climate-proof themselves to future climate risks. I have found that one of the most effective ways to reduce such risks is to increase the efficiency of energy end-users in big cities through practical solutions such as energy-efficient lighting, solar-powered homes and hybrid vehicles. Individually they may not make a major contribution, but when you add up the energy and emission savings the overall net benefit is massive, especially when such initiatives are scaled up in large emerging economies, such as China and India. Start small, think big.
I see great hope in the new generation, the consumers of the future. There is an increasing spirit of global environmental citizenship, a desire to address climate change as a matter of common concern for all humanity and we see this more and more not only in developed but also in developing countries. By engaging this new consciousness we not only stimulate a new green market, but also reduce the threats that rising emissions pose to rural communities.
Another prospect I see is in the social responsibility of industry. Business chiefs are showing leadership in the climate challenge, and these leaders are no longer just based in the developed world. My expectation is that the success stories we are beginning to see in the private sector in places like China and India will become a driver of global growth and a new Green Revolution.
Balancing humans and nature. Balancing urban-industrial growth and the needs of rural people for a stable environment. Balancing developing countries' right to development and the needs of future generations to live in a healthy environment. These are the great challenges of our time. What we need are integrated solutions that match new opportunities in technology and knowledge in the market with a growing sense of global environmental citizenship in society--a new Green Revolution to address both the economic opportunities and the social inequities of climate change.
Dr. Kishan Khoday is the team leader for energy and environment at the United Nations Development Programme in China. Dr. Khoday leads efforts to find local energy solutions to reduce emissions and address the serious implications of climate change on poor and vulnerable communities.

CLIMATE CHANGE and DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Chinese leadership emerges on crucial issue

China is caught in the crossfire on climate change. Blamed by some for accelerating carbon emissions, blamed by others for not helping to lead developing countries in the negotiations. In a credible and unlikely move, Yt Qingtai has indicated that China not only wants to implement some of the Bali roadmap's ideas, but also that China will also help other developing countries to improve their ability to adapt to climate change.

Source: ChinaView

BEIJING, Feb. 14 -- China's special representative to the UN climate change talks has urged the international community to substantive negotiations to secure a new global agreement on climate change.
Yu Qingtai said the Bali roadmap, adopted at the UN climate conference last December, is only a beginning.
Yu Qingtai said, "The international community must continue with the task of conducting substantive consultations and negotiations, to ensure a final agreement on post-2012 international cooperation on climate change within the next two years."
Yu Qingtai says a framework for future agreements must be based on the principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol... particularly the principle of shared responsibilities.
Yu Qingtai urged developed countries to further strengthen policies and measures aimed at emission reduction.
Yu Qingtai said, "The effectiveness of participation by developing countries will depend to a significant extent on whether developed countries will take substantive action on financial and technological assistance."
Yu Qingtai said China takes climate change very seriously and has made considerable efforts to respond to the challenge, with noticeable success. China will also help other developing countries to improve their ability to adapt to climate change.

UK "soft" exports grow at same rate as China's "hard" exports

Source: Financial Times (UK).

Britain has got the knowledge and should flaunt it by Will Hutton.

China's export miracle over the past 10 years is now a commonplace. Less well-known is a parallel British miracle. Exports of knowledge-based service - everything from investment banking to publishing - have grown over the same period at near-Chinese proportions as part of Britain's emergence as a world leader in the knowledge economy.
It is a fragile position, not widely understood, with far-reaching implications. On data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Britain employed more than 48 per cent of its workforce in knowledge economy sectors in 2005 (including information and communications technology, health, education, financial and business services, creative industries and high-tech manufacturing) compared with a European Union average of 41 per cent. Britain's trade surplus in the knowledge industries constitutes 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product - the highest in the world.
Why is Britain doing so well? The Work Foundation's answer (we are engaging in Europe's largest-ever knowledge economy inquiry) is that the knowledge economy is a sophisticated supply response to high and growing levels of educated, discerning demand - and that Britain has enjoyed 15 years' growth of just such demand.
Abraham Maslow, the US psychologist, depicted human beings as having a hierarchy of needs ranging from the most basic to an apex of self-fulfilment. Enough consumers are now rich enough to have created a tipping point: the emergence of "apex consumption". Buyers, whether individuals or businesses, are insistent that what they buy is not just a transaction; they want value, a relationship, a quality experience and even psychological satisfaction from what they spend. Business success now requires investment not just in physical assets, but in design, so-called soft skills, brands, company-specific software, leadership, research and development and in-house training. In 1970, investment in these so-called intangibles was a mere 40 per cent of investment in tangible assets: now it is 125 per cent.
More at ft.com.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: China, coal and iPods

A good article from WSJ. Fails to point its finger at how fashion in gadgets requires these mobiles and other small electronic equipment to be flown from East Asia to Europe and the USA. Forget food miles, think gadget miles!

From Wall Street Journal: Why China Could Blame Its CO2 on West
By JANE SPENCER
To understand the deadlock in the debate on global climate change, take a look at your iPod.
The vast majority of the world's MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 17 pounds of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
IPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate. If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?
Next month, world leaders will gather in Bali to begin hammering out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to combat global warming that expires in 2012. China and the U.S., the world's two largest carbon emitters, are facing mounting international pressure to participate in the new deal. But as the bill for unchecked emissions comes due, a battle is brewing over who should pay for it.
Past accords like Kyoto have looked at emissions on a country-by-country basis, requiring participating nations to reduce greenhouse gases released within their borders. In other words, the manufacturing nation pays for the pollution. But in a twist that could put more pressure on industrialized nations like the U.S., academics, environmentalists and some policy makers argue the next global climate treaty should take into account a nation's emissions "consumption." They argue the emissions are embedded in goods that move around the world through trade -- so if the U.S. imports iPods from China, Americans should share some responsibility for the pollution produced in making them.
"As China's emissions rise, everyone is pointing the finger of blame at China," says Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, a think tank and environmental-advocacy organization based in London. "The real responsibility for rising emissions should lie with the final consumers in Europe, North America and the rest of the world."
The argument appeals to leaders in China, which by some tallies has already passed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Earlier this year, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang reminded reporters from the Western media that "a lot of the things you wear, you use, you eat are produced in China." On the one hand, Western companies are manufacturing more in China, but "on the other hand, you criticize China on the emission-reduction issue," he added. Roughly 23% of China's emissions come from the production of goods that are shipped elsewhere, according to a recent report by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Britain.
Some economists dismiss the argument and note that China happily benefits from the arrangement. "China loves being an exporter, so it's ironic they would blame the U.S. for their exports," says Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard University. "It's called having your cake and eating it too."
At this point, the blame-the-buyer approach is more a negotiating tactic than a serious proposal for redrafting the global-emissions map. But as new studies and reams of data become available tallying embedded emissions, the research could influence the debate over what kind of emissions cuts various nations should be called on to make.
Advocates of the consumption-based approach argue it solves one of the key problems associated with the Kyoto Protocol, known as carbon leakage. This is the idea that countries can reduce their own emissions by sending dirty industries abroad. The same countries may still import the finished goods from the developing world, creating a situation in which global carbon emissions rise, even as individual nations meet their targets.
"If you have emissions constraints, it's become very attractive to relocate dirty production to developing countries, or import products from developing countries," says Glen Peters, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "You import the finished goods, and leave the pollution in China."
Technically, carbon emissions in the U.S. have declined in recent years, a fact noted by President Bush. U.S. carbon emissions fell 1.3% in 2006. But a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggests the U.S. may be cutting its emissions by outsourcing more manufacturing.
"If the Chinese government was held responsible for its emissions, it would raise the cost of producing goods there," says Joseph Aldy, an economist at Resources for the Future, an environmental think tank based in Washington. "Typically, when one imposes a tax, the cost gets passed back to the consumer."

ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL EQUITY: sustainable development in China

At the Chinese Communist Party's five-ennial general meeting, President Hu Jintao said "rapid economic growth remains the top priority", but acknowledged the need to pay greater attention to the environment and social welfare, adding "to realise social equity and justice is the Chinese communists’ consistent position”.

Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, the premier, have used the issue of sustainable development and increased welfare spending to distinguish themselves from the previous administration, which focused more on growth.

The other superpower elect, Hillary Clinton, sounds "fair miles" away from China's progressive position - “This administration has unilaterally pursued policies that are widely disliked and distrusted ... yet it does not have to be this way. The world still looks to the United States for leadership. American leadership is wanting, but it is still wanted.” Shaping her leadership agenda, she intends setting up an annual “E8” summit including India and China that would aim to tackle global warming and work towards energy security. She and her carbon-tonne-a-month compatriots should consider asking Hu Jintao and his 73 million party members to convene this meeting - at least their vision of sustainable development aims to shape a better world not simply point fingers at fast emerging economies.