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China and the world discuss the environment



Modern and mobile (2) (Mar 11)
African pastoralism has been dismissed as outdated and inefficient. But awareness of its social and environmental benefits is growing, says Ced Hesse.In many parts of dryland Africa, national governments are beginning to value pastoralism and the importance of mobility for productivity. Innovative policies now recognise and reflect pastoralism’s crucial role within local, national and regional economies, and new activities put these policies into practice.

Recognising that pastoralism frequently needs to cross international borders, and that regional trade needs support, several international institutions are formalising cross-border pastoral mobility. This provides nation states with a benchmark to design their own policy and legislation. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has led the way, providing an institutional framework to facilitate cross-border livestock mobility. Cross-border movement is authorised by granting a certificate that controls the departure...


Modern and mobile (1) (Mar 10)
Nomadic pastoralism boosts African economies and protects livestock from drought. So why is it under threat? Ced Hesse explains.Mobile-livestock keeping, or pastoralism, plays a critical role in the economic prosperity of Africa’s drylands. Across east and west Africa, an estimated 50 million livestock producers support their families, their communities, and a massive meat, skins and hides industry based on animals that are fed solely on natural dryland pastures. Where other land-use systems are failing in the face of global climate change, mobile-livestock keeping is generating huge national and regional economic benefits.

Today’s pastoralists download the latest market prices for cattle on their mobile phones, use cheap Chinese motorbikes to reach distant herds or lost camels and trek their livestock thousands of kilometres by foot, truck or ship to trade them nationally and internationally. Prevalent perceptions of pastoralists are that they are a minority, out of touch with th...


High-rise drama in Nanchang (Mar 9)
The unnecessary demolition of a 10-year-old hotel in south-east China exposes a shallow commitment to low-carbon development, argues Li Taige.It only takes eight seconds to demolish a four-star hotel.

Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province in south-eastern China, which claims it is en route to becoming a “low carbon city”, has done something almost unbelievable. On February 6, the landmark 22-storey, 86-metre high Wuhu Hotel, which only opened in 1997, was dynamited. The hotel was owned by Hong Kong’s Kaimei Group, which bought it in July, 2007 with a view to adding a further three floors – raising the building to a height of 90 metres – and refurbishing the interior to five-star standards.

The changes were approved by the local planning authorities, but the company then changed its mind. According to a city planner quoted in the city’s Information Daily on November 19 last year, Kaimei became nervous about possible subsidence and abandoned its plans. A new proposal was submi...


A home away from home (Mar 8)
Can some of the most vulnerable species be saved from extinction due to climate change? One biologist has a radical idea: pick them up and move them, writes Suzanne Goldenberg.Picture an elephant in the wild, making its stately progress across the ­savannah, tall grass bending ­beneath its feet. Now ­transplant that image to the American prairie. In one of the most startling new ideas to emerge about ­climate change, a leading conservation biologist is calling for plants and wildlife facing extinction to be saved simply by picking them up and moving them.

Camille Parmesan, a butterfly ­biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, has been monitoring the effects of rapid climate change on ­species – particularly those threatened because they cannot adapt to or ­escape from rising temperatures – for more than a decade now. But her idea for a modern-day Noah’s ark remains hugely controversial.

“The idea is that, for certain ­species at very high risk of extinction due to climate c...


Wringing China dry (Mar 5)
Reservoirs and hydropower stations are sprouting up all over China, damaging ecosystems and causing conflict. It’s time to leave the rivers alone, says Feng Yongfeng.Last December, 160,000 residents living along the Qingzhang River in Hebei, north-east China petitioned local government over the construction of a new hydropower station in neighbouring province Shanxi, complaining that it was cover for a new reservoir. They wanted the authorities to call an immediate halt to the project, saying that the Qingzhang River – the lifeblood of the county and its 400,000 inhabitants – would, otherwise, be cut off.

The Qingzhang is part of the Hai River system. It rises in Shanxi, then flows through Hebei and Henan and its waters are shared between the upper and lower reaches. Since the 1950s, various water-storage projects have been constructed in Shanxi. In the two decades leading up to 1965, the river’s annual average flow was 1.96 billion cubic metres. But, from 1980 to 2000, it was onl...


Chinese coal remedies (1) (Mar 3)
In spite of an urgent need to cut emissions, fossil-fuel consumption in China is soaring. CCS offers a solution, says the Natural Resources Defense Council.To avoid the worst consequences of global warming, the world must limit average temperature increases to two degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Several recent studies have found that the warming we are already committed to will exceed that limit even if emissions growth were to stop completely.

Achieving the urgently needed emissions reductions will require efforts beyond first-resort measures such as increasing energy efficiency, scaling up renewable-energy use, and enhancing natural carbon sinks. Given the world’s current heavy reliance on fossil fuels, some countries, such as China and the United States, need to pursue a wide range of carbon-mitigation strategies that should include carbon capture and storage (CCS).

All ...


Chinese coal remedies (2) (Mar 3)
The global community can – and must – help China overcome the obstacles to a carbon capture revolution, argues the Natural Resources Defense Council.While it is evident that China needs and has the necessary technical capability – and sufficient storage capacity – to carry out carbon capture and storage, significant barriers exist for its wide and timely deployment. The most important of these are the high capital costs and the considerable amount of energy currently required for carbon capture. These two barriers are interrelated; cutting the energy penalty will reduce the total cost of CCS.

Currently, the energy penalty for a new post-combustion coal power plant can be as high as 31% and, for a new integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant, 16%, as explained by Edward Rubin of Carnegie Mellon University. In China, the addition of CCS will require the burning of roughly 25% more coal in order to generate the same quantity of electricity. This is a steep initial price fo...


Capitalising on capture (Mar 2)
CCS is rapidly gaining ground as an accepted green technology. But, say Li Jia and Liang Xi, financial barriers still stand in the way.Over the last two decades, awareness has grown that carbon capture and storage (CCS) could be an important technology in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; more than 20 large-scale demonstration projects are now in the pipeline. According a 2009 report from the International Energy Agency, CCS in the power and industrial sectors is likely to represent 10% of total emissions reductions by 2030.

As most major economies have already made a commitment to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, ideally no new fossil-fuel power plants, oil-refinery and steel plants or cement kilns would be permitted unless they were built with full-scale CCS facilities. Widespread deployment of large-scale CCS is, however, facing two major challenges: a lack of experience in building and operating commercial-scale integrated CCS projects and insufficient financi...


The science of storage (Mar 1)
Putting greenhouses gases underground is the riskiest part of carbon capture and storage, yet it is often overlooked. Logan West sets out the facts.Editors' message

Until recently, carbon capture and storage (CCS) was a phrase largely reserved for detailed discussions in university laboratories or the research divisions of energy giants. That is not the case today. The technology, which captures carbon dioxide produced by fossil-fuel combustion and stores it in deep geological formations, such as oil fields, now occupies a prominent position in climate-change policymaking and the public debate around cutting carbon.

Held up by its advocates as a way of reducing carbon emissions while maintaining a secure energy supply, CCS has gained significant traction with the world’s governments. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia are among the countries to have pledged large sums of public money to high-profile demonstration projects in the last two years. CCS is consider...


Slideshow: organic overtures (Feb 26)
Meng Si visited a project in eastern China that trials natural farming methods. Introducing her photographs of the farm, she says extending its agricultural revolution still seems a distant dream.In late 2008, reports claimed that pesticide residue in peanuts grown in one county in Shandong, eastern China, were at potentially fatal levels. Official investigations discredited the rumours and peanut-lovers continue to enjoy their snack. But issues in peanut-growing, such as the use of toxic chemicals and agricultural membranes, remain unaddressed.

Peanut farmers know there is a range of factors that can reduce harvests, including pests such as beetle larvae. And, for the majority of farmers, the only way to deal with pests is powerful toxic pesticides, such as the long-banned “666”. In addition, agricultural membranes – thin plastic sheets – are often laid over fields of peanuts and other crops in order to prevent the evaporation or run-off of water and fertiliser and to reduce weed ...