The crescendo of President Bush’s week-long trip to Asia will be a visit to Beijing, where the hot topics will range from China’s military buildup to North Korean nuclear plans to avian flu.
We hope environmental protection also is on the agenda. China’s economic growth has diminished the country’s air and water quality, that of its neighbors and that of distant nations like ours, too. The United States and other countries should pressure China to clean up its act, and provide help where it’s possible.
China’s urban centers are so choked with smog produced by coal-fired plants that on some days the haze obscures nearby buildings. Chinese emissions pose serious problems for the rest of the world, too. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that on some days, 25 percent of the particulate matter clouding the skies above Los Angeles can be traced back to China. In the future, China could account for a third of California’s air pollution, and Colorado is not so far away. Christopher Dann of Colorado’s Air Pollution Control Division says Chinese pollution already reaches us on occasion. “Pollution gets caught up in the air currents and jet stream, which can carry it several thousand miles,” Dann said.
It’s a deadly dynamic. In China, more than 400,000 people die every year from pollution-related diseases. Air pollution is a major contributor to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide, after heart disease, cancer and stroke.
To be practical, the Chinese wouldn’t take kindly to Bush applying pressure on pollution, given that the U.S. is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of China, and the president resists entreaties to tackle the problem.
As China’s need for energy grows, its pollution will only get worse. A top China environmental official warned in October that pollution levels could quadruple in the next 15 years if electricity consumption and auto emissions continue to increase.
Beijing has pledged to take action. For example, China plans to build new power plants that use Integrated Gasification Gas Combined Cycles, a chemical process that produces fewer pollutants and greenhouse gases than conventional coal combustion. While well-intentioned, the task is prodigious because of the sheer scale of pollutant sources in a nation with 1 billion people.
China has promised to curb its emissions dramatically by 2008, when Beijing hosts the Olympic Games. Our hope is that it doesn’t simply close factories and order people off the capital’s clogged roads to present a brief illusion of progress (although the athletes and other visitors might reasonably applaud the idea).
