The Chinese government gives high priority to energy and resources conservation and the protection of the environment. It is committed to building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society. However, China is a big and populous developing country at a stage of accelerated industrialisation and urbanisation. This has led to heavy consumption of energy and resources and made the task of protecting the environment a daunting one. To meet the challenges brought about by the pressure of the growing demand, we endeavour to achieve the following goals:

Intensify energy and resource conservation. We are speeding up the demonstration and promotion of the industrialisation of energy-conserving and pollution-reducing technologies and adopting higher standards on energy conservation in major energy-intensive industries, such as iron and steel, nonferrous metals, coal, electric power, petrochemicals and building materials, as well as in the construction and transport sectors. We are vigorously developing the circular economy and working to reduce energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of gross domestic product by 20% by 2010 from the 2005 level.

Develop renewable energy. We are promoting the use of hydropower, wind power, solar energy, methane and biomass energy to increase the share of renewable energy in the mix of primary energy consumption to 10% by 2010.

Actively adapt to global climate change. We are planting more trees and better protecting natural forests. We are focusing on improving the environment in key river basins and main areas and cities in China. We are striving to lower chemical oxygen demand and the discharge of sulphur dioxide and other main pollutants by 10% from the 2005 level, expand forest cover to 20% and increase the percentage of natural reserves in China’s total land mass to about 16% by 2010. It is also our goal to control degradation, desertification and alkalisation in 52 million hectares of grassland during the five-year period from 2005 to 2010.

There is broad scope for co-operation between China and the US in energy and the environment. China is the world’s largest developing country at a stage of fast economic growth. The US is the world’s biggest developed country with advanced technologies and rich experience in enhancing energy efficiency, developing clean energy, exploring and developing oil and gas resources, and preserving the environment. Stronger co-operation between the two countries in energy and the environment will enable China to respond better to energy and environmental issues and also bring about tremendous business opportunities and handsome returns for American investors. According to the intent of 10-year cooperation between China and the US in energy and environmental protection, the two countries should, on the basis of the principles of mutual complementarity and win-win progress, focus their co-operation on energy, pollution reduction and protection of natural resources.

First, we should build joint laboratories or research and development (R&D) centres for energy and environmental protection technologies and promote the development of platforms for engineering application of technologies, experiment centres for industrial application of technologies, and intermediate experiment centres for technologies. Priority should be given to R&D of technologies on efficient use of fossil fuels, energy conservation, environmental protection and development of renewable energy.

Second, we should jointly formulate and implement fiscal, taxation, financial and trade policies that encourage innovation and co-operation in and transfer of energy-conserving and environment-friendly technologies. We should put in place and improve mechanisms for venture investment in high-tech start-ups in the fields of energy conservation and environmental protection, promote the introduction of technology standard regimes in these areas, enhance intellectual property protection and implement government procurement policies that favour energy-efficient and environment-friendly products.

Third, we should use existing multilateral and bilateral dialogue mechanisms and exchange platforms to strengthen consultation and co-ordination, conduct joint training and academic exchanges of technical personnel, promote exchanges among non-governmental organisations and build a database for energy and environmental information sharing for the benefit of the two sides.

We sincerely hope that through closer dialogue and exchanges and deeper mutually beneficial co-operation in energy and environmental protection, we will promote all-round growth of the China-US constructive and co-operative relationship to serve better the interests of the people. Let us work together to enhance global energy and environmental security and build an even better home for mankind.

Wang Qishan is vice premier of the state council of the People’s Republic of China

This article is reprinted with permission from FTChinese.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Tags: Energy Climate_change

As my mother fried me some traditional New Year’s cake, we chatted about the blizzards that had paralysed half the country. It was strange that the south had borne the brunt of the bad weather, she remarked, since it’s the part of the country least likely to see snow. “It must be that climate change they talk about,” she said. “The weather might get stranger, not just warmer.”

It is more customary for my mother to ask me about my wife and children and to discuss my work and my health; this was the first time she had ever mentioned climate change to me. Until then, I saw climate change as topic of conversation for scientists and environmentalists, far removed from the life of a 76-year-old woman from a small village. So, why did it interest her?

It made me think of a BBC World Service global poll from September 2007. The study, which surveyed around 1,000 people in a number of countries, found that Chinese people were unusually aware of climate change, with 87% believing “human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change.” This percentage was 71% in the US, 78% in the UK and 47% in India. In China, 70% of respondents thought “major steps starting very soon” should be taken to reduce the impact of human activity on the climate; as opposed to 59% in the US, 70% in the UK and 37% in India.

Readers were shocked by the results of the poll. Professor Martin Bunzl, director of the Rutgers Initiative on Climate Change and Social Policy, emailed me to ask if the Chinese respondents might have confused climate change with pollution. On checking the Chinese version of the questionnaire, I saw there was no room to make this mistake. However, the particular response in China may reflect the relatively high levels of education in Shanghai and Beijing, where the survey was carried out. In some other countries, including the UK, the US and India, the sample comprised both rural and urban residents.

The survey, therefore, probably does not mean there are such high levels of awareness across the Chinese population as a whole. Urban China and rural China are poles apart and the majority of rural residents are still unaware of climate change.

But what about my mother? She spent the first 50 years of her life in a village and moved to a small county town 20 years ago. She is not as well-educated as most city dwellers, though she is an elementary school teacher, enjoys watching the news on television and has an understanding of science.

“You’ve heard of climate change?” I said.

“Heard of it? I’m seeing it,” she replied. “It’s much warmer than it used to be. The ground used to freeze around the period of ‘light snow’ [in late November], and the river used to freeze during the ‘heavy snow’ [in early December]. Now, it’s still warm in late November and the river doesn’t freeze when it used to either. We used to wear padded-cotton jackets, trousers, shoes and hats in winter. Who wears padded-cotton shoes now? You don’t even need a hat.”

“When did you start to notice?” I asked.

“The year that Yao He was married, I think. I don’t recall the actual year. But his son is grown up and married now.” Yao He comes from our same village; my brother was at his wedding celebrations. I laughed because that would mean the warming started three decades ago. My mother said the wedding was in December or January, but it was so warm that nobody kept their jackets on. “When you were little, it got as cold as -18 degrees [Celsius], now the coldest it gets is -10. That’s a huge difference.”

My mother first heard about global warming from the television news at some point in the past few years. She doesn’t rely on the news, however, to tell her why it’s happening: she has her own opinions. “There are too many people, too many cars and too many factories. And there are less trees and less water.”

In the past, she said, there were more forests, with cool air under the trees. There was a pine forest near my grandmother’s village and you could hear the rustling of the trees and the cooler air as you approached. “It was cut down ages ago,” she said. “It’s all houses there now. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Without forests, the temperature’s going to go up.”

My mother also blames the increased numbers of factories for the warming. “Get out of a car in summer and it’s like stepping into a furnace. Why? All that hot air has been blown out of the car. Just like factories: all those factories burning coal must be releasing hot air and carbon dioxide.”

The country’s largest paper-making group is based in the outskirts of our small town, along with a large fertiliser factory, two breweries and a great number of smaller factories. Taxes from these industries help to rank our county government as the thirtieth richest county of 2,000 counties in China.

I then asked: “Are climate change and pollution the same thing?”

“Yes,” my mother replied. Factories produce heat and emissions when they burn coal, she said. “When I was young there wasn’t any pollution. The sun was scorching hot when it shone through the clouds: we used to say it was as cruel as a stepmother. Where do you see a blue sky – or even the sun – nowadays? Step outside around here and it’s nothing but grey, like the clouds have fallen down. Even the sun appears hazy!”

The lack of water in the rivers is also worsening climate change, my mother believes. Thirty years ago, the river in our village was wide and deep, but it suddenly dried up, exacerbating the loss of groundwater. Before 1976, there was water two metres below ground level and my mother could lower her bucket down the well on its pole. But that year we dug our own well, and we had to dig five metres before hitting water. Two years later, it was nine metres. By 1980 it was 20 metres; now even 30-metre-deep wells are dry. Our village was named for its two wells; the stone edges of the wells had deep grooves that were rubbed by the ropes used to haul buckets for six centuries. In only 10 years, environmental degradation killed off a 600-year-old tradition.

The cause was the large number of salt, soda and chemical plants built kilometres away. Two pumping stations were built near our village, which sent water to the factories through metre-thick pipes. Soon, the county’s four rivers had all dried up. It was the first time the county, with a population of one million and records dating back over two millennia, was left without a single flowing river.

The rivers are dry; the forests are gone and replaced by factories and chimneys that belch smoke into the air and waste into the ground. And all for the sake of China’s GDP growth. My mother has seen it happen. Perhaps professor Bunzl is right: Chinese people do tend to confuse climate change and pollution. But for an ordinary Chinese person like my mother, the two are very closely related. Her perspective is not the same as that of scientific reports; she is responding to the decades of changes see has seen throughout her lifetime.

My mother, like the scientists and environmentalists, is aware of the threat climate change poses and supports efforts to reduce it. “We can’t close the factories. How will people put bread on the table?” she said. “But we should do something about them. We should change the black smoke to white.”

Jianqiang Liu is a reporter from Beijing, currently a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley

International climate talks generally focus on the varying – and sometimes conflicting – interests of different countries. But when it comes to the issue of global warming, we also need to consider the interests of different regions and groups of people within a single country. We must consider their equitable development and varying abilities to adapt to change.

The actors in current international negotiations are all political entities: either countries or groups of countries. On the international stage, deals are hammered out between countries, with each national government acting as the sole representative of its own diverse society. When a gap emerges between the public interest and national policy, the average member of society no longer has their interests protected. The true meaning of equity should be that everyone – especially those from vulnerable groups – has their rights protected. This should also be the case with climate change issues.

Questions of climate change and equity intersect in China. For example, there has long been a disparity between energy consumption in rural and urban areas. In 1990, average energy consumption per person in rural areas was only 27.9% of the average for urban areas (83 kilograms of standard coal in rural areas compared to 298 kg in urban areas). Even allowing for increases over the years, by 2004, rural energy consumption per person was only 44.9% of that in urban areas (109 kg compared to 243 kg). In other words, rural consumption was still less than half of urban consumption.

When we talk about the effects of climate change on development, the key issue is whose development? Over the past few decades, marked social inequalities have emerged. A minority of people, in a minority of areas, have attained high levels of development. But the environmental cost is being paid by the majority. Disadvantaged groups, whose lives were hard enough to begin with, now face pollution, shortages of resources and even the total destruction of their means of survival. When taking steps to mitigate and adapt to climate change, we need to learn the lessons of the past and take note of the potential social problems that may arise. The arguments put forward by China at the international negotiating table – that per capita energy consumption remains low, and that China needs to develop – should also be put to use in the domestic policy-making arena. The idea of unequal development is relevant within the country; the benefits of development need to be more evenly distributed. China may win support for its development on the international stage, but development has to be implemented evenly and fairly. Otherwise the arguments that support the government’s position at negotiations will lose their moral foundation.

The government needs to give careful consideration to the positive and negative consequences across society of carbon emissions trading, mitigation and adaptation measures. For example, adapting to climate change requires a restructuring of energy resources. This means that large hydropower projects with heavy social and environmental impacts become a more reasonable option. But strict social and environmental assessments must be carried out, legal loopholes must be closed and laws must be enforced. Otherwise, negative environmental effects and clashes with people living in reservoir areas are inevitable – and the people’s interests will be harmed.

Environmental and social assessments should take into account the impacts of hydropower projects on biodiversity and local communities. Public participation should be expanded to increase communities’ ability to tackle climate change. Less-developed regions surrounding the upper reaches of major rivers should also receive compensation for water and soil conservation, which should be funded by the industrialised coastal regions that produce the most emissions.

The evidence shows that markets alone cannot address problems of inequality. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one example. The CDM means developed countries provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries, which they can use to develop domestic environmental and sustainable development projects. In return, developed nations earn permits to emit more greenhouse gases. China is home to more CDM projects than any other country, but most of the beneficiaries are in urban areas or the industrial sector. Rural regions, which have the least ability to adapt to climate change, find it hard to benefit from the scheme. How can renewable energy projects in rural areas – such as methane energy projects – be brought into the CDM and directly benefit local communities? Reforestation projects could also be brought into the mechanism, with the prerequisite that the effects on local communities and biodiversity are taken into consideration.

China is not alone in the problems it faces. In August 2007, at the UN General Assembly thematic debate on “Climate Change as a Global Challenge”, Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat, environment minister of Pakistan, said that the CDM seemed to favour large commercial projects that generate a lot of carbon credits, but have less impact on a country’s sustainable development. He called for more CDM projects to be established at the community level.

Large, commercial CDM projects do contribute to cutting emissions in developing countries, but they do not necessarily solve the problem of unequal development. It needs to be considered that CDM projects can actually exacerbate problems of uneven development inside developing countries. China’s western regions and rural areas contribute little to its overall emissions, but bear the brunt of environmental degradation. They are also less able to adapt. National policies should require different regions to abide by the same principles as different countries in international negotiations: the more developed should take on more of the cost of emissions reduction and mitigation and help the less developed to improve their ability to cope. Climate change should no longer be a question of countries, but of regions. The participation of all interest groups, including NGOs and communities affected by changes, is needed. Only with such participation will we be able to mobilise all the resources of society and maximise the effects of government action.

These ideas were being taken into consideration as early as 2005, during the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal. Since then, there has been some development in the application of the CDM to small-scale projects. The CDM Executive Board passed a motion in June 2007 allowing smaller projects to apply, and in July it made some revisions that mean applicants can register as promoters of emissions reduction projects. Small-scale projects using methane and energy conservation projects in public buildings or transport can now brought into the CDM.

The misunderstanding of the CDM by Chinese companies is raising concerns – and risks. One Chinese expert says: “Many companies engaged in CDM projects are in it purely for the large financial benefits. Very few are genuinely concerned about climate change, energy conservation and the environment. The uncertainty brought about by the post-Kyoto era could easily destroy the enthusiasm of many companies – and with it the entire market.” The interests of businesses are affected by climate change; incorporating business incentives into the agenda for tackling climate change fits with the way companies work. Corporate participation is critically important in reducing emissions. It is therefore vital that companies understand and support the CDM. The government and NGOs can help to promote the CDM. As carbon emissions are a public issue, there should be public participation in decisions on how to tackle these questions.

The shortcomings of the CDM highlight a much wider issue: the principle of fairness, which is at the heart of any measures that tackle climate change. The development of biofuels, for instance, is causing increasing food and commodity prices in developing countries. China’s current carbon trading system is focused largely on cities and the agricultural communities worst affected by climate change do not benefit. These are problems worth addressing in China. The government needs to consider not only the issue of equality between nations, but also equality within the nation. This is vital to ensure that responses to climate change do not harm the most vulnerable.

This is an edited version of the Feasibility Study on Chinese Civil Society Responses to Climate Change, a report coordinated by eight non-governmental organisations in China: Friends of Nature, Oxfam, Greenpeace, ActionAid, Global Village, the WWF, Green Earth Volunteers and the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. It is the first report of its kind to put forward Chinese civil society’s position on climate change and guidance for Chinese citizens to take action on dealing with the issue.

“Climate change is an opportunity to make the transition from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy, increase government transparency and strengthen the rule of law.”
Since the industrial revolution, people have followed a model of development that relies on large-scale consumption of fossel fuels. These fuels are non-renewable and their use has produced a terrible side-effect in the form of climate change. This western model of economic growth is unsustainable. If China is to take a leading role in tackling global warming, it should find an alternative model for humanity to follow. A core idea in traditional Chinese thought is “unity between heaven and man, between knowledge and practice”. When applied to climate change, this suggests we need to create a new model of development, which achieves harmony between man and nature. This will be China’s contribution to the world.
In dealing with climate change, China should continue to apply the principle of equity. The twenty-first century should not be the American century or the Chinese century: it should be the century of equal coexistence. Global warming, however, threatens this possibility. China cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world any more other countries can isolate themselves from China. China needs a world that develops peacefully, and the world needs a China that develops sustainably. In facing up to the challenge of climate change, China and the rest of the world need to communicate and act together on an equal basis. In this, the equity principle is key.
Climate-change policy in China has reached a critical moment. Domestic and foreign opinion demand the country takes positive, substantive steps to tackle global warming. China’s leadership needs to be founded on the rigorous implementation of the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. Faced with pressures at home and abroad, will China continue to allow developed countries to lead it around by the nose? Or will it take positive, strategic action to break the encirclement in which it finds itself? We offer the following, simple remarks in the hope an ensuing discussion may lead us to greater things.
Multiple mechanisms
Writing about the recent UN-led climate-change conference in Bali, Maurice Strong, former secretary-general of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, said that the conference would kick start the post-Kyoto process. The international community will enter an era of “processing”, when China will continue to adhere to the dual-track programme of the UNFCC and Kyoto Protocol. But China should also take the initiative in establishing bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to supplement the dual-track approach. They could even become an important driving force in implementation. The basis for all of these mechanisms, which are listed below, must be the principle of equity.
• A multilateral D6 mechanism: the six largest developing nations, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia, could meet in the same way the G8 group of developed nations currently do. Through the G8+5, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico already meet with developed countries for talks on climate change. However, a D6 group would provide a platform for closer communication and cooperation between developing countries, which would put them in a better position to pursue their interests in talks with developed nations.
• Dialogue between China and India: the International Energy Agency estimates China and India’s combined emissions accounted for one-third of the total increase in global emissions in 2007. Cooperation and agreement between the world’s two largest developing nations is vital for negotiation and collective action on climate change.
• Bilateral mechanisms between China and Europe; China and the US; and China and Australia: a partnership between China and Europe would focus on strengthening cooperation on climate change, energy issues and encouraging sustainable development. The US is still the world’s biggest emitter and is not signed up to Kyoto, but there have been recent positive changes in domestic climate-change policy. Australia has just signed the Kyoto Protocol. Bilateral partnerships between China and the US, and China and Australia, would open up new possibilities for cooperation on climate change.
Taking the initiative
In previous climate negotiations, China has insisted on retaining its status as a developing nation, and the demands that go with this. The government has emphasised the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and the issue of historical emissions. It has also drawn the important distinction between the emissions that China creates to survive and develop, and the west’s “luxury” emissions. The issue of taking joint responsibility for exported emissions has also received recent attention. These are all issues that the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities needs to take into account. But what if the Chinese government were to alter its principally defensive stance? It could start to take active, strategic steps to change the current situation, where the country reduces its emissions, but is still criticised. The country could win greater understanding, respect and support from the international community.
An active strategy would require recognition of two points: firstly, tackling climate change is an important opportunity for China to find a sustainable development path. Reducing energy consumption and emissions will help China achieve a low-carbon society and develop both quickly and sustainably. Secondly, China must seize the diplomatic initiative to create an image of itself as a responsible power. There are many who believe in concepts such as the “China threat” and “value-oriented diplomacy”, an active and exemplary climate-change stance from China would provide an effective riposte to them.
It is also necessary to look at the core issues in climate-change policy: mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance. Equity is central to all four, and we argue that China should be more active, flexible and strategic in its approach to global warming.
Mitigation targets
Climate-change mitigation is the most urgent of all the steps China can take. The country’s eleventh Five-Year Plan contains a number of restrictive targets. By 2010, for instance, China’s energy consumption per unit of GDP should be around 20% lower than in 2005. Emissions of major pollutants (excluding greenhouse gases) should be reduced by 10%, and 10% of the country’s energy should come from renewable sources. The eleventh Five-Year Plan on environmental protection has added emphasis regarding climate change. The State Council passed legislation specifically requiring reductions in energy consumption and emissions (known as the “three plans” and “three laws”). These are all positive contributions from China.
But a problem still needs to be solved: how do we turn political pressure into specific and effective action? China needs to think seriously about its long-term plans for cutting emissions and come up with suitable strategies for reductions. The EU has set a target to reduce emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and individual European countries have set their own emissions reduction targets. Specific reductions targets are an effective method of reducing emissions.
China should also create emissions reduction plans, which could, for instance, come into effect when per-capita emissions reach a certain level. This would increase the transparency and predictability of the policy-making process and be an important step towards establishing a responsible image. However, common but differentiated responsibilities must continue to be the guiding principle.
Adaptation at home and abroad
China is a large farming nation, and climate change has a strong impact on agriculture. For vast areas of China that are impoverished and have fragile ecosystems, global warming presents some particularly daunting challenges. Thirty-eight percent of Chinese GDP comes from exports, and research shows that exports are responsible for 23% of China’s emissions. The effects of climate change on China are huge, and many of the steps that the country wants to take to protect the environment – such as increasing forest cover to 20%, as slated in the eleventh Five-Year plan – may be all the harder to achieve because of these impacts. China needs to adapt to climate change.
At the same time, poor African nations and small island states are suffering the most as a result of climate change. As China seeks its resources in other parts of the world, it should combine adaptation to climate change with ideas of local sustainable development, development of resources and local economic growth. This is a requirement of an equal and mutually-beneficial relationship and also a sign of responsibility as a large country.
Technological cooperation
Whether to slow or to adapt to global warming, technology is vital. In its current stage of development, China needs technology that can provide breakthroughs in energy- and carbon-intensive, highly polluting industries like the chemical, steel, and concrete sectors. Technology is also required to make advances in energy efficiency, renewable energy, hydrogen fuel cells, clean coal and carbon capture and storage. In tackling climate change and reducing emissions, technology is not a solution in itself, but it is the most important means to a solution.
There are various methods of using technology to alleviate and adapt to climate change: technology diffusion, technology deployment, technology transfer, technology development and joint technology development. We need to apply these methods to each specific industry and technology as appropriate, according to demand and stage of development.
Many technologies can be attained from developed countries. There are still some problems to be resolved concerning intellectual property rights and trade barriers, but there are also international mechanisms and bilateral plans in place for technological cooperation. China is still not clear what its technological requirements are. It does not have a strong enough awareness of the technologies that are urgently needed. The country needs to take into consideration how technology can be applied and used economically. The most advanced technology is not necessarily the most suitable. A list should be drawn up of technology needed by different sectors, and mutually beneficial mechanisms for technological cooperation should be pursued.
Financial guarantees
The State Council approved the establishment in October of the China Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) fund. By the end of the same month, the country’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, had already approved 885 CDM projects. If all of these projects are successful, total emissions reductions due to the projects will total 1.5 billion tonnes, bringing in an income of US$15 billion. Over US$3 billion of this will go into the CDM Fund. It is a small sum, but a significant starting point that represents the first funding targeted specifically at tackling climate change.
Funding for dealing with climate change should also come in part from the national budget and specialist funds. Space should be made in the national budget for research into climate change, technological development, management and innovation. Problems that need a major breakthrough to be solved should be financed through specially-established funds.
On an international level, multilateral and bilateral funds should continue to be used in tandem. The first part of this article looked at the importance of multilateral and bilateral mechanisms in initiating processes and finding solutions. In finance, multilateral and bilateral funds are just as important. Multilateral funds are more influential, but management and coordination are more difficult. Bilateral funds are more manageable, but often suffer from lack of investment and are limited in what they can achieve. Maurice Strong recently argued that the UN should set up a US$1 trillion fund to tackle climate change.
Decisive action
Only action can secure China’s position as a leader on climate change. What should China do? We suggest an action plan should have “Chinese characteristics” and “global influence”. By acting in an exemplary fashion and engaging in global networks, China can encourage global action.
China can become a member of the 50 zero-emissions communities that explore approaches to climate change by cooperating on energy-saving, the circular economy, energy-efficiency in buildings and so on, on the condition they work within their own natural, economic, cultural and religious conditions. Were China to join this network, it could increase mutual understanding between China and the world and provide a base for coordinated actions. China would also be given a chance to share its wisdom with the world.
China should foster community leadership. Training at a grassroots-level is key to implementing plans and will instill ideas of leadership in sustainable development and climate-change awareness at the heart of society, which creates a basis for equal coexistence.
Crisis or opportunity?
Climate change is an unprecedented crisis for humanity. But realising the crisis and being determined to change can prove a turning point. Encouraging use of clean, renewable energy and research-and-development into new technology can set humanity on the path to a more sustainable model of development. For China, it is an opportunity to make the transition from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy based on innovation, increase government transparency and strengthen the rule of law. Climate change is already a global and regional security issue. By tackling climate change, China should hold firm on principles of equity and engage in global dialogue and coordinated action. It needs to actively take on responsibilities and fulfill its potential to be a global leader. In the long term, this will mean that for China, climate change can be an opportunity rather than a crisis. It is an opportunity to pursue genuine sustainable development and become a nation respected by the world.

He Gang completed his master’s degree at Peking University. He was a member of the youth delegation to the 2005 UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal
CS Kiang is the founding dean of the College of Environmental Sciences, Peking University

“Discussion and activism related to global warming has only just started among Chinese NGOs. The attitudes of young people, therefore, are particularly important.”

Go to any meeting in China about the country’s environmental situation and you will notice an increasing number of young adults in attendance. At China’s recent Environmental NGO Sustainable Development Conference, almost 100 members of youth environmental groups took part, and they had their own dedicated forum. In fact, China’s youth have become an essential force in the country’s environmental movement.

This year, with climate change the increasing focus of widespread debate, the country’s young people have started to act by founding China’s first young people’s network focused on global warming, China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN), which incorporates seven separate organisations.

It started in August with a group of 10 young people concerned about China’s environment – mainly heads of student green groups and other youth organisations – who met at a farewell dinner for a foreign student. After a lively discussion about China’s climate-adaptation policies, the state of university green organisations, student climate-change activism overseas and technological issues, they decided that isolated action lacked impact – and a network would be beneficial.

They started making plans immediately, and declared the date of the meal to be CYCAN’s birthday. The network made its public debut on October 28-29, when it organised training sessions on climate change for officials from campus green groups; 13 took part from Beijing and 21 from groups elsewhere in the country.

Lack of funds meant that the first day of training was held in a building under renovation at Peking University. This is nothing new; funding has always been a problem for Chinese student green groups. The training covered basic global warming issues, the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, as well as how China’s youth should act and cooperate on climate-change issues.

To coincide with the UN-led climate talks in Bali, CYCAN is holding large-scale events to show the determination and action of China’s youth around the nation. The group’s long-term aim is to increase the involvement of China’s youth groups in climate-change issues, and to organise events.

Youth activism can not be separated from the Chinese government’s own stance on climate change. Since China unveiled its national climate-change programme in June, it has begun to play an active role in solving a global problem. This plan stimulated Chinese young people, who believe they should use their determination, resources and experience to be a part of the solution. Without this background, CYCAN could not have come into being.

But in a sense, CYCAN is just a network for action – not a structured organisation. Its aims and beliefs come from its member organisations. For instance, the Peking University CDM Club is one of CYCAN’s founding organisations. Its members are all students at Peking University who are familiar with climate-change issues and policies. Some of its former members now work implementing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in their places of work, and many of them played an active role in the October training sessions.

Another member group, the China Green Student Forum, was established 11 years ago. In 2007, it partnered with China Mining University’s Roots & Shoots group to audit energy use on Chinsese campuses, with help from the energy-saving firm Topenergy. In the process, they acquired first-hand information on energy usage at China’s universities.

Before CYCAN, China’s student green groups were taking action on climate change, but they were limited to their campuses and had little impact outside their universities. The majority of their activities also lacked innovation. Consolidating resources from around the country means those concerned about global warming can hold bigger, better and more innovative events.

Although climate change is attracting increasing attention around the world – and many countries are implementing policies to reduce its effects – discussion and activism related to global warming has only just started among Chinese NGOs. The attitudes of young people, therefore, are particularly important.

In recent years, China’s youth environmental groups are increasing their focus on climate change and to starting to take action. It is too early to say if they can make their voices heard, we must wait and see. But environmental issues need widespread participation, particularly from young people, in the future.

Weiya Huo is editorial assistant for chinadialogue in Beijing and the former editor-in-chief of China Green Student Forum