What can China do about climate change?

A Greenpeace report has now revealed, to the surprise of no one, that the awakened industrial giant of China is a colossal creator of carbon emissions. China’s three biggest power firms (Huaneng, Datang and Guodian) allegedly produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the whole of Britain.

Greenpeace have warned that inefficient plants and the country’s heavy reliance on coal are hindering efforts to tackle climate change. Well, this can hardly be disputed. The question is what can realistically be done about it.

The “developmental” arguments are well known: China has such an enormous population that per capita emissions are still comparatively low, even if the country as a whole is king of the toxic fumes. And China came late to the party: much of the problem was caused by Western countries who are now enjoying the fruits of the prosperity which brought the pollution, and why should China be responsible for taking out the garbage when she didn’t even get any cream cakes?

It is not the case that China simply doesn’t care. Since 1990 China has been taking environmental issues increasingly seriously. The problem is integrating them with the developmental imperative. When you have 1.5 billion people to feed and keep employed, you can hardly be blamed for making that your first objective. When Greenpeace say that China should introduce green taxes on coal and carbon emissions, they aren’t responsible for the unintended economic consequences. The Chinese are. These things are devilish difficult to predict.

Renewables are everybody’s favourite baby, and on the face of it China should be well positioned; hydroelectric power is already a big thing in the South, and anyone who’s stood in a Beijing street in the spring with half the Gobi Desert blowing into their face will see prospects for wind power. And of course nuclear energy is potentially the biggest renewable of all (there is no political penalty for saying these words in China, unlike, say, in Germany).

Here the problem is that, when Greenpeace talk about inefficient plants, they aren’t joking. And mining accidents claim several thousand lives a year in China. Things are not always done properly, and when a safety inspector calls he is likely to be greeted with a brown envelope and a bottle of Johnnie Walker rather than a proper account of procedures strictly adhered to. Now extrapolate that to an expanding nuclear industry…

Yes, China needs to reduce its dependence on coal. But please, Greenpeace, don’t be too prescriptive on which levers to pull – it won’t do any good. China has excellent economists, who have nobly resisted the temptation to throw their hands up in despair at the extraordinary complex of problems facing the country. They’ll work that out for themselves. The answer to climate change is the same in China as it is anywhere else; technological development, and the structuring of incentives so that prosperity and environmental concerns can be combined. I drive a low-emission car, not because I’m a green hero, but because it saves me money. Take it from there.