A Beijing scientist is being criticised for supposedly suggesting a levy on exhaling carbon dioxide. Li Taige explores whether the Chinese public is huffing and puffing over nothing.

Source: ChinaDialogue

Public faith in scientists seems to be in decline in China, as evidenced by the huge controversy arising from a recent speech by a Beijing ecologist.

Jiang Youxu is a scientist with the Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection at the Chinese Academy of Forestry, as well as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Speaking at the China Forest and City Forum in Guangzhou on November 18, he described the significance of forests for the urban ecosystem.

After the forum, the Chinese public was presented with a new concept: a “breathing tax”. Jiang – branded a villain for wanting to inflict such a tax on average city-dwellers – immediately became the target of criticism and abuse on the Internet.

One online songwriter even came up with the “The Breathing Tax Song”, to the tune of a classic hit by the late pop star Teresa Tang (Deng Lijun):

Academician Jiang, named Youxu,
proposes a carbon tax on you,
for we are all a pollution source
and living makes you a criminal force.

Guangzhou’s New Bulletin was one of the first media outlets to report on Jiang’s speech. In an article that was soon to be widely republished, it said: “Yesterday, at the China Forest and City Forum held in Guangzhou, member of the Chinese Academy of Science Jiang Youxu called for the government to consider imposing an environmental tax on businesses or even CO2-emitting citizens … Jiang believes that since all citizens are emitters of CO2 [carbon dioxide], they should pay the costs of reducing energy use and cutting emissions”. Jiang was then quoted as saying: “Making citizens contribute 20 yuan [US$3] to an environmental fund every month could be considered.”

The Guangzhou reporter seems to have confused environmental taxes and environmental funds. In my experience as a science reporter, Chinese media reports sometimes misinterpret what scientists say.

According to the original audio transcription of Jiang’s speech, his actual words were: “As urban forests have so many obvious beneficial functions, shouldn’t we further consider the idea of an environmental tax? … [Since] every city-dweller is putting out carbon, we could give 10 or 20 yuan to a fund [and] this money could be used for reforestation, or businesses could use the money from the taxes to plant urban forests.”

Contrary to assertions, then, it seems that Jiang did not mention a “breathing tax”. Unfortunately for him, however, online media outlets republished the report with an embellished headline designed to attract readership and attention: “Academic calls for ‘breathing tax’, 20 yuan per person per month to protect the environment”.

I have to admire the editor who came up with this idea of a “breathing tax”. As clever as it may be, however, the contribution of our respiration to total CO2 emissions is minute compared to other sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, such as cars, industry and power generation. The phrase “breathing tax” has only misled and angered the public, as there would be no way to escape such a tax. Clearly, this is not what Jiang intended.

What he actually proposed was a fund to which citizens could contribute voluntarily, with the proceeds used to plant forests and offset carbon emissions. In fact, China already has something similar – the China Green Carbon Fund, launched by the State Forestry Administration and the China Green Foundation.

Founded in July 2007, the China Green Carbon Fund is a national public investment scheme which does not, and cannot, force the public to donate on a monthly basis. It aims to provide a platform for businesses, groups and individuals to participate in climate-change mitigation measures such as tree-planting, forest creation and forest management. The China National Petroleum Corporation made the first donation of 300 million yuan (US$44 million).

Of course, some say that Jiang’s “20 yuan per person per month” is no different from an environmental tax and argue that he has not considered the varying responsibilities for emissions between China’s rich and poor. However, Jiang is one of the 12 members of the National Climate Change Expert Committee -- a climate change think tank – and undoubtedly is aware of the divide between rich and poor in China. How could he suggest collecting the same level of emissions tax from all?

If he had suggested such a thing, then perhaps the abuse he has received was not undeserved. However, the question remains: did the media accurately and objectively report his actual speech?

To an extent, the fuss over the “breathing tax” reflects both sloppy reporting and a lack of in-depth knowledge regarding climate change among Chinese media workers.

But more importantly, the whole story demonstrates the chasm that separates scientists, the news media and the public. China’s press has a lot of work to do on reporting accurately about climate change.

@SciPark.CN

@SciPark.CN

An official on the roof of the world

Global warming worsens the environmental changes that threaten the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau.  A local government official tells how he plans to cope with unprecedented challenges.

ChinaDialogue 中外对话

How does a Tibetan government official view the challenges of climate change? Last September I found out when I toured Tibet with several colleagues.

Three hundred kilometres from Lhasa, on the northern Tibetan plateau, lies the prefecture of Nagqu. It was our first port of call, since the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture runs a climate research project here.

Lin Erda, the project head and a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Population, Resources and Environment Committee, put us in touch with Gyaltsen Wangdrak, deputy chief of Nagqu prefecture. Lin had met Wangdrak at a grasslands protection conference in 2003, and had been impressed by his report on environmental issues facing the northern Tibetan plateau.

The northern Tibetan plateau is 4,500 metres above sea level on average. The Yangtze River, the Nu River and the Lancang River all rise here, and the area accounts for almost one-tenth of China’s grasslands. However, the grasslands have suffered major degradation in recent years.

Lin decided to work with Wangdrak and use satellite data to monitor the extent of the damage to the Nagqu grasslands. This data allowed them to draw up ecological functional zones for the area. They divided it into protection zones, areas in need of improvement, zones needing control and development zones. It was the first such proposal in Tibet, but could it actually be implemented? According to Wangdrak, the proposal was distributed to every local government official in his prefecture and it has become the “theoretical basis of planning for land use, environmental protection and construction.”

But the cooperation between Nagqu and CAAS did not always run smoothly: the researchers initially ran tests of the grassland’s livestock carrying capacity under different climate and ecological conditions. Wangdrak explained that this would allow predictions of carrying capacity to be provided to herders “just like weather forecasts”. But after the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the prefecture decided to use that land to build a large distribution center. “For me it was like a television reporter losing his camera,” he says.

The tests were relocated to Amdo county, which is 5,000 metres above sea level and not far from the Tanggula Pass. Here they became part of a national science and technology project on adaptation to climate change in the northern Tibetan “ecological buffer zone.”

As we headed north along the Qinghai-Tibet highway to Anduo, we saw bare patches of soil on both sides of the road. Wangdrak explained these were evidence of the grasslands’ deterioration. Herding is an important part of Nagqu’s economy, but climate change, over-grazing and pests have caused severe damage. The satellite data showed that half of the grasslands were degraded in 2004, totalling 320 million mu (213,300 square kilometres). Over 60 million mu (40,000 square kilometres) were classed as severely degraded or very severely degraded.

Wangdrak and his colleagues want to make sure things do not get worse. As we drove through the patchy grasslands, he told us about an experiment to take water from the head of the Nu River to use in sprinklers. These and other demonstration measures, principally planting, fertilisation and pest extermination, are designed to gradually restore grassland fertility. He hopes these demonstrations will form part of a proposal for dealing with climate change that can be implemented by herders on the plateau.

“Global warming is a major influence on environmental change in the grasslands,” Wangdrak says. All we can do is figure out how to adapt. As far as knowledge about the grasslands and the herding industry goes, I can only do what I can and start from basic research.”

Flooding around lakes had become a problem in recent years, said Wangdrak. The village of Mechu had been repeatedly flooded since 2004, with 200 households forced to leave homes that their families had occupied for generations. He clearly remembers the scene, waters rushing over low-lying grasslands and rising around their feet. Homes and livestock pens were almost completely inundated. “Nothing like that had been seen before. Not in historical records dating back to the Ming Dynasty, nor in local histories.

Many scientists blame the rising waters on melting glaciers, a thaw that has been accelerated by global warming. The increasing level of the lakes means that 10,000 people in Nagqu, a prefecture that is home to less than 420,000 people, have already been displaced or are waiting to be relocated.

Wangdrak leaves us with a question. Western scientists can detect pollutants that originate in Asia, he says. Does this mean that Chinese scientists will ever be able to pinpoint the greenhouse gases that western countries have emitted – and demonstrate their influence on his local ecology?

For this local Tibetan official, climate change is a major part of his day-to-day work.

@SciPark.CN

Seismic Jolt

The deadly Wenchuan earthquake taught China hard lessons about the importance of early warnings and disaster mitigation

Caijing Magazine, Annual Edition 2009

By staff reporter Li Hujun

   Shortly after China’s worst earthquake in decades hit Sichuan Province’s county of Wenchuan, seismologist Li Zhiqiang of the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) predicted the death toll would “quite likely be close to that of the Tangshan earthquake.”

   The Tangshan quake in 1976 killed about 240,000 people and seriously injured another 160,000. But the Wenchuan tremblor was more intense, according to Chinese authorities, measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale and at least 11.0 in intensity at its epicenter.

    The May 12, 2008 Wenchuan disaster claimed about 87,000 lives, ranking it the second deadliest, after the Tangshan tragedy, in the history of modern China.

    Many experts were puzzled and saddened by the failure to predict the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, which was followed by a 6.1 magnitude quake August 30 that rocked the city of Panzhihua as well as Huili County in Sichuan Province, and a 6.6 magnitude temblor October 6 in Tibet’s Dangxiong County.

In addition, although Chinese Seismological Networks Center data indicates that the country is experiencing a high period for seismic activity, experts cannot determine how long this period will last, nor predict what 2009 will hold. That means it’s possible that 2009 will be another tense year for professional earthquake watchers and forecasters in China.

In an interview with the official newspaper People’s Daily commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake in 2006, CEA Director Chen Jianmin indicated the nation’s seismologists could, to a certain extent, predict earthquakes of certain types in specific regions. He said more than 20 incidents had been successfully predicted in the years after Tangshan, helping avert disasters in 10 percent of all predicted cases.

In the wake of the Wenchuan disaster, Chen acknowledged the fact that China’s failures in earthquake prediction had far outweighed the successes. “We are still in the trial and error stage,” Chen said at the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (WCEE) on October 13, 2008 in Beijing. The common opinion among scientists currently holds that even a rudimentary ability to accurately predict earthquakes is at least several decades away.

Because China is still undergoing economic transformation, differences in regional economies and a motley mix of old and new buildings highlight the lack of quake-proofing in many areas  a situation that will be difficult to improve in the short term. Therefore China’s future ability to prevent earthquakes and mitigate disasters would partly hinge on its earthquake forecasting abilities.

Research and Models

    Understanding the causes of earthquakes is the first step in accurately predicting temblors. So after the Wenchuan tragedy, the Chinese government increased investment in this area of research.

   An example of the new commitment is the Wenchuan Earthquake Fault Line Scientific Exploratory Drilling Project, which began in November 2008. The project involves a long-term, deep seismic observation system created by drilling two guide holes 1,200 meters into the ground, and two scientific boreholes reaching depths of 3,000 meters.

   Scientists hope the four-year project, a joint effort of the Ministry of Science and Technology along with the Ministry of Land and Resources and CEA, will increase understanding of an earthquake fault line under Wenchuan and provide basic data to aid future predictions, early warnings and monitoring.

   In addition to earthquake predictions, timely reports of quake intensity as well as early warning system are useful tools to mitigate disaster. Certainly, China’s system for rapid monitoring could be improved. Imitating a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) system, for example, could be a worthy goal.

    “China’s failures in earthquake prediction had far outweighed the successes.”

On the day of the Wenchuan disaster, a USGS mapping report, called ShakeMap, showed the intensity of tremors in quake zone areas just two hours after the temblor hit. These “intensity distribution maps” showed that Wenchuan county was not the only area hit badly and a primary disaster zone with an intensity of 10 stretched from the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan to Beichuan county.

   However, China’s CEA wasn’t able to release the similar report during the day nor did it disseminate the USGS report. While the ShakeMap is based on preliminary data   and is by no means completely accurate,  the information is invaluable for emergency rescue teams.

    Another trend-setter is Japan’s earthquake early warning system — the world’s first when it was launched in October 2007. The system can raise a red flag before disaster strikes by observing the unique properties of earthquake waves. Longitudinal waves move quickly but have little destructive force, while transverse waves that move slowly are highly destructive. Japanese experts claim many deaths associated with the Wenchuan earthquake could have been prevented if such an early warning system were in place.

    Shortcomings in China’s rapid reporting and early warning systems are well known. CEA’s Chen said at a November 2008 meeting of the China Seismological Networks Center that near-event reports about intensities and disaster conditions should be broadened to provide scientific support to earthquake and disaster relief command centers more quickly and effectively.

   The Chinese government has approved plans to set up a demonstration early warning system in the Beijing and Lanzhou areas. Some provinces and cities are working with CEA as well, underscoring the widespread interest in this potentially lifesaving effort.

Wenchuan Lessons

   To a large extent, these decisions were born from the Wenchuan earthquake. But more is expected. For example, the public still hopes the government will release an objective report about the many schools that collapsed in the Wenchuan disaster. For those that toppled due to poor quality construction, it’s hoped the courts will get involved in a timely manner.

   “After the Wenchuan earthquake, there was an intense debate on the Internet among earthquake engineering experts as to what we had gotten wrong,” said Tsuneo Katayama, president of International Association for Earthquake Engineering, at the opening ceremony of the 14th WCEE.

   “Many agreed that the huge losses of life and property were the result of a number of factors, including insufficient government oversight, construction quality, societal and economic limitations, a lack of awareness, corruption and cultural traditions. Of course, this is an extremely complicated problem, and finding real solutions in any given area is not easy,” he said.

   A proposed amendment to China’s Earthquake Prevention and Disaster Mitigation Law offer a promising answer to the weak links in a system laid bare by the 2008 disasters. In October 2008, during the fifth session of the 11th National People’s Congress Standing Committee, a draft amendment was submitted. A month of public input followed.

   The draft called for improving rules for quake-proof construction and said “schools, hospitals, shopping centers, transport hubs, public cultural facilities and other construction projects involving high concentrations of people should be designed to exceed local quake-proofing requirements for housing construction.” Moreover, for the first time, the proposed amendment calls for bringing quake proofing to rural areas by requiring “research, development and promotion of seismic safety technologies in the countryside.”

Implementing these new rules could pose a challenge, but retooling China’s disaster prevention and mitigation system could be even more difficult.

@SciPark.CN

By staff reporters Li Hujun and Cheng Han
From Caijing Magazine

http://english.caijing.com.cn/2008-12-26/110042630.html

China’s environmental scientists and climate researchers are closely watching the sky.

And what some of them see, according to a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report on global pollution and climate change, are brownish cloud layers hovering over Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, blotting out the sun, reducing visibility and damaging human health.

A number of Chinese scientists contributed to international research that led to the November 13 release of the report entitled Atmospheric Brown Clouds.

“The scientific circle is getting to know the ABC phenomenon, but this is just a start,” said Shao Min, an environment professor at Peking University who participated in the project.

According to some scientists, brown clouds, in addition to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, already pose a major threat to weather systems and humans.

Asian Clouds?

The pollution layer was first observed during a field study called the Indian Ocean Experiment in 1999. A belt of brownish haze three kilometers thick was discovered over parts of the Indian Ocean and South Asia, including southern China, blanketing an area as big as the United States.

The cloud consisted of minute particles and gases. Mixed in the pollution layer were sulphates, nitrates, ammonium salt, black carbon and sand dust.

India and China protested against the original name for the phenomenon -- “Asian brown clouds” -- coined in a 2002 UNEP report. Scientists heeded the protest and renamed the layers “atmospheric brown clouds.” They’ve since acknowledged that the clouds can occur in North America, Europe, southern Africa and the Amazon River Basin.

“Brown clouds do not appear in Asia alone,” said Shi Guangyu of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the push for a name change. “If they are called Asian brown clouds, China and India would come under great international pressure.”

Still, the clouds have been a focus of intense study across Asia. Scientists are interested in the high-flying haze due to the region’s variable climate, but especially because Asia is home to around half the world’s population and is undergoing massive growth.

Dimmer Cities

The skies in many big Chinese cities, particularly in the heavily industrialized Pearl River Delta, seem to have darkened in recent years. Days of low visibility have been on the rise. Now, scientists say brown clouds are mainly to blame.

The UN report said minute particles in brown clouds can absorb or reflect 10 to 25 percent of the sunlight that should reach a city’s streets. The report singled out as an example the Pearl Delta city of Guangzhou, where soot and dust have reduced natural light 20 percent since the 1970s.

Toxic aerosols and carcinogens float over the delta, including particulates less than 2.5 microns in width that are top contributors to low visibility, according to studies of regional atmospheric conditions conducted by Zhang Yuanhang and his team at the Environment Department of Peking University.

But standards for these tiny particles do not appear in China’s national air quality regulations. And the so-called “inhalable particles” mentioned in the Chinese media’s daily air quality reports only refer to particles smaller than 10 microns. 

What’s happening in the Pearl River Delta reflects the overall deterioration of the nation’s air. The UN report said the sun’s warmth on the ground in China has decreased 3 to 4 percent every decade for the past 50 years. The situation has particularly worsened since 1970s.

Another region with poor air quality is the Yangtze River Delta, which reported a daily aerosol pollution record on January 19, 2007. Visibility fell below 600 meters as haze covered nearly the entire delta, including Shanghai. It was hard to breathe.

Shanghai’s air pollution index that day soared to 413 – nearly nine times the level recommended by the World Health Organization. It hit 500 on April 2.

But haze also envelops Beijing, Tianjin and other cities. Zhuang Guoshun, director of the Atmospheric Chemistry Research Center at Fudan University, said some cities are wrapped in haze more than one-third of the year. Weather forecasters now describe conditions as clear, cloudy, overcast or hazy.

The latest UNEP report identified 13 cities worldwide as brown-cloud hot spots. Three are in China: Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. But Zhuang said clouds over China stretch far beyond to cover a region from Beijing south to Zhengzhou and Xi’an, as well as the coastal cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou. In addition, the western cities of Urumqi and Lanzhou are seriously affected. 

Indeed, scientists say brown clouds can stretch over areas even larger than eastern China.

Deadly Risk

Breathing such toxic mixes of pollutants can be deadly. The UN report said about 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases linked to concentrations of 2.5 micron particles that can be traced coal-fueled factories, diesel trucks and wood burning.

Pollution also hurts the economy. Economic losses tied to outdoor exposure to ABC-related particulates has been roughly estimated at 3.6 percent of GDP in China and 2.2 percent in India.

Apart from impacts on air quality and human health, the report said, brown clouds are in some regions aggravating the impact of greenhouse gas-induced climate change. Globally, however, brown clouds are blunting global warming by reflecting sunlight and absorbing heat. This is because ABCs contain particles such as black carbon and soot that absorb sunlight.

Eliminating brown clouds overnight could trigger a global temperature rise of as much as 2 degrees Celsius, which is considered by many scientists a dangerous threshold.

The scientific study of ABCs, which is interwoven with investigations of greenhouse gases, is not simple. These cloud conditions may contribute to highly complex warming and cooling patterns witnessed in different regions of China. For example, some fear they’ve changed the country’s East Asian monsoon climate system, while worsening droughts in the north and floods in the south.

Scientists suggest ABC-related heating of the atmosphere may be as important as greenhouse gas warming in accounting for retreating glaciers in China. The Academy of Sciences estimates these glaciers have shrunk 5 percent since the 1950s, while the combined size of China’s nearly 47,000 glaciers has fallen by 3,000 square kilometers over the past quarter century.

Other ABC-related phenomena may be waiting to be discovered. That’s one reason why Chinese scientists are calling for the nation’s leaders to give increased attention to brown clouds. Another reason is that millions of lives are at risk.

@SciPark.CN

Environmental challenges make supplying the ever-growing population of Tibet with sufficient and sustainable electricity a logistical conundrum.

October 28, 2008

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2515-Water-sun-and-dung-

By staff reporter Li Hujun and intern reporter Sun Haomu

http://english.caijing.com.cn/2008-09-03/110010124.html

Beijing enjoyed the clearest skies in a decade thanks to long-term and temporary restrictions made for the Olympics. Expectations remain, however, even after the Games have ended. Observers are paying close attention to the Beijing Olympics’ role in averting global warming.

Caijing has learned that the Chinese government and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) will conduct a final assessment of the Beijing Olympics, in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and carbon offsets. The question still hanging in the air is whether or not the Games achieved a “carbon balance”.

Sports Affect Climate

“Carbon balance” is a new term, referring to total carbon release. If the amount of carbon released balances the amount of carbon sequestered or offset, there is “carbon neutrality”.

Why assess “carbon balance” of the Beijing Olympics? Beyond the sports events, the Games generate greenhouse gases, mainly in the long-distance travel of delegates and spectators, the construction and operation of the Olympic venues such as the “Bird’s Nest” and “Water Cube”, and even in the torch relay.

Achim Steiner, UN Undersecretary General and Executive Director of the UNEP, told Caijing that greenhouse gas emissions are inevitable when the Olympic Games bring people together. But he also pointed out that the Games’ carbon footprint and carbon emissions could be reduced and offset.

The Torino 2006 and Germany World Cup set an example in climate protection. What is different between those two events and the Beijing Olympics is that the “Kyoto Protocol” obligated developed countries such as Italy and Germany to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while a developing country such as China has had no such obligations up to now. What’s more, when Beijing won the bid for Olympics seven years ago, the issue of climate change was not as prominent as today. So Beijing did not mention climate change in its Green Olympic pledge.

It was not until last October that the United Nations explicitly recommended that the Beijing Olympic Committee publicly commit to offsetting greenhouse gases.

Fulfill “Carbon Balance”

Caijing has learned that the Beijing Olympic Committee did not directly respond to the UNEP’s proposal, though the Chinese government immediately began to estimate the carbon footprint of the Olympics.

On April 25, at the International Forum on Climate Change and Science & Technology Innovation hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other ministries, a special venue with the theme “carbon balance and the Green Olympics” displayed China’s initiative.

Xu Huaqing, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the forum that the Beijing Olympics would release an estimated 1.18 megatons of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases, all of which would be offset by “Green Olympics” measures. That estimate was presented by a team of researchers from the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, the Energy Research Institute of the National Development Reform Commission, Geography Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University.

Out of the 1.18 megatons, the majority come from activities by the audience. About 0.1 megaton come from construction and operation of the venues, 20,000 tons come from the activities of the athletes and officials, and 80,000 tons come from activities of the Olympic Committee, such as the torch relay.

With the Beijing Olympics designated as “Green Olympics”, the organizers established as a zero-emission zone the 3.8 sq km area surrounding key sports venues, using eco-friendly cars such as electric, hybrid and fuel cell cars. Many venues including the “Bird’s Nest” are powered by solar energy. In addition, other policies have been implemented, such as the building of the Olympic Forest Park, the shutdown of some polluting factories as well as the even-odd license plate system.

Based on the team’s conservative estimate, the use of clean energy vehicles during the Olympics was expected to offset 20,000 tons of emissions, and renewable energy products in the venues such as solar energy was to reduce about 1000 tons of emissions. After the Olympics, the facilities will contribute more offsets in the long run.

Thanks to the energy saving measures like tree-planting, factory shutdowns, and control of the use of vehicles, the total offsets are close to or have even surpassed the greenhouse gases released by the Beijing Olympics.

Technology Minister said in a press conference held by the State Council on May 8 that the Beijing Olympics would be “basically” carbon neutral.

Hazy Result

Whether the “carbon balance” can be ensured or not, however, is still unknown.

Theodore Oben, UNEP Chief of Sports & the Environment, told Caijing that the energy-saving measures and tree-planting would make a difference, but in order to evaluate the “carbon balance”, the total emissions of the Olympics should be calculated, including international flights and domestic flights by the athletes and guests.

However, there is strong controversy as to how to calculate the greenhouse emissions generated by their flights.

For example, according to the “carbon emissions calculator” on the website of the non-governmental organization “climate-friendly”, a roundtrip economy-class flight from London to Beijing generates emissions of 4.8 tons, and one from Washington to Beijing generates 6.6 tons, which exceeds the emissions of the average Chinese person over a whole year.

If the emissions are calculated this way, as recommended by non-governmental organizations such as the WWF, flight emissions generated by the Beijing Olympics alone far exceed the previously estimated 1.18 megatons.

In comparison, the ICAO “carbon emissions calculator” presents different results. Economy-class flights from London to Beijing and from Washington to Beijing release 1.15 tons and 1.6 tons of emissions respectively, less than a quarter of the climate-friendly calculation.

It is still unknown which count will be adopted by the research team of the Chinese government.

In addition, some basic data such as the exact number of spectators and resources consumed in the torch relay have not been announced. By the end of the year, the UNEP is expected to report its environmental assessment of the Beijing Olympics, with these final details on the “carbon neutrality” of the Olympics.

In fact, as to the definition of “carbon balance” or “carbon neutrality”, there is strong debate around the world.

Yang Ailun, Climate & Energy Manager of Greenpeace China, told Caijing that although it’s a hot topic and will come up in the 2012 London Olympics, “carbon neutrality” still lacks clear definition such as the calculation of emissions and the offsets.

In her view, the International Olympic Committee should first and foremost set up clear standards for the “carbon neutrality”.

However, there is no doubt that Beijing Olympics will leave a valuable legacy no matter whether “carbon balance” or “carbon neutrality” is achieved, and a legacy with benefits beyond Beijing.

After all, Greenpeace acknowledged this legacy in its environmental report, “China after the Olympics: Lessons from Beijing.” “These reductions reflect real measures taken to ensure that energy consumption is minimized through these Olympic initiatives”, Greenpeace wrote.

Steiner of the UNEP told Caijing, “From what I can see, people here regard the Olympics not only as a 17-day event, but an opportunity for China to adopt clean development mechanisms. This is the best return a country can get from the Olympics”.■

August 12, 2008

New climate-controlled edifices in China are promoted as eco-friendly and desirable. But, writes Li Taige, researchers in Beijing have found that high-tech can mean high energy use – and no fresh air.

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2299--Energy-efficient-buildings-Not-always

A friend of mine lives in Beijing Tiptop International Apartments, one of the city’s high-end residential complexes. One of the building’s features is a climate-control system that maintains a constant temperature and humidity.

But such comfort does not come cheap. He pays 8,000 yuan (about US$1,170) a month for his two-bedroom apartment -- no small price.

The apartments are five years old and known for their use of energy-saving technology. According to the property developers, the building was China’s first “high-comfort, low-energy” project. Temperatures are kept at between 20° and 26° Celsius (68° and 78.8° Fahrenheit) without the need for individual air-conditioning units or radiators, and the ventilation system is said to provide health benefits. The project also claims to be “the first building in China to reach European energy-saving standards” -- and to have “caused a sensation, with 1,300 media reports”.

The Tiptop is not the only Beijing building to use climate control as a selling point. Other examples include the Modern Group’s Moma buildings. The Grand Moma (Linked Hybrid) residences, Shangdi Moma and even the villa community of Forest Forever Moma all boast constantly controlled temperature and humidity.

For a long time I’d been a supporter of these buildings. After all, they save energy and still ensure a pleasant environment. However, after reading the 2008 Annual Report on Chinese Energy Efficiency, my opinion started to change.

Produced by Tsinghua University’s Building Energy Research Centre in Beijing, this report points out that if “energy-saving technology” is simply put in place without careful selection and management, energy use may not fall. In fact, it may increase substantially.

A residential building in Beijing is given as an example. A high-efficiency central air-conditioning system was installed to provide 24-hour climate control throughout the building. This was hailed as a fine example of energy saving. But in summer it uses eight times as much energy as traditional air-conditioning methods.

The report goes on to say that not only do these controlled environments fail to save energy, they also fail to be healthier, more comfortable or more convenient. A temperature of 26° is not the upper limit of comfort in the summer; it is the lower limit. A temperature of over 26° benefits health and reduces the illnesses that air-conditioning can cause. With natural ventilation, a temperature of 29° (84.2°) is most comfortable.

It seems there may be no benefit to the pursuit of constantly controlled environments.

Because the phenomenon of “energy-saving” buildings is not restricted to the residential sector, office complexes suffer the same problem. One office development in Beijing installed a number of solar water heaters. This is all very well, but the system used requires the water to circulate constantly. And the cost of running those pumps was almost as much as the cost of heating the water in the first place. This is hardly power saving.

A central government organisation refurbished its offices in 2003, replacing single-glazed windows with double-glazing for better insulation -- but the majority of the new windows could not be opened. The individual air-conditioning units in each room also were replaced with multi-room units, or “quasi-central air-conditioning”. The result was that the building’s energy consumption rose by 50%, with energy used for air-conditioning increasing fourfold. Even so, this is less consumption than that of many high-end government offices. Imagine how much energy is being wasted in all of Beijing’s other government offices.

The report also points out that the numerous large-scale and energy-hungry public buildings – government offices, concert halls, museums, transportation hubs and so on – have become a way of demonstrating economic prowess. The refitting of existing public buildings, too, is causing large increases in energy use.

The new China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters in Beijing in Beijing could be called bizarre in design, and their appearance has earned them the nickname of “the giant pants”, but every time I walk past them I find myself wondering how much energy the building will use when it is fully operational.

Simply installing energy-saving technology without thinking about how it will actually be used is not a practice unique to Beijing. At a discussion with the news media organised by the Climate Change Journalists Club, Jiang Yi – a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and professor at the Building Energy Research Centre – provided a number of examples from around China.

A solar energy firm in Wuxi in Jiangsu province employed a Dutch architect to design a 20,000-square-metre office building, using energy-efficient glass. However, the windows could not be opened, turning the building into a glass box that relies on a mechanised ventilation system. The building is equipped with solar panels, but the energy they supply is inadequate to power the ventilation system – hence a perfectly sound energy-saving mechanism has been wasted. The building is due to be completed this year, and may yet appear in the news media as another energy-efficient success.

At the end of last year, Yalong Bay in Hainan province started work on a huge central-cooling system. A modern refrigeration plant will deliver cold air to hotels in the area via a network of pipes – much as heating is delivered in the north of China. The project will cost 100 million yuan (US$14.5 million) and is Hainan’s first national-level energy-saving project. It is also said to be China’s largest central-cooling system. But Jiang has his doubts, suspecting that the project actually will increase energy consumption.

As the report makes clear, we can now create and maintain any environment we choose; we can do so in one of two ways: relying primarily on machinery or primarily on nature.

The “machinery-first” model uses artificial ventilation, air-conditioning and lighting to create the desired indoor environment. To do so on a global scale would require 30% more energy than is available – and it is not necessarily good for our health. For example, many “modern” buildings have few, if any, windows that can be opened, resulting in poor air quality and other problems.

A “nature-first” approach allows for ventilation via open windows and the use of natural light and shade, and when this is not adequate, supplementation with artificial means, such as heating. Climate control is adjusted in tandem with the environment.

So the researchers at Tsinghua hold that we should use that natural approach, improving living conditions without increasing power use. And this is the only option for real energy-saving buildings when we are faced with both scarce resources and huge environmental pressures.

I hope that my friend, and the rest of China, can realise the truth about China’s “energy-efficient” buildings.

2008-04-30 17:09 Caijing Magazine

http://english.caijing.com.cn/20080430/59003.shtml

Health officials are debating whether person-to-person transmission of the deadly bird flu virus has occurred in China. But even if it hasn't yet, it may someday.

By staff reporter Li Hujun

The case of a father and son infected with H5N1 bird flu in Nanjing remains controversial, more than four months after the report triggered close scrutiny from medical specialists worldwide.

Intensifying the debate was Wang Yu, director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who along with colleagues wrote an article published April 8 in the British medical journal The Lancet citing the case as a “probable, limited person-to-person transmission” of highly pathogenic avian influenza A, that is, H5N1.

Yu’s article marked the first official report from Chinese scholars about a possible case of person-to-person bird flu transmission in the country. It said experts think the virus was transmitted to Lu Wei from his son, Lu Kan. At the time, the son was in a hospital and being cared for by the father.

But later Mao Qun An, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health --  the overseer of the CDC -- insisted at a press conference that the virus had jumped to each patient from a bird. “There is still no conclusive, epidemiological or biological, evidence to prove a person-to-person transmission,” Mao said.

A representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in China, Hans Troedsson, backed the ministry’s opinion. He told Caijing that Yu’s article only showed that “limited and non-continuous person-to-person transmission” may have occurred in China.

According to WHO statistics, 381 human cases of H5N1 in 14 countries had been confirmed between November 2003 and mid-April 2008, killing 240 people.

Most cases affected only a single individual. But one-fourth affected two or more people with close contact who displayed symptoms simultaneously. Limited person-to-person cases probably happened in Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan.

But only one direct case of person-to-person transmission has been confirmed by scholars. It happened in Indonesia when eight members of a rural family were infected. The female patient who first showed symptoms was found to have transmitted the virus to her niece, and from that point the virus continued spreading to others.

In China, more than one case of person-to-person transmission has been suspected. Guan Yi, a microbiology professor at Hong Kong University, raised the possibility in connection with a 1997 bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong. In a 2003 case, three members of a Hong Kong family were infected with the virus in the mainland’s Fujian province.

A suspicious case drawing the most attention on the mainland involved the death of He Yin, a 12-year-old girl who died in October 2005 after being diagnosed with an unknown strain of pneumonia. Around the same time, her 9-year-old brother was hospitalized. But because the girl’s corpse was cremated, it was impossible to determine whether the boy contracted the bird flu from his sister.

A team led by Chinese researcher Gu Jiang discovered that the bird flu virus could be transmitted from mother to fetus. The study, published in September’s The Lancet, was based on the autopsy of 24-year-old Zhou Maoya, who died of bird flu in 2005 four months into pregnancy.

The case of Lu Kan has so far been harder to crack. He had contact with his father as well as about 90 other people, an overwhelming number of people. Yet only the father was infected, leading some scientists to guess that genetics have an influence in transmission.

Officially, Chinese health authorities warned that “people have been infected with a new kind of flu virus, but person-to-person transmission has not occurred.” Yet they still remain cautious. Most poultry in China has already been immunized, but bird-to-bird transmission has not entirely stopped yet, raising concerns about future human infections.

Certainly, no one is suggesting the possibility of widespread person-to-person transmission of the virus. Jeremy Farrar, a leading bird flu researcher in Oxford University, said there are no signs that such events have occurred anywhere in the world.

But Farrar warned that, as long as bird flu continues breaking out among poultry, it is “just a matter of time” before it begins jumping between people.

Some experts have criticized a lack of coordination between the animal immunization program managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and disease control organizations under the Health Ministry, which they say makes it difficult for officials to identify any original virus carrier. Troedsson told Caijing that the bird flu issue is deeply linked to both animal hygiene and public health. For that reason, he said, more cooperation among government agencies is needed.