China’s green thumb: a new paradox?

What should be remembered from the Paris agreement? If the United States’ withdrawal provoked the most reactions, climate experts believe another phenomenon might have an even bigger impact: China’s commitment to environmental issues. 

It would be tempting to reduce China’s interests for environmental matters to a strategic opportunity: taking advantage of the withdrawal of Trump’s America to become the leading power in green technologies. It is, after all, Chinese leaders’ claimed goal.
 
Nevertheless, analyzing this phenomenon as mere politics would be missing the bigger picture: China has been multiplying measures to promote renewable energies for several years now. The year 2013 is considered as a turning point in Chinese policies: the ‘airpocalypse’ in Beijing (air pollution reaching very hazardous levels) provoked the anger of the Chinese urban middle class who forced the government to react. Xi Jinping had to announce emergency measures. The air quality did not significantly improve, but the environment was finally officially recognised as a major issue, carrying the same importance as other traditional Chinese policies, such as the fight against poverty. To quote the central authority itself: ‘the war on pollution’ was waged. 

Indeed, pressures on Xi Jinping’s central government must not be underestimated. The protection of the environment went from a marginal cause mainly advocated for by farmers - whose environment had been affected by industrialization -  to a major health issue impacting the urban middle class, who was able to efficiently pressure the authorities. This shift is illustrated by the fact that China used to only have eight official environmental NGOs, against over 8 000 today. Civil society is now aware of climate change and environmental issues, and Xi Jinping’s government had no choice but to take into account this opinion shift.

Some efforts...

Reflecting this pressure, a lot of the Chinese environmental efforts are focused on the air quality in big urban centres, especially in Beijing. PM 2.5 - the smallest polluting particles, which pose the greatest health risks - kill 1.6 million people every year in the country, i.e. 4 000 persons a day. Radical measures have been taken in attempt to resolve this unprecedented health catastrophe. In Beijing, the most polluting companies have been forced to leave, and ‘coal free zones’, in which three millions of homes switched to gas and electric heating, have been implemented. These measures did bear fruit: PM 2.5 particles’ pollution fell by 35.6% from 2012 to 2017. Emmanuel Macron even reacted to this tremendous change during his official visit in Beijing in January 2018, declaring that he ‘had never seen Beijing like this’, referring to the blue sky, and adding that ‘China had brutal adjustment capacities ’. 

The French president was quite right in announcing during that same visit that 2018-2019 was a ‘Franco-Chinese year for sustainable development’, as China is the country  to look out for in terms of green industry.  Despite, its status of biggest polluter on the planet, China is also the biggest investor in green technologies and thus, the world leader in energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China is responsible for 40% of global renewable capacity growth, and has already outreached its 2020 objective in photovoltaic energy. These are bewildering figures, especially when one knows that Chinese companies represent 60% of solar cell manufacturing capacities. This example is not an exception: China is also the world leader in hydropower, bioenergy for electricity and heat, and electric vehicles.

Such domination attracts investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world, including Americans and Europeans. It is not only that China needs the renewables’ industry : the reverse is also true. Beyond the government’s proactive policy efforts, the Chinese middle class, the size and purchasing power of which are constantly growing, represent an incredible opportunity for developers, who see their technologies adopted by entire masses. Thanks to an economy of scale phenomenon (decreased average costs per unit caused by  the increase of the quantities produced), these new technologies’ prices could steadily decrease, thus allowing them to become the new norm. 
 
This hope seems to be confirmed by the central authorities’ authoritarian and proactive policies on the matter. The 1  January 2018 prohibition of 24 categories of solid waste is one of its most striking example. China now wishes to prioritize a local collect of waste for its recycling industry, and to limit the pollution it causes.  

Far from the media coverage of this decision, other projects are being implemented. For instance, the 13th quinquennial plan emphasizes the environment’s importance by setting quantified targets of pollution reduction. Concerning transports, several measures are being taken, among which the now limited amount of new cars allowed to circulate in some towns like Beijing, or the electrification of the whole bus network in the city of Shenzhen. The implementation of a law taxing industrial activities for their polluting emissions is also very significant. 

Insufficient? 

To nuance the previous remark, the law taxing polluting emissions stays limited: it still does not include CO2, despite China being its biggest producer in the  world! It should also be noted that benefits from this tax are now redistributed to local governments for a precise reason. The local authorities are reluctant to carry out an environmental policy that would impeach the economic growth, and tend to slow down the implementation process of measures decided by the central government, thus rendering some laws more symbolic than efficient. Greenpeace therefore praised this shift of beneficiaries, as it should encourage local authorities to collaborate. However, one can still wonder whether these incentives will be sufficient for local executives. Indeed, they are still personally evaluated by the central government based on their region’s economic results, and are thus torn between economic growth and the protection of the environment. 

There is still a long way to go for China, whose energetic mix strongly depends on coal. The country is the latter’s first producer and consumer, producing and consuming no less than half of the world stock. The Chinese paradox - the permanent oscillation between growth on steroids and limitation of environmental damages - here reaches its paroxysm. Indeed, in terms of carbon-free mobility, and despite being the biggest investor in the field, China fuels its cars and electric transportation with… coal! Thus, if the Chinese green industry is developing significantly (production of hydrogen cars, of clean engines, etc.), it is itself not exempt of pollution. 

Unequal? 

The environment only became a major problem for the government when protests from the middle class erupted. Therefore, not only is the fight against pollution focused on air quality, to the detriment of other types of damages to water or soils, but it also only concerns the richest or most important metropolis. The air quality might have improved in Beijing, but it is not the case on a national level, the use of coal having increased overall. China runs the risk of creating a two-tier environmental policy, dividing the urbans and the rurals, the centre and the periphery, global cities and the rest. 

Moving polluting sources to the periphery will of course ease the public pressure exerted on the government and will render cities like Beijing more bearable and attractive. However, it will not reduce Chinese emissions on a global scale. Ranked as the biggest carbon issuer - the same goes for greenhouse gas - as well as one of biggest producer and consumer of coal, China is probably going to remain the black sheep in terms of environment protection, despite its unquestionable efforts. Environmental protection seems to be the new Chinese paradox: the biggest polluter on the planet is also the most important actor of the sustainable energetic transition.