China’s drive for wealth means end of our low-carbon dreams

Following is a letter sent to the Editor of the London Times:

I welcome Carl Mortished´s realism in facing up to the facts that the Chinese are not going to rein back on their growth to appease the West´s need for a cleaner world ("China’s drive for wealth means end of our low-carbon dreams" Times, October 17, 2007). The problem is that Mr. Mortished still doesn´t get it that it is our fault.

We have reached where we are without caring about our impact on the environment and, now that we are enjoying our comfortable wellbeing, we are asking the poor around the world to sacrifice their growth for the world’s good.

Well I say that if the rich world wants environmental protection they should pay for it and that includes paying for the poor to meet our expectations!

Nevertheless, I do not see the rich stepping up to the plate. You can tell by the lack of monetary offers to pay for the changes required and you don’t see any reasonable trade offers which will assist the poor in building themselves up to be able to afford the luxury of paying for a cleaner world.

The only assistance the rich are offering is the offer of new environmental technology, at a charge of course. What the rich want is more exports not a cleaner world!

Onésimo Alvarez-Moro

See article:
Hu Jintao wants to make every Chinese twice as rich by 2020. He has done it once – in just five years, income per capita doubled to $2,000 (£983) - and the only obstacle in the Chinese President’s path is the fuel needed to stoke the boiler in China’s locomotive.

The president needs more copper, iron ore, zinc and natural gas. Above all, he needs more coal to keep the power stations humming nicely and more oil for Chinese cars and lorries. China accounts for more than a third of world demand for coal and the price in Australia soared this year as the People’s Republic switched from being an exporter to being an importer. If Mr Hu had a message for the world in his address to the Communist Party National Congress, it was this: we will burn our coal and, if we have to, we will burn yours, too.

What does this mean? Put bluntly, it means that the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions is dead and so is any prospect of persuading Beijing to bind itself to other curbs on carbon emissions. We can stop kidding ourselves that China will sign up to any green thingy that hinders his party’s ten-year plan to get rich quick. Instead, the ravenous demand for minerals and metals will continue and the desperate land grab by Chinese state companies in their pursuit of resources in Central Asia, Africa and Canada will become more politically embarrassing.

See full Article.