Climate Change and China: We all know the excuse / question: ‘why I should do anything while China is causing so much of the problem?’
I always reckon there’s five answers to that question, when it comes up on training courses or in public meetings. What are they? See below…
But first here’s another (sort of).. The excellent China Dialogue website has an article on the first climate change art exhibition in China:
http://www.chinadialogue.net/books/6133-China-s-first-climate-art-exhibition-comes-to-Beijing-/en
Sadly it’s not radical young cutting edge Chinese artist activists – it’s those good people at UK-based Cape Farewell (who took Robyn Hitchcock, one of my favourite musicians, and other artists to the high Arctic a while ago) http://www.capefarewell.com/
But maybe this show is the inspiration for the next home grown one…..
[For Robyn try him at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP7NsM6YJk8] Or google his site…
And those five answers?
1. Chinese per capita emissions are less than half those in the UK (China is about 4 tonnes / person). When the USA and Europe get to Chinese per capita levels we’ll be well on the way to soling the problem
2. We’ve actually produced more CO2 than China (we started on heavy fossil fuel use a long time before they did): we were a major cause of this problem in the first place.
3. China may cause pollution but is also a massive investor in / produced of solar and wind technology (wish we matched them…)
4. Our emissions of fallen because we manufacture much less here then we did. And where do our manufactured goods come from? You guessed it, we’ve exported much of our carbon footprint to China. Their pollution is our pollution.
5. If we don’t do it why should they do it? It’s better to light just one candle than to curse the darkness…Anyone for number 6? (apart from ‘because it’s the right thing to do’….)
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