Environmental protection, energy saving and standardization

In the last six months environmental issues in their many forms have moved to the top of the world's political agenda. Thus science has moved over the long bridge into politics. As a result, there has been a multiplication of international as well as national conferences and reports. To pick out only a few of the more significant events, there was

• the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report of 30 March 2005,
• the recommendations of the world's principal scientific academies, including that of China, on A Response to Climate Change of 7 June,
• the preparations, in which China has participated, for the meeting of the G8 countries in July,
• and the prospects of a United Nations summit meeting on environmental and associated matters in New York in September.

Why should this have happened? Why should the issues have come together in such concentrated fashion? Let us look briefly at what they are. I suppose there are five main factors.

First we have been multiplying our numbers at a giddy rate. At the time of Thomas Malthus the population was 1 billion. Now there are 6.4 billion of us. In the last ten years fertility rates have dropped in many areas, and much has been achieved through the improvement in the status of women, wider use of birth control, and female education. But the world's population could still be up to 9 billion by 2050, with growth where it can least be supported. China was one of the first countries to recognize and act on population issues.

Next is deterioration of land quality and accumulation of wastes. We have been damaging the soils which sustain all terrestrial creatures, a well recognized problem in China. The Asian Development Bank believes that in China more than 40 percent of land area is affected by wind erosion, salinization and desertification. Most countries still lack coherent policies on how to reduce and dispose of wastes.

Next comes pollution of both salt and fresh water. Oceanic pollution is worst offshore. In the oceans as a whole, fish stocks are a useful test. Recent estimates by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization indicate that at least 60 percent of world fisheries are fully exploited or over-fished.

Meanwhile demand for fresh water has doubled every 21 years. Over the next two decades water use by humans seems likely to increase by 40 percent while 17 percent more water will be needed to grow food for growing populations, particularly in poor countries. Water shortages are not new. Yet the amount of fresh water available remains the same as it was at the time of the Han empire when the human population was around 450 million.

Next is our continuing destruction of other living species at rates comparable to those caused by extraterrestrial impacts in the long past. Current rates of extinction could be many times what they would be under natural conditions. One in four mammal species, which are key indicators of ecosystem health, are facing a high risk of extinction in the near future. The same goes for many plants. China is rich in its biodiversity. I even have a Chinese tree - metasequoia - in my garden in England.

On a global scale, damage to ecosystems is already extensive and the future course of evolution will be substantially changed by current human activity. As has been recently stated by the Worldwide Fund For Nature:

"All species are doing a job, even if we don't know what that job is. Removing a species from the ecosystem is like removing a rivet from an aeroplane without knowing its function. Nobody would want to fly in that aeroplane, but that is what we are doing to our environment."

Nowhere is this more true than in the micro-world of bacteria and viruses, which learn how to react to almost any drug we may throw at them. Humans take 20 years to reproduce. Bacteria do the job in 20 minutes. Nor can we yet assess the effects of introduction of genetically modified organisms.

Last we have been changing the chemistry of the atmosphere. Acid precipitation can be dealt with when there is sufficient political will. There is an array of international agreements to manage and eventually to reverse depletion of the ozone layer. Climate change is more difficult. It relates directly to the ways in which we produce and use energy. Since the industrial revolution we have been using the sky as a waste unit. As a result carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has now reached its highest level in over 400,000 years, and is at a third higher than in pre-industrial times. The science of the carbon cycle is imperfectly understood, but there is a clear relationship between atmospheric carbon and global surface temperature.

The only real controversy is about the degree of change we are bringing about. The Third Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2002 suggested rises in average global surface temperature of between 1.4ºC and 5.8ºC by the end of this century, an increase on its previous Assessment of 1996. Sea levels are predicted to rise world wide between 90 and 880 mm between 1990 and 2100, but could be more if current melting in the Arctic and Antarctic continues.

As has been well brought out in UNEP's Millennium report on the Environment known as GEO 2000, almost all environmental problems are getting worse and in many cases the long term effects have yet to be seen.

The sheer scale of the problem was brought out in a Declaration signed by 1500 scientists in Amsterdam in July 2001. They gave a clear warning:

"The accelerating human transformation of the Earth's environment is not sustainable. Therefore the business-as-usual way of dealing with the Earth's System is not an option. It has to be replaced - as soon as possible - by deliberate strategies of management that sustain the Earth's environment while meeting social and economic development objectives".

The Government of China has shown more understanding of this combination of issues than almost any other. Looking back over Chinese history, this is understandable. Over thousands of years China has faced severe environmental problems, some caused by such natural forces as earthquakes and climate change, and others by human exploitation of a vulnerable environment. In Chinese mythology heaven and earth were closely linked, and the environment of the living world was a product of this relationship. China is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Yet over millennia much of it has suffered from deforestation, desertification and loss of biodiversity, and the current rush to the big cities is creating new hazards. It is no surprise that what have been described as lurches between accelerating environmental damage and accelerating environmental protection are a feature of modern China.

China is now changing fast, and the world has at last noticed. Since the beginning of this century, it has emerged as a global force driving consumption and production of almost everything. This includes consumption of natural resources both in China and elsewhere. Its growth rate in terms of classical GNP/GDP is among the highest in the world. It accounts for some 20 percent of the world's population, and that population is still growing. It also accounts for some 20 percent of the increase in world trade in 2004, and its share in world exports has nearly doubled since the beginning of 2000.

As a further illustration, it now produces 27 percent of the world's steel. It attracted no less than US$54 billion worth of direct foreign investment in 2003, and Britain was the largest single investor. As has been well said by the World Watch Institute of Washington DC,

" ... it is as if all of Europe, Russia and North and South America were to simultaneously undertake a century's worth of economic development in a few decades."

Such a rate of change is more visible in some areas than others. Some age old problems have become more prominent, and other relatively new ones have arisen. First there are alarming problems over the supply and quality of fresh water. While demand for water is constantly increasing in both town and country, supplies have diminished in many parts of China. There are the usual vagaries of the weather. Water tables have been falling particularly in northern China. The Yellow River now reaches the sea only a few days a year.

The predictions of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences are far from encouraging. They suggest new patterns of rainfall, including less in the areas of high population and more elsewhere. No wonder that there are plans to build a major canal system to convey water from south to north.

It would be wearisome to go through the long list of the environmental issues pressing China. They include the effects of urbanization with all the requirements that cities, like living organisms, make of the environment. Pollution of land, air and water in around cities remains a formidable problem. Then there is the increasing demand for energy whether generated by coal and other fossil fuels, each with its environmental penalties; or by nuclear means (China has some 30 nuclear power stations on order); or by the many renewable technologies now becoming available.

There is a tangle of transport issues, including the balance between public and private transport: at present the growth in private car use in cities is unsustainable, and Chinese cities face the problems and prospects which are already favouring trains, bicycles and even rickshaws in central London. There is an important change in food consumption, indicating a shift from rice to meat consumption, and this too has big effects on the environment. It is already affecting world grain prices. Finally there is the pressure represented by business enterprise and industrial growth which is changing the whole face of China.

People everywhere through the mechanisms of civil society must be fully involved, but governments carry much responsibility. They must display leadership, while respecting and to some extent guiding public opinion. Again this has been evident in China.

I now turn to the Chinese experience. I have been a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development since its inception in 1992. Roughly half of its members are Chinese and half come from other countries or international organizations. The Council's reports are a good illustration of how attitudes and policies have changed over the last 13 years. Each year they have become both clearer and more practical as the work of the various expert groups or task forces has enlarged our knowledge of conditions in China. The last set of recommendations was perhaps the most telling yet.

In my view the essential elements in the success of the Council have been: regular access to the Chinese leadership; growth of genuine and uninhibited dialogue between Chinese and foreign participants; the existence of expert groundwork by the contributing task forces; visible progress in dealing with certain problems such as air and water pollution; and above all the sense that the leadership was listening to the Council, and ready, within the usual political limitations, to take the necessary actions.

Perhaps most important of all is the readiness of the Chinese Government to undertake original thinking on environmental issues. Better than most they have understood that the environment has to be seen as a kind of endowment of natural capital which we have inherited and will pass on to our descendants. I do not think that anyone could disagree with the statement by a well-known economist that "the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment".

In short without a healthy environment, there can be no healthy economy. The advocates of ever freer trade like to suggest the price mechanism as a measure of health. But as another distinguished economist once remarked: "Markets are superb at setting prices, but incapable of recognizing costs". Prices are indicators. But we have to make sure that they tell the truth about costs.

Recently efforts have increased, not least in China, to bring greater compatibility between classical economics and sustainability. Not for nothing have successive governments spoken of the need for a socialist market economy in which the framework is set by the public interest, and the market functions within it.

These thoughts were well expressed at a meeting of the Chinese Government on Population, Resources and Environment on 12 March 2005. On that occasion the General Party Secretary Hu Jintao and the Premier Wen Jiabao both spoke of the need to adopt a new development mode, or economic growth mode, within the overriding objective of achieving an all round harmonious society or xiaokang. This in turn means 'green clean growth', and China is about to have green Olympic Games. It means bringing in all the externalities or hidden costs of change, and giving the priority to human well-being and welfare rather than to mere productivity.

The difficulty in China as everywhere else is how to apply these ideas. Clearly governments must be ready to use fiscal instruments in the public interest to favour some activities and deter others. There are many examples I could give, ranging from control of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture to disposal of wastes and conservation of forests. So far as industry is concerned, there is an urgent need for greater efficiency, especially in use of energy and control of pollution. But the most important area is probably the pricing of water, which at present is in some confusion. Some people still think that water should be free so they lack all incentive to look after it properly and thereby avoid waste. Moreover others, particularly in cities, can afford to pay more and so win an advantage who may need water more.

Then there is the question, which is relevant to this conference, about the balance between legislation to protect the environment and the setting of environmental standards. In each case the fundamental requirement is that legislation and standards should be respected at national, regional or local levels. In Britain this has provoked long and sometimes acrimonious argument.

Generally there is a preference for voluntary standards on an industry by industry basis according to particular circumstances. There are those who sometimes complain that companies should do more to make money rather than worry about the social, environmental and other consequences. They forget that in such circumstances regulations, whether by legislation or adoption of standards, mandatory or otherwise, would soon become necessary in the public interest.

This conference gives the opportunity for the Standardization Administration of China and the British Standards Institute to become partners and even perhaps pioneers in exploring how common environmental standards might be achieved to the enormous benefit of all concerned.

Respect for such standards is crucial. It must be visible and open to monitoring. In this way it would be a major encouragement to foreign investment in China, and promote that closer relationship between Britain and China, which is, I think, our common aim. More fundamentally it is the most effective and equitable way of protecting the most precious thing that any society can have: a healthy living environment.

In conclusion let me commend your current work on environmental and natural resource pricing. You are already aware that models of development and accountability elsewhere are not necessarily appropriate in China. Indeed you have the opportunity to leapfrog over the mistakes of others. What happens in one part of China may not be applicable in others. Each region in your vast country has its own character and potentialities. For the future you and we must educate next and future generations in knowledge of natural processes and responsibility for the only world which is ours.