China Environmental Law

Just got back from a program sponsored by the Columbia University International Advisory Council (part of the “Three [on the Bund] Talk” series) entitled “Presencing: Mapping Our World in 2030.” I’m not really sure what ”presencing” means, but I think it’s something like channeling. Be that as it may, the three panelists sensibly avoided the word (and any channeling except for conjuring up Marx and JFK) and talked about how we get from here to 2030 without blowing ourselves up. Given the topic of this blog, I will highlight a few remarks from Jeffrey Sachs (who needs no introduction if you have been awake this past decade, but for those of you who’ve been napping he is the Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University).  Mr. Sachs predicted that the center of economic gravity will shift to Asia in the 21st century (no novel prediction there) if it can surmount several challenges. The first of these challenges is the environment, and he focused his remarks on China.  China is high on the list of countries vulnerable to environmental calamity; in a crowded world, China is a very crowded country. It is relatively resource poor and its growth has and will produce huge environmental stresses. First on the list of stress points is water.  China begins with low water resources per capita, and the situation is made even worse by over/inefficient use (particularly in the agricultural sector) and water pollution.

Given these challenges, he said that economics no longer trumped the environment. That is, it is no longer tenable to say we will get rich first and then worry about cleaning up the environment. The environment must be considered first in determining how to get rich. He certainly envisions a dialogue between the US and China on how to tackle these pressing issues, but he has written off 2008 because of the US Presidential elections and the Beijing Olympics. 

In an interesting aside, he praised the new Tata Nano (the $2,500) car as a work of product engineering, but expressed the strong hope that an electric hybrid version was on the way.

I assume all these points and many others are covered in his new book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet which will be released later this month.

I agree with Sachs that water is China’s biggest problem (see Water:What if, What Else, and What are the Odds ). On the “use” side there have been a few legal initiatives, and there are water conservation requirements in the draft “Circular Economy” law. I’ll talk about some of these initiatives in the coming weeks. Of course on the “pollution” side the amended Water Pollution Control and Prevention Act was just passed. I now have a complete translation of the amendments and will be posting a copy along with my comments shortly. In the meantime, turn off the tap while your brushing your teeth!