Sustainable Development

Jonathon Porritt, chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, once said that without China on board – 20% of the world’s population – the whole vision of sustainable development would fall flat on its face. This is a view that represents a recently prevailing opinion on China’s role in the sustainable development of the world. Due to the fast growing economy and the huge population, China’s sustainable development has attracted more and more attention of the world. At the same time, China itself is seeking a more sustainable mode of development, which deals with the costs of growth such as environmental damage and a widening income gap. During this process of searching new development mode, many adopted measures starts to take effect while some problems continue to exist.

There are five sub-topics:

1. Trade-off scheme between environment protection & economic development in developing countries

Take BaiJi County in Anhui province as an example, its provincial government exploded the mountain to build road for this mountainous county, which resulted in severe vegetation destruction. This demonstrates a conflict between short-term economic interest and environmental sustainability that widely exists in developing countries.
Hint: How is the trade-off playing out in China? How should developing countries like China gain experience from developed countries to deal with this trade-off?

2. Development and civil use of clean energy

In recent years, China has invested on solar technology and has seen more and more utilization of solar energy, such as the popular solar-water-heaters. How far is clean energy (solar energy, wind power, etc.) away from large scale civil use?

3. "Seeing Copenhagen from China"

Much was made of the ‘dispute’ between China’s position and that of the US and Europe at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference. What was China’s position in the negotiations? Who should pay more to prevent and offset the costs of greenhouse gases: those countries like the US that have produced the most greenhouse gases throughout history without worrying about the consequences, or a recent entrant, like China whose industrialization coincides with new calls on all countries to cut back on carbon emissions?

4. Case study1: almost rent-free bicycles in Hangzhou

The public bicycle rental system in Hangzhou consists of 50,000 bicycles and 2,000+ parking spots, which is still expanding. Paying a deposit of 200 RMB, people can rent public bicycles for free on an hourly basis.
Hint: What are the benefits of this measure? Are there any similar examples, or is it worth implementing in any cities of Chile, Germany, India, and the United States?

5. Case study 2: the Three Gorges