• Audio: China takes swipe at climate deniers (AM)
  

A deputy director of China’s most powerful economic ministry has come out swinging against climate change denial.

Senior Chinese government figures have described the view that climate change is not man-made as an “extreme” stance which is out of step with mainstream thought.

The comments were made during China’s annual sitting of the National People’s Congress.

During the congress a series of press conferences are held which in many cases are the only chance to put questions to members of China’s power elite.

Last night one such press conference was held on the subject of climate change.

The ABC asked the panel what they thought of the view that climate change had nothing to do with human activity and was in fact a natural phenomenon.

Xie Zhenhua a deputy director at China’s powerful economic ministry the National Development and Reform Commission answered that he believed that made-made climate change denial is at best a very marginal view.

“Climate change is a fact based on long-time observations by countries around the world” he said.

“There are two different views regarding the causes for global warming.

“The mainstream view is that climate change is caused by burning of fossil fuel in the course of industrialisation.

“There’s a more extreme view which holds that human activity has only an imperceptible impact on the natural system.”

He said the responsibility for this climate change rested squarely with the Western world so the onus was on it to clean up the mess caused in the rush to industrialisation.

“The climate in China is warming. It’s something every one of us can feel” he said.

“Climate change is having an impact on China in terms of the instability of agricultural output.

“There’s now more flooding in the south of China and increasing shortages of water in the north. Forests and grasslands are being eroded and there are more typhoons and storm surges along our coast.

“So if you look ahead to the long term climate change may have a huge impact on China’s food security and the life and property of our people.”

The chairman of the Congress Environmental and Resources Protection Committee Wang Guangtao also spoke.

He acknowledged there were some experts who believed current statistics on climate change were not reliable enough.

But he said that merely meant more work needed to be done on the minutiae of the statistics.

He said that did not detract from the pressing need to reduce fossil fuels and expand the world’s forest coverage.

First posted Thu Mar 11 2010 6:07am AEDT

For all things that might be wrong with the Chinese ’empire’ stupidity is something you can’t level at them. They have huge pollution issues of their own that they are all too aware of.

Are you aware that they are a key supplier of some of the rarer minerals and elements essential in the production of solar technology and for some time they have been reducing their exports despite that fact they are very lucrative ?

There is an article here worth a read:- (its non-political – just a report on their reduction in exports of some key minerals).

http://global-economy.suite101.com/article.cfm/china_hoarding_essential_metals

Combine this with today’s declaration that Climate change is real and the fact that they have announced target reductions and it builds up a picture of a nation that looks set to do something about the climate change problem.

Unfortunately nations like us will sit around listen to bullshit peddled by the denialist movement and do nothing at all.

China have perhaps the most to lose by addressing climate change.

The western world have had the advantages of industrialisation.
China are just getting started. Even forgetting historical emissions they are still way behind us in per capita emissions.

Action on climate change is a very significant issue for the Chinese economy and development.

That is probably why they are investing so much in wind and solar generation electric vehicles and public transport systems.

Like everyone else who has understood the implications of climate change their motive is to ensure that the future world is habitable and safe for their children.

Climate change = extreme winters = new flood records = serious heat waves = more intense cyclones = polar and glacial ice retreat = sea level rise = freshwater inundation

And as my mother used to say to us when we were kids “be careful of Chinese whispers you never know where they can lead to”.

Jeez China is blaming the West for what it sees as a problem. Now THAT was really unexpected!!

Regardless of whether climate change is man made or influenced I note that the speaker’s “solution” is for the West to clean up.

As US fiddles China states the problem in simple unambiguous terms. Another step in China’s inevitable rise to world leadership.

It is worrying when government representatives believe in man-made global warming since governments worldwide have been deniers of climate change for many years.
This suggests that the problem is far worse than ordinary citizens are led to believe and that the fear of the devastation caused by warming is now outweighing the fear of economic destabilization caused by changing from carbon based energy sources.

Don’t forget that there are THREE major effects of excess CO2 pollution:
1. Climate disruption – caused by increased electromagnetic absorbtion in the infrared spectrum leading to atmospheric and hence ocean warming.
2. Ocean level rises – caused by ocean thermal expansion and increased glacial melt runoff (esp. Greenland and maybe in a few decades Antarctica) Note: If Greenland completely melts the oceans will rise by 12 metres and if Antarctica melts over the next century or two it will rise by another 70 metres – food for thought – isn’t it!
3. Ocean acidification – caused by the dissolving of CO2 in the water and the creation of carbonic acid leading to pH levels that will significantly disrupt calcification in many invertebrates and affect many complex ecosystems including our own Barrier Reef.

Sure interested parties (such as fossil fuel industries) can get their scientists to poke holes in isolated often superfluous pieces of data all day. However there is a wealth of solid independent long-term scientific data from many scientific fields showing that the overall climate trend is hot hot hot… feelin’ hot hot hot.

As much as I believe man made climate change is real Australia can only watch and listen to China USA and India to whether they realise and act on this.
We are simply not a player. We can only highlight the fact to these nations their actions effect those beyond their borders.

This business that the ‘West’ is to solely to blame for climate change and is thus solely responsible for its resolution is just so much specious crap that one has come to expect from a totalitarian country that only has a single point of view premised on ruthless self-serving interests supported by coercion.

The logic of the Chinese position is that the West should cleanup the climate so that they can then re-pollute it to the same extent to support their modernisation and development. China as a labour and pollution sink is already happening and is what got them where they are today in the first place.

I agree with much of what you say. The Chinese are in a cleft stick and I have some sympathy for their point of view too. They have to keep developing at breakneck speed or risk widespread revolt.

I have no doubt they are seeing the effects of man-made climate change.  All the dams they have put in place the damage they’ve done to delicate ecosystems in Tibet the deforestation the farms that have been converted to building sites and golf courses and the burden of air-conditioning must all be having a big impact. The haze that obscures the sky over big cities with its SO2 and nitrous oxides not only make life uncomfortable but puts it at risk from prolonged exposure. I am not impressed by the polluting way they go about producing equipment for renewable energy.

If China who the ultimate pragmatists are saying that there is climate change then the evidence must be overwhelming. Their economy stands to suffer a lot more than ours if they start taking industrialisation as a cause for climate change.

I wish those denialists would be as pragmatic.

Why are you assuming that the evidence must be overwhelming? you are making assumptions. This could just as well indicate that china has some thing to gain from saying climate change exists.

China’s huge. It’s one of the world’s biggest investors in solar wind and hydroelectric energy in the world as well as one of the largest producers of fossil fuel emissions.

Funny thing about a dictatorial regime is they can take a long-term view they’re concerned about their own long-term survival and stability. I’ve no doubt they’re quite concerned about climate change and must know their reliance on brown coal is borderline suicidal… but they must also be thinking that if they don’t keep delivering economic growth and industrialisation they’re likely to lose power. It’s pretty much the same dilemma any other country is facing but bigger and higher stakes.

The reason people keep debating this often so emotionally is that the presentation of the debate is very one-sided. People don’t get to hear the issues the claims and counter claims fully discussed.

We’re all in this together and most people are well intentioned. With so much at stake and the costs so high it’s wise to remain patient and polite to be willing to listen and learn so that we gain the consensus we’ll need to make the changes that will be necessary.

Just because there are two opposed opinions in a subject does NOT mean that they are equally valid. This is especially so in this case – the evidence is quite clear now. I suggest that anyone who thinks that climate disruption is not real to write themselves a time capsule letter to themselves and open it in 20 years – then you will have insight into your poor judgement and perhaps be more understanding of your own lack of insight in future decisions and hence be more likely to listen to the real experts.

There are no models in which CO2 is a heat sink.

There have been a series of increasingly sophisticated models starting with Arrhenius in the 1890s in which CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs infra-red radiation (heat) emitted by the earth’s surface. This first model predicted two things: that CO2 warms the Earth by about 30 C – the “greenhouse effect” and that doubling CO2 levels would increase the temperature by 4-6 C.

As time went on the effects of water vapour latitude day-night cycle geography etc have been added. The latest computer models (about 20 of them) can model past climate events (eg: the Pinatubo erruption) pretty accurately and they predict that doubling CO2 will increase the average global temperature by 2.5-4 C.

There has been some alarms about methane release from permafrost in the popular press lately – it is a very potent greenhouse gas – but since it only has a short lifetime in the atmosphere (~ 1 year) climate scientists are not very worried about it.

I think greed and materialism has as much to do with the decline of the planet and over use of scarse resource as does the impact of CO2. Supposed “green” power sources may impact of other aspects of our planet. If you were to build such an efficient wind turbine that you could extract all the power from the wind I wonder what would happen to our weather patterns? If you delay the tides by using tidel turbines what impact does that have on our Marine creatures and migration. I beleive the three gorges dam over in China was supposed to change the balance of the earth slightly changing our axis which would change our planets weather patterns.Unfortunatly every thing we do will impact on “nature” or Natural enviroment as we are altering the balance of the planet however some decisions have less of an impact.

I wonder who is pulling the strings of China’s economic deputy director? Nothing happens in China without the most powerful people allowing it to happen. Pay attention to the intention.

There is a constant argument that China is one the world’s largest carbon emitter. What the proponents of this argument neglect to explain that China is also one of the largest producer of goods and that it has the largest population. We produce next to nothing and yet emit so much that we are up there with USA carbon emissions per capita.

Let us admit that we are so uncompetitive that if we ever started producing the goods we consume we would multily our emissions many more times.

China is already introducing wind and solar based energy at a higher rate than we are.

Why do people insist on saying China is not doing anything?? Their government have set very publicly targets for themselves. While they still build coal fire power stations they also one of the leaders in renewable energy adoption. What people need to understand is that developing countries are NOT demanding for the right to pollute they’re demanding for the right to develop. Their government has already turned the corner into pushing for lower carbon economies while our governments’ initiatives are still mired in the senate.

China is right on what it says and it is taking action far beyond many other countries on the issue.
I am living in China and despite there still being a huge pollution problem here it is improving with China spending much more on solar and wind power than most other places. That is a shame on Australia considering how much sun Australia has and their lack of solar power (lived in Melbourne previously).

China would say that because it’s in their interest that the west believes in the alarmest propaganda about global warming. They have just had the coldest winter for decades as has Europe North America and Asia.
If CARBON TRADING goes ahead Chinese industry will be the winner and the west the big loser.

China is right. As are the thousands of peer-reviewed climate scientists who have also concluded that man-made climate change is a fact.

Much more important though is that Australia is missing the boat of technology development that will dwarf the ICT revolution.

The Chinese won’t forever buy our coal. They will in the short term while busy advancing in developing alternatives.They do that on a massive scale right now. And in the meantime our greed lets us close down all the manufacturing we did in the past. Madness in overdrive.

China of course blames the West for the mess quite rightly so. Per capita countries like the US and Australia emit vastly more greenhouse gases than China and that is the figure that counts. As a consequence China will not openly commit to seriously reduce its emissions – why would they? – but it is predictable despite the current apparent increase in coal power stations that they will do it anyway using the technology – including clean coal technology which can be retrofitted – they are busily developing – while the West is stupidly denying the facts watching the lights go out.

A very important point made in some comments here is that China’s emissions are mainly growing because it produces the goods the West uses. In essence these are emissions the West with its consumerism is accountable for. And we call on China to further reduce?

Consumerism drives this very problem. As an analogy turn off the TV: coal usage; electricity production; gHg and other emmissions decrease as a result of that simple action – it is that simple.

Sceptics needs to take a back seat and recognise China are making a global committment and challenging other countries to act. We seem to forget China has undergone one of the greatest increases in economic growth certainly in my lifetime. They are making changes and literature suggests structurally as well. Good on them for taking the higher road…

The move to reduce greenhouse gas emission will never get anywhere so long as politics is involved. We’ll be living on a dead rock before that happens.

China has its own agenda……..like everyone else but they are aware of climate change affecting them.

Using renewable energy sources suits their agenda – they were into serious wind energy in the 1990s while we were operating rural development projects in China as well as some solar plants. They need the energy for their people too just like we do. They will be leaders in both wind and solar energy soon.

The attendant issues of food security are very important to China as a lot of productive land is being degraded some quite rapidly. To this end China is acquiring land overseas for food and related product production a form of economic imperialism. I see this trend as very worrisome.

They do see climate change as a big issue……….but it is the flow on effects that seem to be more important – food food food is the big one for China!

As someone else has already commented – the USA is also moving rapidly on alternate energy sources with solar in various forms important. Australia is beholden to the fossil fuel lobbyists who continue to hold [and squeezing] the gonads of both major political parties.

Climate change is a natural occurrence true but natural only over very long cycles –of the order of 1000’s of years. The cycle which is being observed presently by scientists and meteorologists all over the world is too short and erratic to be considered “natural”. At the same time a near 40% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 100 years is unnatural.

Strictly no body could PROVE the Titanic was going to hit the iceburg even a millisecond before it did although it was OBVIOUS that it would. They are not the same thing. And of course the effect is only beginning with centuries more gas accumulation and deforestation and other stress to come.

And critically many so called sceptics are not sceptical (hence open to be convinced). They are flat deniers in the face of any mounting evidence. The euphemism ‘sceptic’ is a smoke screen.

If GW is man made you can bet your boots that it won’t be stopped too many fingers in too many pies.

I had my own firm opinions about this subject and then i completed 2 years of a university degree majoring in chemistry and ocean and climate sciences. The lecturers didn’t even need to push either side or their own personal opinion. It was clear that we are experiencing AGW. I am naturally a skeptic and am aware that there is potential that those in power (obvious powers or more sinister powers) can influence curriculums in schools and unis. My common sense tells me that all the information provided in those 2 years was from such varying sources and varying research projects that it could not all be fabricated.
Studying these subjects gives me the ability to base my opinion on many facts. I wish people would stop having an opinion without studying the subject in depth. The Chinese position seems logical. If they are aware that AGW is occurring then of course they will start developing policies to counteract. They made specific mention that AGW will have major effects on China so to assume that they will only bandy the ‘west’ to change is illogical.

(Wayne Kirk) I seems that Australia is still procrastinating on this topic. I am an Australian living in China.
Currently Australians along with Americans produce per person 5 times more CO2 than do Chinese. China IS doing a lot to keep its levels of CO2 production low however their current targets along with Australian targets will kill this planet.

Australia is morally and soon to be financially bankrupt. Your dependence on Fossil fuels and income derived will ensure this. ( 45% of Australian income is from Fossil Fuel sales). Its change or die.

I am currently assisting Chinese Industry and the Chinese Government on Solar Thermal and Algae Technologies. Research and work I did in Australia and could not get 1 cent of assistance. Ask David Mills about this he also left in disgust. Blame your politicians……. namely Peter Beattie and John Howard. China will make and exploit these new technologies. It will buy less coal from Australia as well as Australia will now be buying these technologies from China. This is a double whammie for AUS.

No matter what you think about Global Warming these things will happen. Change or suffer the consequences.