BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Global warming could devastate China's development, the nation's first official survey of climate change warns, while insisting economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts.
Hotter average global temperatures fueled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment states.
This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party's plans for sustainable development, a copy of the report obtained by Reuters says.
"Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of survival as China's economic sectors, such as agriculture and coastal regions, suffer grave negative effects," the report states.
Fast-industrializing China could overtake the United States as the world's top emitter of human-generated greenhouse gases as early as this year, and Beijing faces rising international calls to accept mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions from factories, fields and vehicles.
But underscoring China's commitment to achieving prosperity even as it braces for climate change, the report rejects emissions limits as unfair and economically dangerous, citing what it says are uncertainties about global warming.
"If we prematurely assume responsibilities for mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the direct consequence will be to constrain China's current energy and manufacturing industries and weaken the competitiveness of Chinese products in international and even domestic markets," it says.
The 400-page report was written over several years by experts and officials from dozens of ministries and agencies, representing China's first official response to global warming.
With its mixture of dire warnings and caveats, it bears the markings of bureaucratic bargaining.
China was one of a few countries that challenged claims about global warming presented in a draft report at a U.N. climate change meeting in Brussels earlier this month. That report was approved after some claims were softened and passages removed.
China's own national report says "uncertainties over climate change issues" justify rejecting international limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Disasters
But other parts of the report assert that the country's brittle environment will be severely tested by climate change.
By the end of the century, glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet highlands that feed the Yangtze river could shrink by two thirds. Further downstream, increasingly intense rainfall could "spark mud and landslides and other geological disasters" around the massive Three Gorges Dam.
Coastal cities will need to build or strengthen barriers to ward off rising sea levels.
Unless steps are taken, water scarcity and increasingly extreme weather could reduce nationwide crop production by up to 10 percent by 2030. Wheat, rice and corn growing capacity could fall by up to 37 percent in the second half of the century.
"If we do not take any actions, climate change will seriously damage China's long-term grain security," the report states.
China has repeatedly ruled out accepting mandatory international emissions limits, saying that rich countries are responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases and should not look to poorer countries for a way out.
"For a considerable time to come, developing the economy and improving people's lives remains the country's primary task," the report says.
Read more!
24 April 2007
China aims to further tame Web
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported.
With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo -- its 24-member inner council -- discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls.
"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance," said a summary of the meeting read on the news broadcast.
"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values."
The meeting was far from the first time China has sought to rein in the Internet. In January, Hu made a similar call to "purify" it, and there have been many such calls before.
But the announcement indicated that Hu wants ever tighter controls as he braces for a series of political hurdles and seeks to govern a generation of young Chinese for whom Mao Zedong's socialist revolution is a hazy history lesson.
"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere," the party meeting urged, calling for more Marxist education on the Internet.
The Communist Party is preparing for a congress later this year that is set to give Hu another five-year term and open the way for him to choose eventual successors. In 2008, Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, when the party's economic achievements will be on display, along with its political and media controls.
In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 137 million, Chinese authorities have estimated.
That lucrative market has attracted big investors such as Google and Yahoo. They have been criticized by some rights groups for bowing to China's censors.
The one-party government already wields a vast system of filters and censorship that blocks the majority of users from sites offering uncensored opinion and news. But even in China, news of official misdeeds and dissident opinion has been able to travel fast through online bulletin boards and blogs.
Authorities have also launched repeated crackdowns on pornography and salacious content. The latest campaign against porn and "rumor-spreading" was announced earlier this month.
The meeting also announced that schools and sports groups would be encouraged to use healthy competition as a way to shape youth, the report said.
"Sports plays an irreplaceable role in the formation of young people's thinking and character, mental development and aesthetic formation," the meeting declared. Read more!
With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo -- its 24-member inner council -- discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls.
"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance," said a summary of the meeting read on the news broadcast.
"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values."
The meeting was far from the first time China has sought to rein in the Internet. In January, Hu made a similar call to "purify" it, and there have been many such calls before.
But the announcement indicated that Hu wants ever tighter controls as he braces for a series of political hurdles and seeks to govern a generation of young Chinese for whom Mao Zedong's socialist revolution is a hazy history lesson.
"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere," the party meeting urged, calling for more Marxist education on the Internet.
The Communist Party is preparing for a congress later this year that is set to give Hu another five-year term and open the way for him to choose eventual successors. In 2008, Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, when the party's economic achievements will be on display, along with its political and media controls.
In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 137 million, Chinese authorities have estimated.
That lucrative market has attracted big investors such as Google and Yahoo. They have been criticized by some rights groups for bowing to China's censors.
The one-party government already wields a vast system of filters and censorship that blocks the majority of users from sites offering uncensored opinion and news. But even in China, news of official misdeeds and dissident opinion has been able to travel fast through online bulletin boards and blogs.
Authorities have also launched repeated crackdowns on pornography and salacious content. The latest campaign against porn and "rumor-spreading" was announced earlier this month.
The meeting also announced that schools and sports groups would be encouraged to use healthy competition as a way to shape youth, the report said.
"Sports plays an irreplaceable role in the formation of young people's thinking and character, mental development and aesthetic formation," the meeting declared. Read more!
22 April 2007
Also, please check out
www.timhogg.blogspot.com
for more non-travel blog information. Now that the book is really underway, there will not be much posting to this site, except for new information directly related to the progress of Not So Red. Read more!
www.timhogg.blogspot.com
for more non-travel blog information. Now that the book is really underway, there will not be much posting to this site, except for new information directly related to the progress of Not So Red. Read more!
writing...
Just wanted to put out a short update.
I have been working hard on the book, the editing of the blog is finished and the entries have been cataloged and edited. Its quite a process, but I am aiming for 10 pages a day, three days a week, thats 30 pages a week at a minimum. I am trying to have the first draft completed by June 15th, with the final draft ready for the end of summer.
The initial publication will be self published and hopefully sent off to publishers, who will then set up a royalty package... :) but I will not be holding my breath for that.
The main need for publication is purely selfish. I want to be able to tell the stories of the true Chinese, not just in the places that are westernized and covered by the western media. I want the opportunity to express the views of China from my perspective before the Chinese government begin the propoganda parade for the Beijing Olympics next summer. This gives me one year.
Please stay tuned, I will be adding bits of content for review... Read more!
I have been working hard on the book, the editing of the blog is finished and the entries have been cataloged and edited. Its quite a process, but I am aiming for 10 pages a day, three days a week, thats 30 pages a week at a minimum. I am trying to have the first draft completed by June 15th, with the final draft ready for the end of summer.
The initial publication will be self published and hopefully sent off to publishers, who will then set up a royalty package... :) but I will not be holding my breath for that.
The main need for publication is purely selfish. I want to be able to tell the stories of the true Chinese, not just in the places that are westernized and covered by the western media. I want the opportunity to express the views of China from my perspective before the Chinese government begin the propoganda parade for the Beijing Olympics next summer. This gives me one year.
Please stay tuned, I will be adding bits of content for review... Read more!
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