This week's focus is on Industry & Transportation in China. As Wumeng has covered the Industrial Pollution half, I have covered the Transporation half. My presentation focused mainly on readings from Personal Cars and China and Zhao's "Whither the Car? China's Automobile Industry and Cleaner Vehicle Technologies."
Cars, cars, everywhere! Traffic jams abound on China's roads, even as those roads' construction encroach upon agricultural lands. Rising levels of smog in urban centers expose its urban populations to ever more pollution. Yet the Chinese appetite for cars and other motor vehicles continues to grow. As such, the increasing ownership and use of motorized vehicles in China hold multiple societal and environmental implications that transcend not only its urban locales but also its national borders.
Our selections from Personal Cars and China had much to say on the general impact of motorized vehicle emissions on the environment and on people's health. Generally, motorized vehicle emissions are a major contributor to air pollutants and air toxics and in some cases, such as for carbon monoxide, are the dominant source. It is troubling that over 7 different types of major air pollutants and over 4 different types of air toxics come from motor vehicle emissions. The health effect of these pollutants and toxics is highly significant to the urban populations that are exposed to these emissions, though understanding these effects is still complicated and not yet fully understood. What is understood is that groups at risk include the elderly, asthmatics, children, and people with preexisting heart disease. As environmental health is covered in Week 10: Pollution's Effect on Environmental Health, this is enough for now on general health.
Of the air pollutants which vehicle emissions are a major contributor, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have another tremendous impact: that on climate change. Globally, 17% of carbon dioxide emissions are attributable to transportation. For China specifically, Keith Bradsher from the New York Times writes that "the International Energy Agency predicts that the increase in greenhouse gas emission from 2000 to 2030 in China alone will nearly equal the increase in the rest of the world." These figures don't seem that far off considering China's current very low per capita vehicle to people ratio, which stood at 21 vehicles/thousand people in 2004. As such, there is far more room for growth for Chinese people to buy and drive cars. Going along with Bradsher's predictions, if there were parity in China's vehicle ownership per capita with the US's current vehicle ownership per capita, China's demand for oil would exceed worldwide production by 18%.
China's growing transportation sector also impacts the consumption of resources (steel, rubber, plastics, etc.) required to manufacture vehicles and the construction of roads and the subsequent land lost for agricultural land use purposes.
Unfortunately there was not much time for discussion as time was a bit packed, but it was fortunate for us to have Timmons' give a guest lecture along with updates on the international climate change scene from a legislative and cooperative standpoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment