Transcript Causes of Pollution in China

Industrial Pollution in
China
James Carne, Tom Faherty and Alex Dinsdale
Causes of Pollution in China
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Industry
Motor Emissions
Mineral Extraction
Farming
Government Policy
Development
Global Dependence
Industry & Mineral Extraction
• To increase profits firms use coal which is cheaper, but it is in terms
of emissions the dirtiest sort of energy supply
• Use of machinery that is out of date
– General motors use assembly lines from 1940 to produce cars for
China. These assembly lines produce far more amounts of polution
• Chinese firms as a whole are not efficient.
– Steel factories use 1 fifth more energy than international companies
– Cement needs 45% more power
– Ethene gas needs 70% more power
• China is dependant on minerals such as metals to produce items
such as electronics, cars and machines
• Machinery used in extraction is not efficient so uses more power
than needed.
• Because of such high demand for resources there is a high amount
going on at once.
Motor Emissions
• China's car market grew 25%
last year and it has overtaken
Japan to be the secondlargest car market in the
world with sales of 8 million
vehicles, including light
trucks and minivans.
• 6% of people currently have
cars.
• People want cars as a sign of
wealth
Farming
• According to a report in February 2010 released
by the Chinese government farming is a bigger
water pollutant than industry
• Agriculture is responsible for 67% of phosphorus
and 57% of nitrogen discharges.
• The main source is fertilisers and pesticides used
to increase yields and profits.
• The land is being pushed to produce as much as
possible, but in Moa’s day people produced as
the land could naturally produce.
Government Policy
• Government concentrated on economic
growth to start of with
• There are political gains of high economic
growth
• Environmental protection would curb growth
and there would be lost support of the
communist party.
• Evidence of economic and political ties- Arab
Spring
Development & Global Dependence
• All industrialised countries has caused huge pollution
in doing so.
• China has a 1.3bn population all developing at once
which is unprecedented.
• Because development occurred from 1980 all at once
there has not been the gradual increase other
countries had.
• The global community is dependant on china to
produce all their goods.
• The global community is overall responsible as they
know that there will be high levels of pollution yet we
do nothing about it
Industrial pollution – Impacts
• Fun pollution impact facts about :D
• Important points to consider – Development does
not come without environmental consequences.
This can mean a countries greatest achievement is
it's biggest burden.
• Industry is driven by high demand and when a
company wants to meet demand, they don’t care
about the environment
• http://www.wwfchina.org/wwfpress/publication/cli
mate/higl.pdf
• Environmental
• Farmland – In previous agricultural land, now only wild grass
can grow
• Fluorine (FI) pollution, e.g. sheep teeth lost in Baiyin, Gansu
• Water shortages will turn farmland into desert Approximately 30% of China's surface area is desert. China's
rapid industrialization could cause this area to drastically
increase. The Gobi Desert in the north currently expands by
about 950 square miles (2,500 km2) per year.
• Contributes to Climate change in general
• Public health
• Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death.
• Dental Fluorosis, effects teeth and bones and is common in China (45 million
affected) due to air and water pollution. This remains for life.
• More than half of the population (19 million) in western Guizhou are affected
through use of coal at home
• Air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.
• Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.
• ^ 60,000 died from diarrhea, bladder and stomach cancer and other diseases that
can be caused by water-borne pollution.
• It is estimated that annual premature deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution
were 380,000 in 2010 and were likely to reach 550,000 in 2020.
• Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe
by the EU.
• Cities where people rarely see the sun are common.
• Children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution.
• ^ Children most at risk and there will be life long impacts for them
• Coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer
sustain marine life.
• The total death toll is 750,000 a year. In comparison, 4,700 people died last year in
China’s notoriously unsafe mines, and 89,000 people were killed in road accidents,
the highest number of automobile-related deaths in the world.
Economics
In China, energy consumption
grows faster than GDP
Having to pay to replace fossil fuel
with renewables will be huge! As
time goes on fossil fuels become
more expensive so the overall
change becomes more and more
expensive as it is left unresolved
Management
• In 2005, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of
the People’s Republic of China was set up
• Plastic bags were prohibited by the government in
2008
• Several schemes can be found at the following World
Bank article
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUN
TRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/EXTEAPREGTOPENVIRON
MENT/0,,contentMDK:20515211~menuPK:502915~p
agePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:502886,
00.html
Government spending and investment
• The Chinese government are investing a great
deal of money into this problem
• Environmental investment
• During 2000-2005, 0.83 trillion Yuan, taking up
1.19% of total GDP
• During 2006-2010, 1.4 trillion Yuan, taking up
1.23% of total GDP
• However China do not want to reduce their
industrial output as they see it as crucial for
development e.g. the Kyoto Protocol
Renewable energy in China
• China produces a lot of renewable energy compared to most
nations but the sheer size of its population means that it has
to rely on coal, although a study has shown the People's
Republic could meet all of its electricity demands from wind
power by 2030
• About 17 percent of China's electricity came from renewable
sources in 2007, led by the world's largest number of
hydroelectric generators
• China had a total installed capacity of hydropower of 197 GW
in 2009.
• Yangtze River, Three Gorges Dam – HEP
• Solar power has enormous potential – see
Weerakoon/Tefler/Sadler-Dawe
Linfen
Guilin
Zhanjiang
Beihai
Zhuhai
Haikou
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/
envir_e/wksp_goods_sept09_e/xu_e.p
df
This website has loads of useful graphs which
would not let me use them so when you are
revising from our delightful presentation feel
free to click on the link!