Will a tax on pollution help curb China’s deadly smog?

[yuiyoshida]

As both the world’s largest country and a nation of seemingly unstoppable industrial growth, China’s contributions to global climate change and pollution both at home and abroad are gargantuan. At what point does it all become too much?

People-power protests against pollution occasionally make the news, as do efforts by the state to tackle the country’s dangerous levels of smog, but the headlong pursuit of economic growth has so far dwarfed any efforts at environmental sustainability. During 2014 alone, the People’s Republic of China mined an equal amount of coal to what the US, India, Russia and the entire European Union use in a single year — combined.

Coal miners live in an environment of extreme danger to their health and lives, air quality for average citizens is often hazardously poor, and desertification is turning once-arable tracts into useless wasteland. And while much of China’s coal production is driven by foreign demand, the country itself is also a massive consumer of the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Despite major strides in wind, solar and hydropower — some of which have their own issues regarding sustainability — two thirds of China’s energy still comes from coal.

According to Chen Jining, China’s minister for environmental protection, pollution in the country has already reached or exceeded nature’s ability to cope with it. The minister has stated that China is 5 – 10 years from “peak pollution” and some 15 – 20 years from being able to reduce emissions enough to effect any positive change. These are dark numbers to come from a state not known for its transparency.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/133483/will-a-tax-on-pollution-help-curb-chinas-deadly-smog/